(by a semiotician) EERO TARASTI A semiotic interpretation of the two last centuries in the history of Western art music is in many respects a challenging ...

Now available from Rowman & Littlefield, the third edition of this introductory critical thinking text features streamlined chapters, Think for Yourself activities, and a complete glossary of critical thinking terms.

Now available from Rowman & Littlefield, Paul and Elder's concise introductory text focuses on the most basic critical thinking concepts and includes activities to apply these concepts within disciplines and to life.

Kick off the year right... and you will find yourself capable of recognizing the depth and breadth of John's genius. This event, commented on by Bujar Hoxha (South-East European University) chaired by Elma Berisha (Lyceum Institute), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, (...) the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Eero Tarasti, professor of musicology at the University of Helsinki (chair) in 1984-2016. He was President of the IASS/AIS - International Association for Semiotic Studies, 2004-2014 and is now its Honorary President. In 2016 he has founded the Academy of Cultural Heritages. He studied music in Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and then in Vienna, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Bloomington. He got his PhD from the University of Helsinki (1978) after studies in Paris with Claude Lévi-Strauss and A. J. Greimas. He is one of the founders and the director of the international research group Musical Signification since 1984.Tarasti has become Honorary Doctor at Estonian Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, New Bulgarian University (Sofia), Indiana University (Bloomington), University of Aix-Marseille, and Gheorghe Dima National Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Rumania. He has published about 400 articles, edited 50 anthologies, and written 30 monographs; among them one finds: Myth and Music (1979), A Theory of Musical Semiotics (1994), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1996), Existential Semiotics (2000), Signs of Music (2003), Fondéments de la sémiotique existentielle (2009), Fondamenti di semiotica esistenziale (2010), Semiotics of Classical Music (2012, in French 2016), Sein und Schein, Explorations in Existential Semiotics (2015), and Transcending Signs: Essays in Existential Semiotics (2023); two novels: Le secret du professeur Amfortas (2002) and Retour à la Villa Nevski (2014, in Italian L’heredità di Villa Nevski 2014, in Finnish Eurooppa/Ehkä 2016). He has supervised 150 PhDs in Finland and abroad. *** Dr. Bujar Hoxha is a full professor of Communication Sciences at the South-East European University in Tetovo and Skopje, North Macedonia. His teaching courses include communication theory, introduction to communication sciences, and Semiotics of Mass Communication. His main scientific interests are structural semiotics, semiotics of passions, semiotics of disabilities, and existential semiotics. He gained his PhD from the University of Skopje in 2008 on the semiotics of Umberto Eco. Out of his creative and intellectual work, one can number two published novels, a book, as well as several scientific articles published in prestigious scientific journals, such as: “Semiotics of Precision and Imprecision” (2016) and “Multilingualism and Sameness vs Otherness in a Semiotic Context”, (2018) both in de Gruyter Mouton's Semiotica, Berlin and Boston, as well as “On the Applicability of the Semiotics of Passions” (2018) and “The Signs’ Behavior in Autistic Children: Semiosis of an Unspoken Language” (2021), both in the Humanities Bulletin, issued by London Academic Publishing, London, United Kingdom. Recently, Dr. Hoxha has published a monograph entitled: Umberto Eco’s Semiotics: Theory, Methodology and Poetics, issued by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in January 2022, New Castle upon Tyne, UK. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

Music is said to be the most autonomous and least representative of all the arts.

Using new semiotic methods and analyses as the fulcrum of its approaches, the volume aims to clarify why great classical composers from Mozart and Beethoven to Brahms and Wagner fascinate music listeners and lovers from all cultures of the ...

Thirty high-level essays on various aspects of semiotics by Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian scholars.

The essay deals with the formation of the Greimassian thought from its earliest origins in his young years at Kaunas University, i.e. his connections with Wilhelm Sesemann, Lev Karsavin and Russian formalism, to the rise of structuralism in Paris. The Paris School approach stems from Semantique structurale (1967) leading to the ‘third semiotic revolution’, as Greimas called it, by the invention of the modalities. This made his method close to even analytic philosophy and modal logics. In both, a linguistic turn (...) and use of formal logics took place. Yet Greimas’ semiotics grew out of a purely linguistic framework into a broader philosophical approach. Nowadays, considered one of the classics of the semiotic scene, his method still has not lost anything of its analytic acuity and epistemic temptation. Even such new paradigms as existential semiotics grow organically from some Greimas’ ideas which have kept their relevance.В статье исследуется формирование научных взглядов Греймаса: юность в Каунасском университете, знакомство с Василием Сеземаном, Львом Карсавиным и идеями русского формализма, рождение структурализма в Париже. Основой парижской школы семиотики стала книга Греймаса Semantique structurale (1967), которая, по его словам, привела к ≪третьей семиотической революции≫ благодаря изобретению модальностей. Это сблизило метод Греймаса с аналитической философией и модальной логикой. В обеих науках произошел лингвистический поворот и стали пользоваться формальной логикой. Семиотика Греймаса преодолела рамки чистой лингвистики, став более широким философским подходом. Сейчас его метод считается классикой семиотики. Однако метод Греймаса не потерял своей аналитической остроты и эпистемологической привлекательности. Даже такие новые парадигмы, как экзистенциальная семиотика, органически вырастают из идей Греймаса, сохранивших свою актуальность.Artikkel kasitleb Greimase mottemaailma valjakujunemist alates selle varaseimatest allikatest, mis parinesid noorusaastatest Kaunase Ulikoolis, s.t tema sidemetest Wilhelm Sesemanni, Lev Karsavini ja vene vormikoolkonnaga, kuni strukturalismi tekkimiseni Pariisis. Pariisi koolkonna lahenemise aluseks on Semantique structurale (1967), mis toob kaasa “kolmanda semiootilise revolutsiooni”, nagu Greimas seda nimetas, leiutades modaalsused. See muutis tema meetodi sarnaseks ingliskeelse analuutilise fi losoofi a ja modaalloogikaga, kus molemas toimus lingvistiline poore ning hakati kasutama formaalloogikat. Ent Greimase semiootika kasvas puhtlingvistilisest raamistikust valja avaramaks fi losoofi liseks lahenemiseks. Tanapaeval, mil tema meetodit peetakse semiootikavaldkonna klassikasse kuuluvaks, ei ole see kaotanud midagi oma analuutilisest teravusest ja episteemilisest koitvusest. Isegi sellised uued paradigmad nagu eksistentsiaalne semiootika kasvavad orgaaniliselt valja monedest Greimase ideedest, mis on sailitanud oma relevantsuse. (shrink)

PART ONE 1. Introduction The purpose of this investigation is to explore the relations between myth and music. Although this research may be said to have a ...

One need not know much history of semiotics in order to recognize the background of my title. It is of course an allusion to Umberto Eco’s classic Struttura assente from 1968, which turned out to be a major touchstone in the history of European semiotics. At that time, everything about semiotics had become “structural”. But why, for Eco, was structure “absent”? This notion of absence reveals something essential in both the history of structuralism and in the reasoning to which most (...) semiotics has remained faithful – namely, that “true” reality is not that which can be seen, heard or felt, but the structure behind and causing any manifest phenomenon. As Greimas put it, any surface reality was only an “effet du sens”, a meaning-effect. In a word, manifest reality is only Schein – appearance, illusion – a notion that may be found as early as in the teachings of Schiller and Kant. Getting at the structure involves the kind of reductionism described by Mireille Marc-Lipiansky: réductionnisme qui cherche à ramener le supérieur à l’inférieur. Under the category of “antihumanism”, she distinguished among four different phases of reductionism: the reduction of the individual to the collective; the reduction of the conscious to unconscious categories; the reduction of consciousness to an unconscious regulative agglomeration or “combinatory”, which eliminates the creative activity of a subject and of history; and finally, the reduction of freedom to necessity. One cannot think of a better summary of the issue, and to judge from the world around us, this world-view has certainly won out. (shrink)

A new semiotic model for the generation of musical texts is introduced in this article. The idea of a generative grammar is here understood in the sense of the generative trajectory, a model elaborated by A. J. Greimas. Four levels are chosen from his trajectory for the study of musical texts, namely, those of isotopies, spatial, temporal and actorial categories, modalities and semes or figures.As an illustration, the G minor Ballade by Fr. Chopin has been examined through all these levels. (...) The most formalized aspect of the analysis is constituted by what has been called a modal grammar of the piece (the term modality understood here in its philosophico-linguistic sense). The analysis tries to show how the musical form emerges from its inner processual traits, kinetic, epistemic and other aspects of a modal nature. It thus approaches for instance the problem of segmentation from the processual and dynamic nature of musical works. Moreover, the analysis is also an attempt to study the narrativity in music, since the narrative content of a piece like Chopin's G minor Ballade is clearly seen as the result of its modal processes. (shrink)

This paper investigates how play practices affect players’ relationships with the urban environment through the bodily movement and performances that characterize them. Building on a definition of playful behavior derived by semiotics of culture, we investigate urban play from the perspective of motor praxology to outline how movement is central for the experience of the players. We then concentrate on the role of semiotic valorizations in different urban contexts, notably the famous typology of Metro users by Floch and different kinds (...) of ludic mobility. Finally, we combine these two perspectives with the zemic model realized within existential semiotics in order to create a typology or urban players as well as urban playful enunciation modes. (shrink)

Metaphors of nature and organism play a central role in the epistemes of the Western culture and arts. The entire project of the 'modern' meant a separation of man from the cosmos and its laws. Signs and symbols are thought to be arbitrary and conventional social constructions. However, there are many returns to iconic imitations of nature and biological principles also in such an esoteric art as music. One of the highest aesthetic categories in Western art music is the so-called (...) 'organic growth' which particularly manifests in symphony. The concepts of 'organic/inorganic' can be used as analytic terms, whereby one might even compare such composers as Jean Sibelius and Gustav Mahler. Music is said to be 'organic' when (I) its theme actors live in their proper Umwelt (or isotopy); (2) all music material stems from the same themes (it is innerly iconic); (3) all musical events follow each other coherently (inner indexicality or the principle of Growth); (4) music strives for some goal (temporality). Moreover the Ueküll idea of a particular lch-Ton of every organism can be turned back to music. Hence we can say that every musical piece is like an 'organism' which has its lch-Ton detennining which signs it accepts and how it acts in the musical environmentof its own and formed by other musical works. (shrink)

Method and system Francois- Bernard Mdche I want to raise the issue of the possible significance of the use of digital machines for a composer whose work is ...

Journal Name: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Volume: 2013 Issue: 196 Pages: 21-34.

Eero Tarasti, Existential Semiotics Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2001.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAt the Eleventh Hour: The Biography of Swami Rama. By Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Himalayan Institute Press, 2002. Pp. 427. Hardcover $18.95.Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Edited by Polly Young Eisendrath and Shoji Muramoto. Hove, England: Brunner-Routledge, 2002. Pp. xii + 275. Paper $24.95.Beyond Metaphysics Revisited: Krishnamurti and Western Philosophy. By J. Richard Wingerter. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2002. Pp. vii (...) + 391. Hardcover $71.00.Bhāmatī and Vivaraṇa Schools of Advaita Vedānta: A Critical Approach. By Pulasth Soobah Roodurmun, foreword by V. N. Jha, and edited by Kanshi Ram. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xv + 297. Price not given.A Bibliography of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. By James S. Crouch. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. 430. Price not given.Crisis Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections. By Norman K. Swazo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. x + 289. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Devotional Literature in South Asia: Current Research 1997-2000: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, Leuven, 23-26 August 2000. Edited by Winand M. Callewaert and Dieter Taillieu. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. xxii + 324. Price not given.Dharma Bell and Dhāraṇī Pillar: Li Po's Buddhist Inscriptions. By Paul W. Kroll. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2001. Pp. viii + 95. Price not given.Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi. Edited, with introduction, by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002. Pp. xiv + 249. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $16.95. Professional price $12.95.Ethical Questions: East and West. Edited by Bina Gupta. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. vi + 279. Hardcover $70.00. Paper $26.95.Ethical Relativism and Universalism. By Saral Jhingran. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2001. Pp. xiv + 385. Price not given.Genius-In Their Own Words: The Intellectual Journeys of Seven Great 20th Century [End Page 431] Thinkers. Edited and with introduction by David Ramsay Steele, foreword by Arthur C. Danto. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2002. Pp. xxii + 366. Paper $24.95.The Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The original Sanskrit by Svatmarama, an English translation by Brian Dana Akers. Woodstock, New York: YogaVidya.com, 2002. Pp. xii + 115. Hardcover $19.95. Paper $11.95.Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry. By Stephen C. Angle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xviii + 285. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $23.00.Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. By Reginald A. Ray. Boston and London: Shambhala Publications, 2002. Pp. x + 495. Paper $17.95.Introduction to Eastern Thought. By Marietta Stepaniants. Edited by James Behuniak and translated by Rommela Kohanovskaya. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, a division of Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. xiv + 293. Hardcover $69.00. Paper $24.95.Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple. Cambridge: Harvard University Press for the Center for the Study of World Religions, 2002. Pp. xliv + 252. Hardcover $32.95. Paper $22.95.Mediating the Power of Buddhas: Ritual in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa. By Glenn Wallis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 263. Hardcover $86.50. Paper $29.95.Methodology in Religious Studies: The Interface with Women's Studies. Edited by Arvind Sharma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 253. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Persons and Valuable Worlds: A Global Philosophy. By Eliot Deutsch. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. x + 309. Hardcover $80.00. Paper $34.95.Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff's Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey. By Anna T. Challenger. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2002. Pp. xi + 145. Paper EUR 27,00, U.S. $25.00.The Pratyabhijñā Philosophy. By G. V. Tagare. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xii + 165. Price not given.Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School: Dynamic Responses to ong-ka-a's The... (shrink)

In this paper we explore the idea that Pentecostalism is best supported by conjoining it to a postmodern, narrative epistemology in which everything is a text requiring interpretation. On this view, truth doesn’t consist in a set of uninterpreted facts that make the claims of Christianity true; rather, as James K. A. Smith says, truth emerges when there is a “fit” or proportionality between the Christian story and one’s affective and emotional life. We argue that Pentecostals should reject this account (...) of truth, since it leads to either a self-refuting story-relativism or the equally problematic fallacy of story-ism: favoring one’s own story over others without legitimate reason. In either case, we contend, the gospel itself is placed at risk. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to show that if Plantinga’s free will defence succeeds, his O Felix Culpa theodicy fails. For if every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity, then given that Jesus has a creaturely essence (as we attempt to show), it follows that Incarnation and Atonement worlds cannot be actualized by God, in which case we have anything but a felix culpa.

The business of cognitive therapy is to transform meanings. What better way to achieve this than through a metaphor? Metaphors straddle two different domains at once, providing a conceptual bridge from a problematic interpretation to a fresh new perspective that can cast one's experiences in a new light. Even the simplest metaphor can be used again and again with different clients, yet still achieve the desired effect. This book is the first to show just how metaphors can be used productively (...) in CBT as an integral part of the treatment. It describes the use of metaphors for a wide range of problems, including anxiety and depression, and provides countless examples of metaphors that have been used by others in CBT. It brings together in one place hundreds of metaphors that experienced therapists have used to great success. It will be a valuable sourcebook for all cognitive behaviour therapists, as well as those training in CBT. (shrink)

In this paper we respond to three objections raised by Joshua Harris to our article, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” in which we express misgivings about the conjunction of Pentecostalism with James K. A. Smith’s postmodern, story-based epistemolo- gy. According to Harris, our critique: 1) problematically assumes a correspondence theory of truth, 2) invalidly concludes that “Derrida’s Axiom” conflicts with “Peter’s Axiom,” and 3) fails to consider an alternative account of the universality of Christian truth claims. We argue that Harris’s (...) objections either demonstrate a deficient interpretation of the relevant biblical pas- sages or are not directed at us at all. (shrink)

C. Stephen Layman contends that an argument supporting theism over naturalism can be constructed based on three defensible, non–question-begging premises about the moral order. Previous critics of Layman’s argument have challenged the truth of these premises. We stipulate them arguendo but go on to show that there is a deeper problem: a fourth premise introduced to complete the argument—the “completion premise,” as we call it—is true only if we assume that God exists or we concede that there is no afterlife. (...) We close with suggestions for how Layman’s argument must be strengthened to meet with dialectical success. (shrink)

In this chapter, we attempt to show that J.P. Moreland's understanding of apologetics is beautifully positioned to counter resistance to a rationally defensible Christianity—resistance arising from the mistaken idea that any rational defense will fail to support or even undermine relationship. We look first at Paul Moser's complaint that since rational apologetics doesn’t prove the God of Christianity, it falls short of delivering what matters most—a personal agent worthy of worship and relationship. We then consider John Wilkinson's charge that (...) the use of reason and argument in evangelistic contexts is relationally futile. Since people aren’t looking for arguments, and logic is an arbitrary human invention, we should present Christianity to others as an irrational faith story. (shrink)