Culture and transcendence

• Authors: Eero Tarasti
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Culture can be approached from an existential semiotic point of view in many ways. The following results can be then obtained: The new notion which the Existential semiotic theory of culture (ESC) tries to launch is transcendence. The ESC theory is an attempt to see and analyse issues from the inside, using a model called Zemic which refers to four modes of Being. It deals with agency like any cultural theory, but now behind the theory is the idea of a subject as a transcendental ego, who is capable of pursuing acts, making choices and enjoying freedom. The theory of ESC can be tested by empirical cases of cultural life and history such as studies in cultural heritage. The theory is non deterministic. There is “linguistic turn” in the sense that a new metalanguage is elaborated to deal with transcultural, supra-rational and metacultural issues. Formal language is used to some extent, stemming from the semiotic square, deontic logic and the grammar of modalities. The proper philosophical style is that of the continental and speculative theory, yet the ESC theory is not any regress in the history of philosophy. ESC theory is non-reductionist, i.e. it emphasizes the phenomena as such.

Keywords

PL

culture; existential semiotics; transcendence; subjectivity; modalities

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2015
• Issue: 14
• Pages: 221-248

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Eero Tarasti

• (b. 1948), professor of musicology at the University of Helsinki (chair) since 1984. Director of the International Semiotics Intitute at Imatra, Finland since 1988; President of the IASS/AIS (International Association for Semiotic Studies), 2004-2014. Founder and President of the Semiotic Society of Finland since 1979, and the Music Society of the University of Helsinki since 1989. He studied music in Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and then in Vienna, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Bloomington. He got his PhD from Helsinki University (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 Music Academy, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Indiana University, Bloomington and University of Aix-Marseille; he is also Honorary Fellow of Victoria College at University of Toronto; he has got decoretions such as White Rose Order, Finland, Palmes Académique, France, and Ordem Rio Branco, Brazil. Tarasti has published over 400 articles and edited tens of anthologies on musicology and semiotics. He is the chair of publishing series Acta Semiotic Fennica. He has published about 30 monographs and among them one finds: Myth and Music (1979, also in French), A Theory of Musical Semiotics (1994, also in French), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1996), Existential Semiotics (2000), two novels: Le secret du professeur Amfortas ( 2002) and Retour à la Villa Nevski (in Italian; di Villa Nevski) (2014), Signs of Music (2003, also in French and Italian), Fondements de la sémiotique existentielle (2009), Fondamenti di semiotica esistenziale (2010), Semiotics of Classical Music (2012) and Music and Humanism (in Finnish, 2013).

References

• Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies. Theory & Practice. Los Angeles, London etc: Sage, 2008.
• Benedict, Ruth. Kulttuurin muodot. Translated by Kai Kaila. Helsinki: Porvoo, 1951.
• Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated and foreword by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
• Espagne, Michel. Les transferts culturels franco-allemands. Paris: PUF, 1999.
• Foucault, Michel. The Order o f Things. An Archaeology o f the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock Publications, 1970.
• Hàmeen-Anttila, Jaakko. Jumalastajuopuneet. Islamin mystiikan kasikirja. Helsinki: Basam Books, 2002.
• Kuronen, Tuomas. Ritual in Constructing Strategic Leaderahip Mythologies. Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki: Aalto University, 2011.
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. Paris: PUF, 1949.
• Mbarga, Jean-Claude. L’essence du camerounais. Théories et critiqe. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012.
• Münster, Arno. Le principe dialogique. De la réflexion monologique vers la pro-flexion intersubjective. Paris: Kimé, 1997.
• Ryan, Micheál. Cultural Studies. A Practical Introduction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
• Sartre, Jean Paul. La transcendance de l’ego. Esquisse d’une description phenomenologique. Paris: J. Vrin, 2003.
• Schütz, Alfred. Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993.
• Schütz, Alfred. Strukturen der Lebenswelt. Band I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994.
• Scruton, Roger. Modern Culture. London: Continuum, 2005.
• Spengler, Oswald. Lansimaiden perikato. Maailmanhistorian morfologian ààriviivoja. Translated by Yrjô Massa. Helsinki: Kiijayhtyma, 1961.
• Tarasti, Eero. Existential Semiotics. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000.
• Tarasti, Eero. Fondements de la sémiotique existentielle. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009.
• Tarasti, Eero. “Existential Semiotics in Culture and Psychology.” In Oxford Encyclopedia of Culture and Psychology. Edited by Jaan Valsiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Tarasti, Eero. Sein und Schein. Explorations in Existential Semiotics. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2014 (forthcoming).
• Tarasti, Eero. Semiotics o f Classical Music: How Mozart, Brahms and Wagner Talk to Us (Berlin - Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012).
• Valsiner, Jaan. Culture in Minds and Societies. Foundations o f Cultural Psychology. Los Angeles, London etc.: Sage, 2007.
• von Wright, Georg Henrik. Norm and Action. A Logical Inquiry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.
• Zarcone, Thierry. Le soufisme. Voie mystique de l’islam. Paris: Gallimard, 2009.