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The text provides a description as well as an analysis of mental disorders as socially constructed entities while focusing on the category of normality not only in its medical sense but also in social and cultural one. Our methodology has to be understood as rooted in social constructionism. We work with concepts created within social anthropology and semiotics but also existentialist psychotherapy or Mad Studies. When postulating mental disorder as a topic of social anthropology, we suggest that mental disorder is one of the key concepts behind the social and cultural understanding of normality: normality in regard to emotions, thinking, and behaviour is to a great extent defined negatively – that is, by what it isn't – with mental disorder being one of its major opposites. Normality in Western societies is significant mostly in the areas of mental health, sexuality, and gender whereas these areas may overlap; being different in terms of sexuality or gender (as in gender identity or gender expression) may be – and often is – interpreted as a sign of a mental disorder. As for our findings, on a general level we suggest that the binary between the normal and unproblematic on the one hand and a disorder on the other hand is arbitrary. The border between the two categories has to do with social and cultural rules more than with actual medicine. More specifically, we describe a physician as a constructor who puts individual signs (symptoms) together and forms diagnoses which can change their structure, shift, or even break down completely. Researching mental disorders as a part of the socially constructed reality allows us to see the power dynamics and questionability of seemingly natural categories such as health and illness, or normality and abnormality.
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The article contains cultural, semiotic and mythopoethic characteristics of a railway station as a socio-cultural space (locus). The aim of the study is to reveal the symbolic and imaginative mentalgenerating mechanisms of appearance of myphopoetic images accompanying railway stations and their anchoring in cultural memory. The author studies the cases of German, Austrian and Russian railway stations built on the territory of a divided Poland in the 19th – the early 20th century. The author concludes that in the age of historicism supremacy a railway station, being an important and a semantically valent genre of social and cultural space (here-space), had been often used as a substitute and a metaphor for a popular book telling about the main dominants of the national culture.
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The article dwells upon the study of the resemiotization phenomenon as a remarkable form of contemporary symbolic politics of Russia. The first part of the article presents a comparative analysis of symbolization, resymbolization, desymbolization, and resemiotization, reveals the cognitive foundations of resemiotization, offers its definition. In the next section the author demonstrates the specificity of resemiotization in the framework of the symbolic politics. The third part focuses on the cases of resemiotization of the «Motherland» in the symbolic politics of post-Soviet Russia.
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The author analyzes the ways of presenting of the carried out projects aimed at museumification of the Soviet cultural heritage. The study offers the possible approaches to museumification of “the Soviet” in Russian provinces. Besides, the author conducts a comparative analysis of museum practices in Eastern Europe and Russia. The author points out the local resources which can be used nowadays in order to actualize the Soviet discourse and attract attention to them. The study analyzes the approaches ascribing the popularity of “Soviet” museum projects to nostalgia. The author enumerates the opportunities and ways which can be used to attract the youth. Attention is also paid to the role of the “analog” and the “digital” methods in the creation of museum exhibitions. The variants of a system strategy of museumification of the Soviet heritage at the local, regional, and federal levels are presented in the article.
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The maxim of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar (Ukrainian Church): «Between East and West Ukraine there is no division, there is a separation between those who like the Ukraine, and who does not love her» is analyzed. The work is done in a structurally-semiotic way. The syntax, semantics and the logical structure of the utterance is studied. The phrase is seen in the political, cultural, and theological contexts. Peaceful at first glance judgment turns out to be confrontational.
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In this paper the author describes the relationship between the methodological possibilities andlimitations of mental maps and the size of urban communities where the method isused. To illustrate the findings, the author compares three Russian cities: Moscow, Kimry, and Myshkin. From this analysis the author concludes that generalized elements of cities’ mental images must be supplemented with their exogenous descriptions (out descriptions, brand images) that allow to delineate territorial boundaries and a semantic form of imaginary city.
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The article considers quantitative methods potentials (methods of corpus linguistics) in studying of biographical texts. On the base of autobiographical texts key words and interpretative method «the semiotic square» of A. J. Greimas the author describes the features of men's and women's life scenarios. The given express-analysis allows revealing the peculiarities of autobiography construction by men and women, and shows the dependence of individual histories on cultural scenarios.
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In this article the author uses an interpretative analysis of cultural texts to investigate how the internet surfers criticized a controversial utterance of archbishop Józef Michalik on the foundations of pedophilia in the Catholic Church. The analyzed visual artifacts are perceived as a form of cyberactivism, culture jamming, or even pro -Promethean counterculture. According to Ken Goffman and Dan Joy this last one believes in the force of new technologies, expecting them to make human communication more democratic and change the social world. In reference to Michael Strangelove, the author states that the world wide web is, despite certain attempts of censorship, a space of liberate expression of citizens, while the analyzed subversive practices create – with the spirit of situationist détournement – a new kind of public space as well as the public itself that learns how to defy to different forms of dominance, control or power.
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Gender and concerning it social roles are often used in the brand communication. However, the patterns of femininity and masculinity are changing and if brands want to stay relevant for the consumers, they should reflect those changes in their communication. The paper is based on literature studies on research on patterns of masculinity and their use in marketing, semiotic analysis on the changing patterns of masculinity in popular culture and content analysis of advertising in terms of presented patterns of masculinity.
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The article presents a comparison of the two terms – symbol and suggestion – and their functioning in the European and Indian literary traditions. The introduction discusses the adequacy of the comparative approach, and indicates that due to the existing relativity between the two traditions in the meaning of the above terms, the differences shall be referred to more frequently, especially while discussing the poetic practice and the meaning attributed to each of the terms in both cultures. The first part of the paper presents the European perspective on the subject of symbol in philosophy, psychoanalysis, religious studies and semiotics. Further, the literary studies are scrutinized, and the paper discusses the difficulties arising with the attempts to define the symbol and how it differs from other related literary devices, such as: allegory, simile and metaphor. This part concludes with the discussion of the notion of suggestion, which, as a basis for building a new poetical language, accompanied the appearance of the European Symbolism at the turn of the 20th century. It is indicated, however, that although in the Sanskrit literary theory it is possible to use this term to explain or interpret various poetic phenomena in an orderly and systematical manner, such an approach proves impractical to discuss the European poetry. The second part of the article begins with a brief overview of the early Indian thought attempting to define the nature of poetic language. Further, the paper focuses on the theory of suggestion – dhvani as formulated in Dhvanyāloka treaty (“Light of Poetic Suggestion”) by Dhvanikāra (8th century AD) and Ānandavardhana (2nd half of the 9th century). The paper subsequently explores the classification of dhvani types according to the nature of the suggested meaning and the relation of the expressed meaning to the implied one. In one of dhvani types, the symbol – a term absent elsewhere in the Indian thought – is recognized. Nevertheless, the phenomenon it depicts is correctly recognized by Indian theoreticians, which is illustrated with adequate examples. The paper further presents the most appreciated type of suggestion, the one implying aesthetically experience – rasa (literary “taste”), and discusses the means applied to achieve it. Finally, the paper discusses the criteria of appreciating poetry based on the occurrence of the symbol and suggestion as literary devices.
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This study tries to explain the role of digital avatars for communication in two distinct ways. In the first part it debates what kinds of meanings avatars have for their users. To answer this question based on semiotic theories of Saussure and Lacan, a new approach will be proposed. Saussure’s theory of signs and Lacan’s theory of chain of signifiers as an entry for self, will be merged to form a new viewpoint. In the second part, the role of avatars in the digital communication for the receivers will be approached by Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory.
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Although the connections between Frege’s and Russell’s investigations are commonly known (Hylton 2010), there are some topics in their letters which do not seem to have been analysed until now: 1. Paradoxes formulated by Russell on the basis of Frege’s rules: a) „»ξ can never take the place of a proper name« is a false proposition when ξ is a proposition”; b) “A function never takes the place of a subject.” A solution of this problem was based on the reference/sense theory and on the distinction between the first- and second-level names (Frege). 2. The inconsistency in Frege’s system may be avoided by the introduction of: a) a new kind of objects called quasi-objects (Frege); b) logical types (Frege and Russell); c) mathematics without classes (Russell); d) some restrictions on the domain of function (Frege). 3. Since the inconsistency is connected with a class, what is class? In one of the letters, Frege compared a class to a chair composed of atoms. This approach seems to be similar to the collective understanding of a set (Stanisław Leśniewski). 4. Russell doubted that the difference between sense and reference of expressions was essential. Hence, Frege found some additional reasons to distinguish between them: semiotic, epistemological, from identity, and from mathematical practice. This discussion can be seen as a next step in developing the theory of descriptions by Bertrand Russell.
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It seems like it is an obligation to examine some motifs in order to understand the socio-psychological viewpoint of Anatolian culture. Within this viewpoint, the examination of certain people who has affected Anatolian people sociologically becomes important. Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli is the most important person among this certain people. The examination of this person’s life and thought in terms of humanistic approach will ease to find answers for some questions related to sociology and social structure in Anatolia. The main purpose of this study which examines Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli’s thought structure in terms of humanism traces based on symbolic approach is to study Veli’s life with a socio-psycologic viewpoint.The method of this study is based on literature search of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli’s humanistic thought traces and the interpretation of these thoughts with symbols. The reason of this study is to show how much importance Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli attaches to human life and individual values.
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The author of the article, drawing upon the data from the history of Classical philosophy and linguistics, presents an analysis of the formation of the concept of matter in the philosophy of Classical Antiquity. In the first chapter of the article, a few preliminary remarks are given concerning with the differences of conceptual economy of the concept of matter in two different spheres – that of ideology and that of pure theoretical philosophy. In the author’s opinion, the understanding of matter in ideologically oriented materialisms, such as the so-called dialectical materialism and the so-called historical materialism, serves certain ideological goals and has nothing or almost nothing to do with genuine efforts to elucidate the concept of matter and to grasp – in terms of pure philosophy and theoretical analysis of purely philosophical nature – the nature of matter and the conceptual economy of this concept. In the preliminary chapter of the article, the author also presents some observations concerning the narrowness and particularity characteristic of the analysis of matter (or materiality understood in various senses and from different angles of view) both in materialistically oriented analytic philosophy, driven by reductionistic agenda, and in materialistically oriented continental philosophy concerned mostly with practical (especially ethical and political) aspects of materiality and corporality. In the second chapter, the author analyses the commonly held views about matter, characteristic of everyday consciousness, as well as the understanding of matter prevalent in the pre-philosophical stage of Classical culture. The author is of the opinion that the most informative corpus of data about the specific features of the understanding of matter in the earliest (pre-philosophical) period of Classical culture can be drawn from the history of language. Therefore, the etymologies of Classical Greek, Latin, and Lithuanian words, meaning matter, materiality, and other similar concepts, are discussed in connection with various possible lines of philosophical interpretation of presented linguistic data. The author shows the philosophical potential inherent in the language itself, even in its most archaic, pre-philosophical, layer, and even in the common, pre-terminological strata of everyday linguistic usage. The Latin words materia “matter (also subject matter as a thing under discussion); the raw material; the mother-stem of a tree; the cen- 40 trally located essential part of any living thing”, matrix “matrix, mother (thought of as giving birth, generating); womb, receptacle; hard form (stereotype); template (prepared in advance for some soft, liquid mass, or molten matter); pattern, form (either material or ideal); etc” (in connection with their common etymological ancestor, the Latin word mater “mother”), and silva “forest; felled trees, logs (collectively); the raw material”, the ancient Greek word hulē “forest; felled trees, logs (collectively); the raw material”, the Lithuanian words medžiaga “matter (also subject matter as a thing under discussion); felled trees, logs (collectively); the raw material”, mediena “felled trees, logs (collectively)”, medis “tree”, medžias “forest”, and other relevant lexical examples are examined at some length. In the third chapter of the article, the author presents an analysis of the formation of the concept of matter in Presocratic and late Platonic philosophy. It is argued that the Presocratics, although lacking any definite, exactly articulated, concept of matter in, say, Aristotelian or late Platonic sense, each viewed their postulated principle (arkhē) of reality as some sort of material substance (sometimes thought of as inherently possessing some ideal, or spiritual, qualities). The author of the article stresses the conceptual relation between the Greek concept of phusis “nature”, commonly employed by the Presocratics, and the concept of hulē, which is evidently the ultimate source of the Latin word materia, understood as a philosophical term and coined by the Romans after hulē, although this latter word began its career as a clearly defined philosophical term only with the writings of Aristotle). The understanding of matter characteristic of the Presocratic Ionian philosophers (Anaximenes, Heraclitus, etc), the ancient Greek Atomists (Leucippus, Democritus, etc), and Empedocles is briefly touched upon in the context of the author’s analysis of the formation of the concept of matter in this period. After that is discussed the late Platonic notion of matter, presented in the Timaeus (in the context of a philosophical myth) as a very vague and inscrutable principle of reality. The late Platonic notion of “Receptacle” (the “Mother” and “womb” of all reality), which might be thought of as ingeniously combining the notion of matter, as a soft substrate of “hard” forms, and the notion of hard matrix, as a receptacle of “soft” material mixture under formation, might be viewed as a great step in the direction of Aristotelian understanding of prime matter. This inscrutable “Mother” of all Reality is given by Plato a lot of different and imprecise names, thus evading strict, non-ambivalent definition. Exemplifying a very significant milestone in the evolution of the concept of matter, the Platonic notion of “Receptacle” – and Plato’s understanding of matter in general, closely related to this vague notion – is given by the author of the article much more attention than all previous stages in the development of the concept of matter. 41NESUVOKIAMOJI TIKROVĖS MOTINA: MATERIJOS SAMPRATOS FORMAVIMASIS ANTIKINĖJE FILOSOFIJOJE In the fourth chapter of the article, the author discusses the Aristotelian understanding of matter. The Aristotelian theory of matter is viewed as a pinnacle and ultimate expression of Classical Greek thinking about matter. The prime matter, thought of as matter par excellence and the purest exemplification of the principle of matter as such, is understood by Aristotle as pure potentiality and contrasted with the conceptually opposite principle of form, that is, the principle of pure actuality. Therefore, the Aristotelian concept of prime matter might be viewed as some kind of a liminal concept (or a conceptual limit), that enables the human mind to think about substances and is employed in order to grasp the difference between substance and its form. The difference between the Aristotelian concept of prime matter and that of secondary matter is also briefly discussed by way of analogy. It is argued that the Aristotelian understanding of matter is significantly removed from the everyday experience of materiality, substantiality and corporality. It is, therefore, somewhat counterintuitive for most people lacking philosophical training, but, nevertheless, despite its counter-intuitiveness – and, arguably, namely for that very reason – it has become part of a very powerful and universal conceptual tool that might be productively employed in the analysis of various and very different manifestations of reality. In the fifth chapter of the article, the author, combining and synthesizing the results achieved in all previous chapters, somewhat extends the Aristotelian understanding of matter and projects it into the context of contemporary science, thus revealing a few contradictions inherent in the very concept of matter. First of all, attention is drawn to the fact that matter, as it is understood in contemporary physics, is almost synonymous with energy, while the Aristotelian concept of matter underscores its closest affinity to the concept of potentiality (thought of as a polar opposite with respect to the concept of actuality, that is, the concept of form). Secondly, the concepts of matter and matrix, after closer analysis, reveal both mutual conceptual proximity and conceptual opposition: in different conceptual contexts, each one of them – both matter and matrix – although usually understood as different types or aspects of matter (the etymology of both two words, linking them to their common source, the word mater “mother”, testifies to their conceptual relation) might acquire an aspect of form (and, so to speak, “masculinity”) in relation to its conceptual counterpart. Thus, viewing them from different interpretative angles and in different conceptual settings, we notice that both matter and matrix might appear, if not as a “mother” and a “father” with respect to its “conjugal” counterpart, yet, surely, as a “more motherly” mother and “less motherly” mother in relation to its “spouse” – and changing places in different conceptual settings. Thirdly, we notice 42 that our commonly used English expressions, such as the “subject matter” (and similar others), which underscore the conceptual relation between the meaning of the word matter (thought of as referring to some sort of subject of thought or speech) and the idea of the “material” content of a grammatical or logical form, are used to express the notion of information (thought of as a material mass “poured” into some sort of “matrix” as a “hard” form). Therefore, information, the nature and essence of which is, necessarily, of an ideal, abstract, and formal (that is, strictly immaterial) kind, in some conceptual settings appears as something material – as a material mixture poured into a matrix as a hard “form”, despite the fact that the pieces of information themselves might be viewed as mental forms (that is, ideal entities constituted in the process of thinking). The conclusion is made that the concept of matter, which is the result of long conceptual evolution in linguistic prehistory, Classical times and afterwards, is irremediably vague notion, yet, nevertheless, very conducive to productive philosophical thought: the very paradoxes of this concept exert a benign effect on human thinking, liberating it from its stupor.
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Purpose of Article. The goal of the article is to study the genres of post-folklore, presented communicative practices on the Internet. Methodology. The methodology of the study is to apply analytical, cultural and semantic methods in the researching of genre variety of the postfolklor, mediated network online. Scientific novelty. Scientific novelty of the work means the classification of the post-folklore genres, represented in the Internet space, basing on the characteristics of the semiotic systems of the texts. Conclusions. It is found out that the basic characteristics of genres of the post-folklore, mediated Internet communication practices, are the non-linearity, hyper-textuality and multicomponent. In addition to verbal genres, known in traditional folklore, the other genres have particularly achieved the development of with superior visual components, which form the complicated creolized semiotic texts. The post-folklore works, which are formed by the communicative process and information sharing, have a predominantly entertainment and play direction (memes, demotivates, photo-gags, cartoons, comics, hyphae art) and reflect the current events and social phenomena, concerned network users.
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The paper is based on a strict distinction between the notion of a person referred to by a fictional name, as uttered within a text of narrative fiction, and the notion of a fictional character. The literary functions of such a text require the reader to interpret the occurences of a fictional name as records of utterances of that name by the narrator, referring to that individual which has been assigned that name at the beginning of the chain to which these utterances belong. This, according to the author’s view, provides proper basis also for interpretation of various kinds of extratextual use of fictional names. A literary character is, on the contrary, an element of a construction of a literary work and is identified by a set of requirements (e.g. of the kind mentioned above) imposed by the text’s literary functions on the reader. The author attempts to justify the assumption that the referential function of fictional names so understood is to be interpreted as directed to the actual world (rather than to an artificial world created by the writer), to specify the (rather limited) role reserved for pretense within this approach, to explain the implications of this account of fictional characters for the dispute between realists and anti-realists in this field etc.
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The article presents a “preposterous” updating of Don Quijote, in the face of trauma,contemporary slavery, and the importance of a social face-to-face, or interface, to help people to come out of their isolation inflicted on them by violence. The argument begins with the“updating” of a literary monument, an instance of cultural heritage that never lost its relevance for whatever era in which it functions. The focus on trauma makes this particularly necessary, since those on whom the stagnation and isolation violence cause has been inflicted,must be helped socially. Taking seriously not that but why some people seem “mad” is a collective task for humans. We can all contribute to that remedial interfacing. Through its special complexity, subtlety and temporality, art can facilitate this. The video installation DonQuijote: Sad Countenances presents an attempt to do this. Especially the episode “Who Is Do Quijote” is central in the article. There, some characters discuss the value and possibility of history, the authorship of Cervantes’ novel, and the importance of the literary imagination, while the figure of Don Quijote, in front of a large mirror, exposes himself to an artist-photographer who tries to capture his face.
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Illustration has always kept the interest of the academic community, as well as artists, graphic designers, the business sector, and more. That is why there are a lot of definitions for the appearance and meaning of illustration. It is most commonly defined as a visual explanation of text, processes, messages, or concepts, graphical interpretations, and decorations. Illustration is also viewed as a way to explain, simplify, create recognition and style, but most importantly, it represents a response to visual communication. Today, most graphic illustrators are flexible and transform their graphic-technical approach in order to showcase their inventiveness and creativity. Illustrators particularly focus on the implementation of an aesthetic concept. In the development of graphic communication (whether we are talking about posters, illustrations, or graphic symbols), the same process is observed, encompassing the entire art of intertwining all components, which together form a whole. In literature, a wide range of illustrations can be found, including special graphic elements for websites, books, magazines, cover pages for print, and product packaging, as well as purpose-specific unique illustrations, etc.
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The text examines the relationship between nostalgia and photography. Nostalgia has ancient roots, but not a very long history, which began as a medical problem in the 17th century, to transform in the following centuries into a cultural and philosophical concept reflected in media, art and mass culture. It turns out that photography – as a magic, a trace and a sign of a bygone moment – is a lasting producer of nostalgia. Photography deals with the paradigms of the real, but in the struggle for reflection, the captured before is not only an absent past, but also a promise of a possible future. The nostalgic photographic image restores the lack, the absence of the past, but appears reborn actuality and a promise for the future.
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