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Green LettersStudies in Ecocriticism

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A semiotic theory of life: Lotman’s principles of theuniverse of the mind

Kalevi Kull

To cite this article: Kalevi Kull (2015) A semiotic theory of life: Lotman’s principles of theuniverse of the mind, Green Letters, 19:3, 255-266, DOI: 10.1080/14688417.2015.1069203

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2015.1069203

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A semiotic theory of life: Lotman’s principles of the universe of themind

Kalevi Kull*

Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

(Received 11 April 2015; accepted 01 July 2015)

Literary scholar, cultural theorist and semiotician Juri Lotman (1922–1993) establishedthe Tartu (and Tartu-Moscow) school of semiotics in the 1960s. Besides his pioneeringwork in semiotics of culture, he also developed a theory of general semiotics. Weattempt to extract some principles from Juri Lotman’s formulations that characterisethe core aspects of semiosis, applicable both in semiotics of culture and in biosemio-tics. These include: (1) the principle of code plurality; (2) the principle of incompat-ibility, or non-translatability; (3) the principle of autocommunication, or translation; (4)the principle of semiosphere; (5) the principle of semiotic inheritance; (6) the principleof non-gradual evolution; (7) the principle of boundaries; and (8) the principle ofmodelling.

Keywords: non-translatability; code plurality; autocommunication; semiotic inheri-tance; semiosphere; punctualism; sign evolution; modelling systems

Sign processes can do literally everything; mind is almost almighty – the art of text islimitless; life’s evolution is open-ended; there are ‘no limits in learning’. While physicalreality is limited by physical laws, and the mathematical realm as based on formal logic isrestricted by the necessity of avoiding contradictions, the realm of imaginations andmeaning-making has no such limits. We must ask whether the science of signs, semiotics,can tell us anything general at all about this vast diversity. Paradoxically, it can. Animportant result of semiotics (with Charles S. Peirce, but also with Ferdinand de Saussure,and further Juri Lotman, Umberto Eco, Thomas A. Sebeok and many others) establishesthe extension of the concept of logic beyond syllogistic and formal logics, and ultimatelyover all meaning-making processes, thus establishing that formal logic is only a specialcase. Understanding how semiotic logic as meaning-making works would contributesubstantially to the functioning of semiotics as the general theory and methodology ofthe humanities, and the cultural and life sciences. Following this line of thought, we willinterpret the semiotic approach developed by Juri Lotman.

What is remarkable in Juri Lotman’s (1922–1993) work is his (a) foundationalformulation of the principles of the semiotics of culture,1 (b) fundamental description ofcommunication and sign processes as modelling processes and (c) excellent analysis ofthe empirical material (literature and cultural phenomena), making it possible to use hismodels as a basis for contemporary semiotics. Semiotics, according to Lotman (and theTartu Semiotic School), is largely the study of modelling systems, since modelling is afunction of sign systems. More precisely, semiotics can be defined as the study of signsystems and processes, in which the aspect of modelling or meaning-making is explicitly

*Email: kalevi.kull@ut.ee

Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 2015Vol. 19, No. 3, 255–266, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2015.1069203

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presented. The modelling of semiosis (and communication, in a broad sense) is thus thetheoretical core of semiotics.

Lotman’s communication model, together with his general semiotic theory, has beenbrought to our attention by several researchers (Andrews 1999, 2003; Andrews andMaksimova 2008; Avtonomova 2009; Arán and Barei 2002; Favareau 2010; Gherlone2014; Grzybek 1994a, 1994b; Kim 2003; Lepik 2008; Maciocco and Tagliagambe 2009;Semenenko 2012; Shukman 1977; and others). The current study is not about the historyof Lotman’s thought (although we use quotations from his works); instead, we focus onsome fundamental aspects of Lotman’s model – namely on those that are in goodconcordance with the further development of the modelling of semiosis.

Lotman’s approach in its first period (the 1960s and the 1970s) was definitelystructuralist.2 However, at least since the early 1980s, his approach was so dynamic andprocessual that it could no longer be seen as semiology. This was emphasised, forinstance, by Amy Mandelker, who sees the ‘organic turn’ made by Lotman as the greatestachievement of semiotics in the twentieth century (Mandelker 1994, 1995). Mandelkerwrites:

The evolution in semiotic theory during the 1980s might be compared to the shift fromNewtonian to relativistic physics. Semiotics of the Moscow-Tartu school evolved from atheory rooted in Saussurean linguistics and in mathematical procedures to a biological,organismic approach. In a series of largely untranslated articles from the 1980s, JuriLotman, the leading figure of the Moscow-Tartu school, proposes the model of the semio-sphere, a metaphor based on principles of cell biology, organic chemistry, and brain science,to map cultural dynamics. (1994, 385)

If there was an organic turn in semiotics in the 1980s, then it was of course not onlycentred in Tartu. For instance, at the same time, a collective manifesto of semiotics waspublished under the initiative of Thomas A. Sebeok (Anderson et al. 1984). Also in the1980s, interest in the legacy of Charles S. Peirce increased remarkably in many countries,and Jakob von Uexküll was included among the classics of semiotics. Since then, indeed,the prelinguistic processes of life have become a regular part of semiotic studies.

Several Juri Lotman scholars reveal a more gradual development of Lotman’s views,emphasising the processual and dynamic aspects already in his works of the 1970s. Still,the main conclusion is the same – the model of semiosis that is described in his books TheUniverse of Mind and Culture and Explosion (Lotman 1990, 2009 [1992]) represents aprofound understanding of the underlying general processes of meaning-making ascharacteristic of the stage of semiotics beyond structuralism.

Mandelker adds:

The spatialised and biologised concept of the semiosphere enhances the earlier Moscow-Tartuschool notion of inner and outer cultural perspectives. [. . .] The sphere also invites theborrowing of some suggestive topics from biophysics and cell biology: enclosure anddisclosure, resistance and responsiveness to penetration, and the assimilation of intrudingand extruding elements. [. . .] Lotman’s sphere of silence embraces, encloses, and embodiesthe utterance just as the biosphere [. . .] embraces all life and lies passively open to men’shusbandry. (1994, 390, 392)

In his article ‘On the dynamics of culture’, Lotman speaks with a straightforwardirony about approaches that do not include animal communication in the field of semio-tics, i.e., which place the ‘semiotic zero’ (the semiotic threshold) above animal life (1992,5). Without making very strict statements about the exact position of the lower semiotic

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threshold, Lotman (a) is very clear in stating the existence of a non-semiosic world, and healso (b) states clearly that animal communication is of semiosic nature. On some occa-sions he accepted that semiosis can cover the whole of life: ‘But it may well be thatcognition is, in fact, life itself. That they are not two isomorphic things, but essentially oneand the same’.3

These views had their roots in Lotman’s earlier works and interests. For instance, hecompared the functional structure of a literary text and a living organism already in the1960s: the

Relationship between the artistic idea and the construction of a literary work reminds one ofthe relationship between life and the biological structure of a cell. In biology, there is novitalist any more who would investigate life outside the real organization of matter, its carrier.In the science of literature they still exist. Also, a listing of the material ‘inventory’ of a livingtissue cannot unlock the secrets of life: the cell is given as a complex functioning self-accommodating system. Realization of its functions turns out to be life. A literary work isalso a complex self-accommodating system (indeed, of an other type). The idea represents thelife of a literary work, and this is similarly impossible in a body dissected by an anatomist oroutside this body. Mechanicism of the former and idealism of the latter should be replaced bythe dialectics of functional analysis. (Lotman 1967a, 97)

A large conference on ‘Biology and linguistics’ was organised in 1978 in Tartu.Focussing on the relationships between semiotics and biology, this was probably thefirst international conference in biosemiotics with explicit reference to this term. Theexchange of ideas between Lotman and several other members of the Tartu-Moscowsemiotic school with the leading biological thinkers of the region (Russia, and the Baltics)could be seen to additionally contribute in making what Mandelker has called the ‘organicturn’.

For instance, Lotman remarks: ‘Culture demonstrates features typical of such organi-sations, as a living organism and a piece of art’ (Lotman 1970, 105). Later, in a smallpaper, ‘Culture and the organism’ (1984), Lotman lists some general features, which arecommon to the organism and to culture, at a certain level of abstraction – memory, thesymmetric mechanism of homeostasis and asymmetric mechanisms generating new infor-mation, the explosive growth of information content in certain stages of development, etc.He adds: ‘Similarly to the living organism, whose normal contact to the insentient naturemeans the prevenient “translation” of information into the structural language of bio-sphere, also the contact of every intellectual being with outward information requires itstranslation into the sign system’ (Lotman 1984, 216).

Lotman’s theorising as well as his analysis of examples can be seen as based on hisview on the general mechanism of meaning-making. We can trace this already in his earlyworks, but the clearest formulations of his model of communication can be found in hislast books. For instance, the basis of his model is described in Chapter 1 of Universe ofthe Mind (Lotman 1990, 11–19), and in Chapters 1 and 2 of Culture and Explosion (2009[1992], 1–6). This also seems to demonstrate that Lotman’s views are well compatiblewith the view on semiosis as the general basis of cognition that characterises all livingsystems.4

Lotman’s view on semiosis can be described via three basic principles: (1) codeplurality, (2) incompatibility and (3) autocommunication. These three principles aremutually related to each other, meaning that they can be seen as certain aspects of thesame model. However, there are additional important aspects in his view that characterise,first, the semiotic space; second, semiotic dynamics; and, third, the epistemological role of

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semiosis. With regard to the semiotic space, these are: (4) the semiosphere, and itsprecondition – (5) semiotic inheritance. Regarding semiotic dynamics, this concerns (6)non-gradual evolution. With regard to the epistemological role of semiosis, these are (7)boundaries and (8) modelling. Below, we describe briefly all these principles.

1. Code plurality

The principle of code plurality states that one code is insufficient for semiosis, at least twocodes are necessary for it, that more than one language or sign system (at least two) isrequired in order to have semiosis and that semiotic dualism is the minimal form oforganisation of a working semiotic system.

The principle that one code is insufficient for semiosis is a statement that may lookparadoxical; however, this is perfectly the formulation that stands for the core tenet ofLotman’s model. The depth of the statement may not be understood at once from eachexplanation given by Lotman himself, although it appears clearly in connection to the nexttwo principles.

Initially, Lotman described this aspect as a necessary requirement for a semioticsystem to have different types of coding, like conventional and representational, orsymbolic and iconic, etc. For instance, he wrote: ‘a message to be defined as “text”should be at least dually coded’ (Lotman 1981; this, and all subsequent translations wherethe original is in Estonian or Russian, is by the author of the current article), andelsewhere, ‘that semiotic dualism is the minimal form of organisation of a workingsemiotic system’ (Lotman 1990, 124).

He also says,

The idea of the possibility for a single ideal language to serve as an optimal mechanism forthe representation of reality is illusion. [. . .] The idea of an optimal model, consisting of asingle perfect universal language, is replaced by the image of a structure equipped with aminimum of two or, rather, by an open number of diverse languages, each of which isreciprocally dependent on the other, due to the incapacity of each to express the worldindependently. (Lotman 2009 [1992], 2)

With the multiplicity of codes, therefore, the Kantian epistemological problem movesto a solution. Lotman has stated

[. . .] two levels of objectivity may be surmised: one relates to the world of languages (this isobjective from its point of view) and one relates to the world outside the borders of language.One of the key problems is that of the translation of the world of the content of the system (itsinternal reality) to the reality that lies outside, beyond the borders of language. Out of this,two specific issues arise:

(1) the necessity that more than one language (a minimum of two) is required in order to reflecta given reality

(2) the inevitable fact that the space of reality cannot be represented by a single language butonly by an aggregate of languages. (Lotman 2009 [1992], 2)

2. Incompatibility

The principle of incompatibility (or inconsistency) states that there should exist a partialnon-translatability in order to have a meaningful communication, that meaning-making

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requires an incompatibility of codes and that the incompatibility or inconsistency is thesource of indeterminacy, non-predictability and semiotic freedom.

One may argue against the principle of code plurality by means of an idea ofconstructing a supercode that would include as sub-codes the two or more codes aboutwhich Lotman is speaking. However, this turns out to be impossible due to, as Lotmanstates, ‘their mutual untranslatability (or limited translatability)’ (Lotman 2009 [1992], 2).Indeed, two codes are two different codes and cannot be seen as just parts of one and thesame bigger code if and only if these two codes are mutually incompatible.

Thus, what is stated by the principle of code plurality is actually the necessary conditionfor semiosis – the existence of incompatibility. Incompatibility, here, should be understoodin a general sense, including, for instance, logical inconsistency, non-congruent categorisa-tion and homonymy. Incompatibility, for Lotman, and for our model of semiosis in general,appears to be the source of indeterminacy, and of semiotic freedom.

Lotman writes:

[in case of] artistic translation [. . .] transmitter and receiver use different codes [. . .] whichoverlap but are not identical. [. . .] The asymmetrical relationship, the constant need forchoice, make translation in this case an act of generating new information and exemplifythe creative function both of language and of the text. Particularly indicative is the situationwhere it is not simply difference which exists between codes, but mutual untranslatability (forinstance, in the translation of a verbal text into an iconic one). (1990, 14–15)

Lotman compares this situation with the case of artificial languages which may workin machines. Since the requirement in the building of formal (mathematical) languages isthe avoidance of internally contradicting situations, these languages lack the internaluntranslatability, and therefore, they lack the mechanism of meaning-making and creativ-ity. At the same time, a logically concise formal (mathematical) language can suitperfectly for the description of non-semiosic world – as the effectiveness of applicationof mathematical language by physics has utterly proven.

Thus, semiosis is the process that occurs in the situation of incompatibility betweencodes.5 In such a situation, the future of the system is indeterminate. This is the situationof confusion. Also, this is the situation of freedom, or explosion, in Lotman’s terms. It willbe resolved by making a decision (by an organism, or a culture), thus introducing aregularity (a habit) into the system.

This (logical) kind of incompatibility between codes is something that cannot occur ina non-living system. This is because codes are always built by living systems; they areproducts of semiosis. Codes are relationships that do not persist or reappear otherwisethan being made by living systems.

3. Autocommunication

The principle of autocommunication states that autocommunication is the most generaltype of communication, that it must be present for sign interpretation and that autocom-munication underlies the ability for qualitative restructuring and translation.

On the one hand, semiosis requires at least two (incompatible) codes, and a lifeprocess is required to produce these. On the other hand, the existence of a living organismmeans the coexistence of code processes. If defining autocommunication as a translationthat takes place within an organism (or culture, or in any other semiosic system), then itimplies that autocommunication is the most general form of communication. There can be

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autocommunication without heterocommunication, but there cannot be heterocommunica-tion without autocommunication.

Andrews and Maksimova write:

The inevitability of translation at all levels of semiotic space is one of the central operatingproperties of Lotman’s theory. In fact, the importance of translation for the generation ofmeanings and as a fundamental part of perception itself are tenets common to both Lotman’santhroposemiotic theory and Uexküll’s biosemiotic theory of the umwelt.6 (2008, 262)

Both for Jakob Uexküll and for Juri Lotman, autocommunication is where communicationstarts (see Kull and Lotman 2012). This is also related to the understanding that translationis the process where meaning arises.

Lotman’s biographer Edna Andrews mentions:

There is an interesting point of coincidence between von Uexküll’s theory and Lotman’s model-ling of the semiosphere: in both, auto-communication must be present for sign interpretation.Lotman’s model of autocommunication [. . .] defines the mechanism of meaning generation as acombination of two modelling types: I–I (or auto) communication and I–s/he communication.7

All cultural spaces rely on these modelling systems for the production and transference ofinformation. [. . .] For Lotman, autocommunication underlies the ability to qualitatively restruc-ture and translate what is never less than a double-version of code and message in the creation ofmeaningful texts.8 For Uexküll, the primacy of autocommunication provides the backdrop for anymetainterpretation that may be formulated.9 Given the structure of each umwelt, it becomes clearthat in Uexküll’s modelling system, all meaning is created through translation – a process thatnecessarily provides the outcome in the form of a metainterpretation. (Andrews 2003, 63)10

The role of the concept of autocommunication as understood in the Tartu School hasalso been described by Peeter Torop:

That which on one level of culture manifests itself as a process of communication and adialogue between addresser and addressee can be seen on a deeper level as the autocommu-nication of culture and a dialogue of the culture with itself. (2008, 394)

4. Semiosphere

The principle of the semiosphere states that the qualitative diversity being completely theresult of semiosis is also a general condition for semiosis; or, otherwise, it states that themeaningful (i.e., meaningfully plural) is forming a region in space (which covers thesphere around the Earth). Thus the principle of the semiosphere is also the principle of therelationality of semiotic systems – that semiotic space may be regarded as a unifiedmechanism; semiosis cannot exist outside of the semiosphere.

The principle of the semiosphere, although formulated in many different ways,11 canbe seen as a coherent principle that describes the ontological specificity of semiosis.

One of the very first occasions where Lotman gave a lecture on the concept ofsemiosphere (on 7 May 1982) was the 8th Estonian Spring School on TheoreticalBiology, which was devoted to the theory of behaviour. The theory of the semiospheredemonstrates (and conceptually develops) a deep connection between cultural and otherforms of life on the semiotic basis (see also Kotov and Kull 2011).

As developed by Lotman in his theory of the semiosphere (2005 [1984]), it alsoembeds another important principle for general semiotics, which we would formulateseparately as the following one.

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5. Semiotic inheritance

The principle of semiotic inheritance states that the semiosic sphere is causally self-dependent; that every sign comes from another sign – omne signum ex signum – semiosisassumes earlier semiosis (except only the primary origin of semiosis).

This principle (more than the principle of the semiosphere, strictly speaking) estab-lishes the relationship with Vernadsky’s concept of biosphere. The self-dependence ofboth semiosis and life (Vernadsky used to call this principle Redi’s rule – omne vivum exvivo) is where Lotman saw the major similarity between semiosphere and biosphere. Thiscomes clear from Lotman’s letter to Boris Uspensky, written in 19 March 1982, in whichLotman first outlines his position:

While reading Vernadsky I was seized by one of his assertions. As you know, once in ourMoscow seminar [. . .] I dared to declare that a text can exist (e.g., can be socially compre-hended as a text) if another text preceded it, and that any developed culture must be precededby a developed culture. And now I have discovered in Vernadsky’s writing a thought, deeplysubstantiated by his vast experience in studying cosmic geology, that life can only spring intoexistence from life, i.e., it is preceded by life. [. . .] Obviously, just as all forms of livingactivity belong to life, from the actions of anaerobic bacteria to the most complex forms, sothought (semiosis) has both simple and complex forms. [. . .] Only the pre-existence of asemiotic sphere makes a message become a message. Only the existence of consciousnessexplains existence of consciousness. (1997, 630)

6. Non-gradual evolution

The principle of non-gradual (punctuated) evolution states that in the development of a semiosicsystem, explosive or disrupted and continuous or gradual processes alternate and co-occur.

The principle of non-gradual evolution means that the development of a semiosicsystem includes two very different periods or stages. Namely, in the evolution of semiosis,explosive or disrupted, and continuous or gradual processes alternate and co-occur.

Lotman writes in The Unpredictable Workings of Culture:

For the Tartu-Moscow School the shift from gradual processes to explosive moments wasdetermined when the centre of scholarly attention was relocated from the field of linguisticsto the semiotics of art. Art is a child of explosion. The work of art is born in a moment ofexplosion and cannot be understood without taking into account the very nature of that birth(2013 [1992], 87). And he adds:Does cultural evolution take place gradually and principally as a process devoid of theunexpected, or as a chain of unpredictable explosions? [. . .] Before us lie two aspects ofone inseparable unity. They can be separated only in pure abstraction or as a result of illnessin a dying society. Neither a system made up of explosions alone nor a system devoid ofexplosions can exist as a healthy organism. This has never been possible. [. . .] Gradualevolution and shifts to unpredictability must form a complex whole. It is appropriate toremember that unpredictability experienced in the realm of art can be carried over into realityin a form free of catastrophes, similar to the way an injection provides an organism withimmunity. (Lotman 2013 [1992], 130–131)

7. Boundaries

The principle of boundaries states that boundaries are the source of diversity andcreativity of semiotic systems.

In the article about the semiosphere, Lotman wrote:

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One of the fundamental concepts of semiotic delimitation lies in the notion of boundary[граница]. [. . .] The semiotic border is represented by the sum of bilingual translatable‘filters’, passing through which the text is translated into another language (or languages)[. . .]. The function of any border or film – from the membrane of a living cell to the biosphereas a film (according to Vernadsky) covering our planet, to the delimitation of the semiosphere– comes down to a limitation of penetration, filtering and the transformative processing of theexternal to the internal. (2005 [1984]: 208–210)

Boundary, or border (or more generally – surface), is both a source and a product ofcommunication. It can be seen just as an aspect of the semiosphere; however, since it is amajor phenomenon in the formation of structures, as well as a general aspect of translationand mediation, and also a condition for the epistemic relation of self and other, it serves aseparate formulation.

Lotman writes:

The border [граница] of semiotic space is the most important functional and structuralposition, giving substance to its semiotic mechanism. The border is a bilingual mechanism,translating external communications into the internal language of the semiosphere and viceversa. Thus, only with the help of the boundary is the semiosphere able to establish contactwith non-semiotic and extra-semiotic spaces. As soon as we move into the realm ofsemantics, we have to appeal to an extra-semiotic reality. However, let us not forget, thatthis reality becomes for a given semiosphere ‘a reality in itself’ only insofar as it has beentranslated into the language of the semiosphere (in the same way that external chemicalmaterials may be adopted by a cell only if they have been transformed into the internalbiochemical structures characteristic of it: in both cases – these are particular manifestationsof one and the same law). (Lotman 2005 [1984], 210)

8. Modelling

The principle of modelling states that semiotic systems are themselves modelling systems.Indeed, semiosis is a modelling process, since it always includes an iconic aspect.

Lotman has emphasised the modelling function of texts and semiosphere, and treatedtranslation as a modelling device, whereas there exist different levels of modelling systems.

For instance, Lotman writes: ‘Systems that have a natural language as their basis andthat acquire supplementary superstructures, thus creating languages of a second level, canappropriately be called secondary modelling systems’ (1967b, 131).

Of course, this does not mean that all components of semiotic systems are models (cf.Lotman 2011 [1967], 251 p. 2.2).12

Calling their summer schools of the 1960s the Schools on Secondary ModellingSystems,13 Lotman and his colleagues stated very early that semiotic systems are modellingsystems, or ways of translating (thus ‘mapping’ and ‘knowing’ the world, the umwelt).

9. Concluding remarks

As a certain summary of Lotman’s views, let us give here a longer quotation from hisinterview in 1990:

When we are communicating, ‘you’ and ‘I’, we are interested, in a way, in vmaximumtranslatability. When I think, non-translatability becomes a useful factor. Let us assume – wecreate two ideal persons. They understand each other perfectly and fully, as we might imaginetwo identical bowling balls. What are they going to talk about? To talk, I do not need aperfect copy of myself, I need another person. I need a difficulty, since the difficulty means

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the creation of the new, a new thought. Only an old thought can be translated ideally. [. . .]Semiotics of animals is researching such aspects as, for instance, sexual communication,eating, breeding; these are traditional forms and animals acquire and transmit them. Suchbehavior is a language similar to our language of folklore. It is repeated as the same, andevery time created anew. Humans, however, consider the repeated forms of behavior to besecondary, and promote unexpected behavior. Evidently, man when he appeared resembled amad animal, and I suppose that was the reason why this relatively weak creature couldsurvive and kill much bigger animals. They were not able to predict his behavior. In such away I would speak about the semiotics of mammals, which to me seems real. This is anothersemiotics, another type of language – but we are not only humans, we are also mammals, andtherefore we also have mastery of that language. It could be suppressed, or more dynamic, orless dynamic.14 The appearance of language in our sense of the word was an upheaval,perhaps a tragic one, but a groundbreaking upheaval which created a fundamentally newsituation. This is one aspect of the approach of semiotics to animals, which allows us topenetrate into the world of semiotic constants, invariable situations and inheritable behavior.On the whole, I think that zoosemiotics should become part of linguistics, or linguistics partof zoosemiotics; let us not argue about the priority, but it seems to me that a zoologist oughtto be a linguist, and maybe a linguist ought to be a zoologist (see Kull 1999, 124–125).

Thus, we have pointed to these aspects of Lotman’s legacy that can be effectively usedfor the integrative development of semiotics in the twenty-first century. Indeed, Lotman’sbiographer, American semiotician Edna Andrews, has noted that ‘it is clear that Lotman’ssystem is in harmony with the models presented by Sebeok, Jakobson, and von Uexküll’(Andrews 2003, 24). John Deely adds:

Jakob von Uexküll and Juri Lotman [. . . –] the heritage of these two figures have proved to bethe foundation stones – in some ways more important even than the, so far, more widelyrecognized figures of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Peirce – for the future of semioticswithin university life and intellectual life generally. (2012, 214)

Lotman’s humanitarian approach together with his view on the semiotic study of cultureas наука15 (see also Schreider 1993), and on culture as an organic semiotic system, resultsin the establishment of the semiotics of culture (Salupere, Torop and Kull 2013), which isrich and profound, in order to provide the principles for general semiotics.

Also, the method to be used for the furtherance of semiotics can be derived fromLotman’s thought. This can be derived from the principle of incompatibility – stating thatthe aim of our scholarly work is to make the descriptions logically compatible, consistent.The same principle of incompatibility allows us to formulate the difference between thearts and the sciences in a logically consistent way. While the arts use implicit incompat-ibilities to make meanings (thus producing the multiple interpretations with tensionbetween these), the function of sciences, instead, is to make the incompatibilities explicit.The two major domains of sciences differ namely in this: the incompatibilities can bemade explicit by either (a) removing them (physical sciences) – then the study objects willnot include incompatibilities (which is the case of physical objects), or (b) just describingthem (semiotic sciences) – then objects may include incompatibilities (as it should alwaysbe in case of semiosic objects). Thus, once again, semiotics can be defined as such a studyof meaning-making systems in which the aspect of meaning-making is explicitlydescribed.

AcknowledgementsI thank Mihhail Lotman and Ekaterina Velmezova for creative conversations and co-work.

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Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

FundingThis work is related to the project IUT2–44 (Semiotic modelling of self-description mechanisms:Theory and applications), and the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory (supported by theEuropean Union through the European Regional Development Fund).

Notes1. Including the initiation of the collective manifesto on semiotics of culture in 1973. See

Salupere, Torop and Kull (2013).2. Cf. the evaluation by Vyacheslav V. Ivanov (whom J. Lotman regarded very highly), in the last

paragraph of his ‘From the next century’ (Ivanov 1994, 490): ‘I think that Lotman’s plan tomake all semiotic fields of knowledge into a mathematically exact science, closely connectedto natural science (biology) and history, will be achieved next century, to which Lotmanbelongs with all his testament of thoughts’.

3. J. Lotman, in an interview with K. Kull, June 1992; see Kull (1999).4. We can see this interpretation of Lotman as an aspect of the development of ‘New Tartu

Semiotics’ – the semiotic research in Lotman’s school that started with the establishment of theDepartment of Semiotics in the University of Tartu in 1992 (Torop 2000; Kull et al. 2011;Kull, Lotman 2012) and that has established the connections with the views of the semioticsgroups in Bloomington and Copenhagen, in addition to the earlier co-work with Moscowsemioticians (Deely 2010, 32; 41–42; 95–97).

5. Cf. Peregrin (2011), who proves a statement about the fundamental status of incompatibilityfor logic.

6. Uexküll (1982 [1940]).7. Lotman (1990, 21–35).8. Lotman (1990, 22).9. Uexküll (1982, 9).

10. About translation between umwelten, see Kull and Torop (2011).11. See for a list of definitions of the semiosphere in Kull (1998); it would also be reasonable to

state that there is no real difference between Lotman’s and Hoffmeyer’s (1997) view on thesemiosphere (Hoffmeyer just extends it to include biosemiosis).

12. On the concept of model in Lotman, see also Torop (1999).13. About these summer schools, see Salupere (2012).14. See also Lotman (1988), in which he describes animal movements as sign systems.15. Science (in Russian); in the Russian language, similar to German (Wissenschaft), ‘scientific’ is

not limited to natural sciences, it is rather an academic (systematic and critical) study in general.

Notes on contributorKalevi Kull is Professor of Biosemiotics and head of the Department of Semiotics in the Universityof Tartu, Estonia. His research deals with semiotic approach in biology, mechanisms of biodiversity,and theory and history of semiotics. His works include Jakob von Uexküll: A Paradigm for Biologyand Semiotics, Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the action of Signs (with Claus Emmeche), a.o.He is an editor of book series Semiotics, Communication, Cognition (with Paul Cobley),Biosemiotics (with Jesper Hoffmeyer and Alexei Sharov) and Tartu Semiotics Library, and of thejournal Sign Systems Studies.

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