Making Sense, Making Science

220 Pages·2020·4.125 MB·English

by  Astrid Guillaume, Lia Kurts-Wöste

Making Sense, Making Science
Series Editor
François Rastier
Making Sense,
Making Science

Edited by

Astrid Guillaume
Lia Kurts-Wöste
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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The rights of Astrid Guillaume and Lia Kurts-Wöste to be identified as the authors of this work have been
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941617

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-579-4
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Astrid GUILLAUME and Lia KURTS-WÖSTE
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix
François RASTIER
Part 1. Semiotic Foundations of the Cultural Sciences . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1. Cassirer and Symbolic Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Jean LASSÈGUE
1.1. Unity and diversity of modes of objectification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.1. Modes of objectification in the transcendental tradition . . . . . . . 3
1.1.2. The geometric objectification crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. The harmonics of forms: internalization and exportation . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.1. Interdisciplinarity of the transformation group concept . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2. Beyond the transformation group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3. From the social sciences to the natural sciences and back again:
the example of statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.1. The internal historical transformation of the
statistical paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.2. Back to social sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
vi Making Sense, Making Science
Chapter 2. Leroi-Gourhan and the Birth of the
Symbolic Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Arild UTAKER
2.1. The image of man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2. The human body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3. The hand and the tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4. Technique and language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5. Language and visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6. Memory and history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 3. Simondon, Language and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Vincent BONTEMS
3.1. The precedence of technology over language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2. Simondon’s technological vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3. For a diagram of the technical lineages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Part 2. Hermeneutics of Science, Hermeneutical Sciences . . . . . . 45
Chapter 4. On the Philosophy of Mathematics: Reflections
on “Making Science”, Based on Cavaillès . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Franck NEVEU
4.1. Mathematics, a precondition of rational philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2. Reasoning by the absurd and excluded middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3. The final causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4. “Universally true” judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.5. The linguistic problem of mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.6. The epistemological break: the explanatory versus
comprehensive method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.7. The understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.8. Mathematics as becoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.9. Truth and metalanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.10. The theoretical in difficulty, an aspect of the epistemological
shift in linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Contents vii
Chapter 5. The Semiotic Articulation of Textual Meaning:
Significance, Signification, Designation and Expression . . . . . . . . 63
Régis MISSIRE
5.1. The articulation of meaning according to three semiotic
relations: signification, designation and expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1.1. The relation of signification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1.2. Designation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.1.3. Relation of expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.2. Significance and meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2.1. Significance and signification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.2.2. Significance and designation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.2.3. Significance and expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 6. Semiotics of Cultures and Theoretical
Hybridities: For a Renewal of Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Astrid GUILLAUME
6.1. Theories: cultural objects in transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6.2. Definitional reminder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.3. Status of the arts and religious sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.4. Geometric plasticity of theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.5. Theorists and the evolution of theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.6. Polysemy of cultural fact and scientific rigor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.7. The return of diachrony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Part 3. Literature and Arts Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Chapter 7. Challenges of Non-logocentric Semiotics
of Cultures: Explorations Based on Music
and the Notion of Significativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Lia KURTS-WÖSTE
7.1. Interpretative action, hermeneutic science and the general
hermeneutization of the sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.2. Hermeneutics of non-verbal objects: a challenge for the
semiotics of cultures, a benefit for thinking about the reinsertion
of a theory of meaning into a theory of stakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
viii Making Sense, Making Science
7.3. Significativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.4. Music and the hermeneutics of significativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.5. Modal hermeneutics and engagement strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.6. Science of the arts and the esthetic intention of the
semiotics of cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
7.7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Chapter 8. The Roles of a Semiotics of the Arts:
Working Hypotheses for Overcoming the Shortcomings
of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Pierluigi BASSO-FOSSALI
8.1. Some remedies for previous theoretical abuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.1.1. Partial approaches, all powerful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.1.2. A hermeneutic paradigm for a semiotic ecology . . . . . . . . . . . 133
8.1.3. Skepticism and responsive aptitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.2. Some remedies for the universalization brought about
by postmodernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.2.1. A non-ethnocentric aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.2.2. The (un)manageable nature of primitive art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.2.3. In search of a meaningful place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3. Some remedies to institutionalized nominalism of art . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.3.1. Art as a displayed vulnerability of institutions:
maestria in minor mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.3.2. Art as a fracture of proximity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.3.3. Allopathic regime and the vulnerability of art . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.4. Some methodological remedies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.4.1. The work and its spaces of relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.4.2. Cultural identity between analysis and interpretation . . . . . . . . . 152
8.4.3. Methodology and knowing anew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
8.5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Bernard REBER
List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Preface
Progress - The image of Newtonian physics has enslaved
the divine sciences, then the humanities.
Why value the hard science?
They are so insecure, so fearful, so rightly modest.
François Vaucluse, Épistémologie minimale, 2019 (authors’ translation)
This book, Making Sense, Making Science, is the summary of three colloquia
held at Sorbonne University in 2015, 2016 and 2017 : “Humanités et sciences de la
culture” (Humanities and Cultural Sciences)1, “Saussure et l’avenir des sciences de
la culture, Vingt ans après De l’essence double du language” (Saussure and the
Future of Cultural Sciences – Twenty Years After De l’essence double du langage)2
and “Faire sens, faire science” (Making Sense, Making Science)3. This last
colloquium, conceived as an unofficial tribute to the work of François Rastier, was
also intended to take stock of the progress made in the cultural sciences since the
colloquium “Textes, documents, œuvre (Autour de François Rastier)” (Texts,

1 May 2015, symposium organized by Astrid Guillaume and François Rastier: https://www.
fabula.org/actualites/humanites-et-sciences-de-la-culturequestions-d-avenir_66796.php (accessed
July 23, 2019).
2 May 2016, symposium organized by Astrid Guillaume and François Rastier: https://www. fabula.
org/actualites/saussure-et-l-avenir-des-sciences-de-la-culture-vingt-ans-apres-de-l-essence-double-
du-langage_73571.php (accessed July 23, 2019).
3 November 2017, symposium organized by Astrid Guillaume, Lia Kurts, Franck Neveu and
François Rastier: https://www.fabula.org/actualites/faire-sens-faire-science-colloque_81424. php
(accessed July 23, 2019).
x Making Sense, Making Science
documents, works (concerning François Rastier),4 which was held in 2012 in Cerisy-
la-Salle.
Faire sens. De la cognition à la culture is the title of a work by François Rastier
in which he presents his interpretative praxeology and cleverly distinguishes it from
cognitivist approaches (Rastier 2018). It is interesting to note that he recalls
Saussure’s essential contribution to “pragmatic” thinking in linguistics, because this
interpretation of the Saussurian corpus is still insufficiently disseminated.
Indeed, while the pragmatic or praxeological approach is spontaneously associated
with Peircean theory, the Saussurian theoretical gesture, which consisted of
“repatriating the signified in languages” and, jointly, taking as its central theme the
“life” of signs within societies, naturally leads to the recognition that the signified and
the signs themselves are the result of forgotten interpretative actions, depending on the
context of interpretation, itself conditioned by the consideration of multiple parameters,
notably the corpus of emergence. At the same time, this perspective thus leads us to
recognize that the traditional distinction between semantics and pragmatics is irrelevant:
linguistic signs are more or less decontextualized “passages” of texts. Moreover, it also
means recognizing scientific meta-language as a responsible fact that is constantly
concerned with finding the most relevant criteria for legitimizing interpretation.
This work aims to recognize that “in the scientific field the interpretative act is not
only in the terminus ad quem, but also in the terminus a quo. It is in the sequencing of
‘data’, in the construction of facts, in the theoretical framework, in the selection of
relevance, and generally in all the analysis a priori. Knowing how to take into account
the false absence of the researcher in the analysis supposes never abandoning reflexive
thinking. Consequently, it also makes it possible to maintain the hermeneutic attention
necessary for scientific activity”, as Franck Neveu reminds us in his contribution.
In addition, Faire sens, faire science (Making Sense, Making Science), from cela
fait sens in French or “that makes sense” in English, implies various significant
elements that are explained here5,6.

4 July 2012, symposium organized by Driss Ablali, Sémir Badir and Dominique Ducard:
http://www. ccic-cerisy.asso.fr/rastier12.html (accessed 23 July 2019); proceedings published
in Ablali et al. (2014).
5 Lia Kurts-Wöste intends to publish a work that explores two new complementary semiotic
notions, significativity and “making sense”, with a transdisciplinary value, contributing to the
current renewal of the epistemology of cultural sciences, notably by integrating an intersemiotic
perspective (music): the analyses produced here are taken from this work currently being
prepared.
6 Editors’ note: the text below describes the problems encountered when proposing the title in
English, from our native language of French.