Book review

Finnish Baroque of
Existential Semiotics:
Eero Tarastis musical
synthesis of the
voluptuous dance of signs

Culture & Psychology

2015, Vol. 21(1) 137141
! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354067X15570487
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Tarasti E Sein und Schein: Explorations in existential semiotics. Mouton de Gruyter:

Berlin, 2015; pp. 461, ISBN- 978-1614512511 price US$ 140
Reviewed by: Jaan Valsiner, University of Aalborg, Denmark
Reading Tarasti is not easy. The authors enormous erudition shows on every page
of the book, and his capability of weaving together various ideas into nice new improvisations seems well supported by his unique reliance on music as the inspiration for
new ideas. Like the movement of a melody, the text in this book could be considered to
approximate Der Ring des Niebelungen in its dramatic elaboration of the earlier version
of existential semiotics into a transcendental one. Tarastimuch like Wagnertakes
the reader through various dramatic expositions of the semiotic square of Algirdas
Greimas, arriving at the basic scheme that takes on the form of letter Z (p. 31, and
especially in chapter 10 where a new theory of performing arts is oered) of the relating
of the personal and the social in the process of semiosis. That schemede facto a nonlinear continuum between dierent structures of Moi and Soiis subsequently applied
to various phenomena of cultural constructionmusic, lm, etc.
Tarastis book is delicious to read, yet for contemporary readers who are used to all
kinds of dieting programsboth culinary and intellectualit includes a thick layer of
philosophical and historical accumulations of knowledge. This book is a treat to the
philosophically sophisticated reader, while a layperson is likely to nd it too complex
for easy reading. The authors style of writing lives up to that of a complex musical
compositiondeep existential philosophical ideas emerge in the middle of chatting
about all key gures of semiotics of today and of the past. The personal stories that are
interspersed with semiotic analyses are refreshing to the reader.
Being-in-myself < > Being-for-myself
Tarastis focus on linking Moi (being-in-myself) and Soi (being-for-myself)
constitutes the core of his existential semiotics. In Tarastis own words,
My intention was to specify the category of Being by providing this basic modality
with new aspects drawn from Kant and Hegel, and to follow the phases of this concept

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further, from Kierkegaard to Sartre and Fontanelle . . . Being-in-itself and Being-formyself were turned into Being-in-and-for-myself in existential semiotics. (p. 29)

This kind of intellectual tradition is deeply grounded in European cultural traditions, and might not resonate very easily with the philosophical traditions of the
Anglo-Saxon world. Yet it links well with cultural psychology today, starting from
the domain of dialogical self (Hermans & Gieser, 2012), and ending with the
dynamic semiosis side of the eld (Valsiner, 2014). Tarastis focus on the
Moi< >Soi tensions and dynamics is a welcome innovation to a eld where categorizations often dominate over the study of processes that generate new subjective moments in our lives.
Dynamics of signs
Tarastis important innovation is in turning the traditionally static focus of semiotics into a dynamic theoretical system. This gives promise for connection with
psychology yet it also brings challenges. The label existential is in some sense a
misnomer, since the dynamics of sign mediation includes both the exploration of
the inner meaning systems of the person, as well as that of a society. What unies
all levels is the focus on dynamics:
Existential semiotics explores the life of signs from within. Unlike most previous
semiotics, which investigated only the conditions of particular meanings, existential
semiotics studies phenomena in their uniqueness. It studies signs in movement and
thus in ux, that is, as signs becoming signs, and dened as pre-signs, act-signs, and
post-signs . . . Completely new sign categories emerge in the tension between reality, as
Dasein, and whatever lies beyond it. We have to make a new list of categories in the
side of that once done by Peirce. Such new signs so far discovered are, among others,
trans-signs, endo- and exo-signs, quasi-signs (or as-igure-signs), and pheno/genosigns. (p. 8)

There is much new in Tarastis book. Still most of the novelties have the character
of little inventions while the author is chasing answers to basic questions. The latter
include the need to make sense of communication.
New models of communication
New semiotics needs new theory of communication. Tarasti provides it (pp. 137
139), overcoming the centrality of the message and the person, in favour of the
context. The examples he provides (p. 138) are three models, all of which involve
directional relation between signs. The relations can change in time, creating new
congurations. Furthermore, there is a coordinated relation between the message
and the context, both of which are constructed:
. . . an artist or a politician, when launching new ideas, at the same time creates the
environment that is appropriate for them. Wagner creates Bayreuth, functionalists

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Bauhaus, semioticians Imatra,1 and so on . . . . It is hard to pay equal attention to both

message and context. If the context is underlied, then no attention is given to the
message which then acts as a side-eect. . . . Any element can cease to be pertinent if
attention is focused on other elements that surround it. (pp. 137138)

There is much support to Tarastis eort to re-think communication theory. The

focus on coordination in the making of the message and its contextor, in other
terms, creating the frameis a key issue in all our communication processes. The
attempted power of mass media testies for that. Yet it also leads to semiotic crisis
(semiocrisis):
In general semiocrisis means that the visible, observable signs of social life do not
correspond to its immanent structures. Signs have lost their isotopies, their connections to their true meanings. Benevolent media try to improve the situation, returning
to the stable good times before the semiocrisis. (p. 153)

If Charles Sanders Peirce were to comment on that situation, he would point out
that it is precisely the openness of signs for new situations that includes rendering
themselves useless. By making the person free from here-and-now, signs make
themselves alienated from their immediate relations with phenomena. Semiocrisis
can be aggravated by the pollution of the semiosphere (p. 148). How is pollution
control possible? Tarastis answer isthrough resistance.
Semiotics of resistance
A whole chapter (chapter 9) is dedicated to semiotic of resistance. This is appropriate. In social contexts involving active meaning-makers it is the role of signs to
correct the avalanche of social suggestions encoded in a multiplicity of sign forms.
We live in a cloud of semiotic dust that all sources of communication throw at us as
more or less explicit social suggestions. We resist the suggestionsencoded
through signsby other signs. The process of communication is not that of a
communion but that of a duelfought by signs and counter-signs. The loser
is to participate in the society that the winner has dened. The existential
becomes consumeristic (Brinkmann, 2008), and the genre of entertainment
becomes a basic need. Semiotics is existential also in the sense of the survival of
the signifying powers, not just of the human beings.
Resistance makes negation possible. This idea is hidden in Tarastis coveragethe 13 types of negation appear long before (p. 11) in the book than the
coverage of resistance (chapter 9). Furthermore, negation of the negation which
is the cornerstone of any systematically dialectical perspective that is to explain the
emergence of novelty, is not systematically covered. Tarastis teacherAlgridas
Greimasdid not focus on novelty, that was left to Tarastis existential semiotics
of year 2000 which now, 14 years later, becomes transcendental. In that move,
resistanceand negation based on itare crucial theoretical ideas, yet the synthesis through the second negation is not elaborated.2 It is implied, though. Tarastis

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transcendental semiotics recognizes the movement in time from what is to what is

not (yet), but it does not chart out any trajectory of development. Developmental
semiotics may need to come after its transcendental relative, perhaps.
The music of food
Semioticians like to eat well. This is evident in Tarastis coverage of semiotics of
food and eating. The important feature of food-related actions is the construction
of elaborate meaningful foods with the ultimate goal of their destruction. All the
sophisticated preparations of fancy foods of deep symbolic meaningsthe gourmet
at its bestend up devoured by the receiving human beings who, despite using the
sophisticated cutlery and dishes for eating, demolish the gentle foods in most barbarous ways. Culture of foods ends at the act of mastication:
The undeniable sad truth is that the semiotic sign of food is at its inception doomed to
destruction, and that this species of signs does not have the same stability as, say,
those of painting, literature or architecture. Gastronomy should thus be equated with
the performing arts of music, theatre, dance, and the like, whose signs are always
bound with time that is understood not only as eeting and fragile moments but as the
very physical basis on which they subsist (p. 247)

Yet before the food reaches the mouth it is an arena of cultural construction in
many ways. Semioticians would always have their daily bread if they deal with
semiotics of foods. Adding to it the possible analyses of the ways foods become to
signify something elsepatriotism, feeling at home, or negotiation of ones beautyand we have a full research program for future semioticians to consume.
Tarasti points to the similarity of eating and musical performance (p. 246), and
this analogy is valid. A musician works with scoreswritten version of musicand
needs to recreate the musical piece in practice, with ones own interpretation.
Similarly, a person who cooks may use a recipe, yet the precise creation of the
food involves improvisation. Going to a restaurant is similar to an evening at a
concert, and devouring a hamburger in a street corner fast-food place is the analogue of a use of ones MP3 player.
Yet the analogy continuesfollowing Marcel Proust, Tarasti adds the activity
of receiving guests into the same category (p. 256). Here I have doubtsfor sure
such activity is transient, but the destructive component (as is present in the case of
foods) might not be similar at all.
Signs as transient relations
Signs are transientthey change from oating to stable. The roots of this modication of otherwise static semiotic schemes go back to the disputes between
Schelling and Hegel in early 19th century (p. 269), with further support from our
contemporary John Deeley (p. 272). The critical innovation comes on
p. 274changing the signicant and signie relation, a static borrowing from de
Saussure, into a membrane:

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Signiant
x x "j x x "j x x
Signie

Yet the arrows are oriented only in one direction. And what is missing is a set of
conditionscatalytic circumstances (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) perhapsthat could
reverse the direction of these arrows.
Nevertheless, the new focus on relationship allows Tarasti to integrate Jakob
von Uxkulls biosemiotic model of semiosis into his programme of existential semiotics. Biological terms are seductiveTarasti elaborates on the notion of semiogerm (pp. 278279), but fails to take the implications of that notion to its full
potentials. He also fails to understand the full meaning of Theodor Lipps
notion of Einfuhlung (p. 279) considering it enlivening by acquaintance, and
focusing on Ausfuhlung instead. If one remains committed to von Uexkulls
Funtionskreis idea, the feeling into the world feeds further into new signs that
emerge from that feeling.
In sum, Eero Tarasti has created his Magnum Opus. He has benetted from his
deep knowledge of music, and has used that knowledge at every junction of his
theory building. The book is similar to a complex orchestra performance in which
dierent groups of instruments are given less or more voice at dierent phases of
the unfolding of the story by the conductor who is constantly ready to improvise.
The result is a remarkable contribution to the sphere of understanding of the
complexity of the human mind. The author allows no cheap shortcut to the supercial interests of the unprepared crowds. And that is a major contribution in the
21st century to any science of the human beings.

Notes
1 Tarasti himself has been the key figure in this history of semiotics summer schools, well
documented in the book.
2 For instance, none of the 13 negation types on p. 11 are set up to work upon one another.
They couldparody of destruction (both listed as negation types) can create a basis for
new construction of idea. We see many examples of parody in efforts to overcome social
fetishes and stupidities, in art, literature, and theatre.

References
Brinkmann, S. (2008). Changing psychologies in the transition from industrial society to
consumer society. History of the Human Sciences, 21(2), 85110.
Cabell, K. R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.) (2014). The catalyzing mind. New York, NY: Springer.
Hermans, H., & Gieser, T. (Eds.) (2012). Handbook of the dialogical self theory. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Valsiner, J. (2014). Invitation to cultural psychology. London, UK: Sage.

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