Eetu Pikkarainen

This collected volume celebrates the life and work of the late Andrew Stables, a renowned scholar in semiotics and in educational philosophy and theory. He is known, in particular, for having pioneered the semiotic approach to education. This book celebrates his work with scholarly contributions by leading researchers in these areas of scholarship, reflecting on Andrew Stables’ thought and intellectual legacy. The contributions are interdisciplinary, which reflects Stables’ eclectic work. Also included are new and unpublished texts of Andrew Stables. The text is divided into three parts: Philosophy of Education, Learning as Semiotic, and Environmental Literacies. It appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of education broadly, semiotic-oriented approaches to education, as well as discussions on multimodality.

This chapter looks back at Andrew Stables’ essential contribution to semiotic approaches to education. Its aim is to show how Stables’ contribution to edusemiotics is situated in his own intellectual journey, and in a research tradition that mobilizes semiology and semiotics to understand educational processes. While Andrew Stables himself studied the dynamics of meaning in education by drawing extensively on philosophy (notably on classical sources), he also fostered the development of a network of researchers from a wide variety of theoretical traditions, allowing for the emergence of a complex and multi-referential approach to the processes of meaning-making at play in educational settings.

In this chapter I consider Andy’s views on ontological or metaphysical questions in semiotics and the philosophy of education in relation to my somewhat different. The most apparent difference is, of course, that Andy was much more minimalist than I have been, but I also remark some other details. Andy’s manuscript Minimal Ontological Realism as Pragmatist Foundation, and the Ethics of Responsibility, which is posthumously published in this volume, is an important source because in it, he developed and explicated his views more clearly than in many of his earlier texts. I agree with Andy that ontological realism is better kept minimal, especially in semiotics and philosophy of education because a less minimal view can easily be too restrictive both for theoretical and practical developments. However, there may be some limits which render minimalism too restrictive; and in addition, it may be that Andy’s commitment to process ontology is not so minimalist as one could hope.

This collected volume celebrates the life and work of the late Andrew Stables, a renowned scholar in semiotics and in educational philosophy and theory. He is known, in particular, for having pioneered the semiotic approach to education. This book celebrates his work with scholarly contributions by leading researchers in these areas of scholarship, reflecting on Andrew Stables' thought and intellectual legacy. The contributions are interdisciplinary, which reflects Stables' eclectic work. Also included are new and unpublished texts of Andrew Stables. The text is divided into three parts: Philosophy of Education, Learning as Semiotic, and Environmental Literacies. It appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of education broadly, semiotic-oriented approaches to education, as well as discussions on multimodality.

Among the biggest challenges facing the contemporary human condition, and therefore also education, is responding to the climate crisis. One of the sources of the crisis is assumed to be _absent-mindedness_, presented by Leslie Dewart as a distortion of the development of human consciousness. Dewart’s poorly-known philosophical consciousness study is presented in this paper in broad outline. The problems in the study of consciousness, the most important of which are the qualitative representations—qualia—and the question of free will, are also briefly discussed. These problems are then examined transcendental analytically, with the question of what one must assume in order to allow the emergence of these phenomena. From the resulting conception of causal relationship, we proceed to the circular causality as a prerequisite for life, namely the homeostatic systems and negative feedback. An organization of action that is essential to animals and humans is presented, using William Powers’ perceptual control theory (PCT), and the role of consciousness in this organization is drafted according to the studies of Martin Taylor. Action is seen as continuous problem solving, in which negative feedback is used to bring perceptions into line with the goals. The fundamental function of consciousness is revealed as the direction and enhancement of learning. Based on PCT, it can be shown that the main practical problems in animal and, especially, human action, are related to adverse side effects of action and the resulting various conflicts. The climate crisis is a typical example of the problematic side effects of collective action. Dewart’s concept of absent-mindedness can therefore be defined as an inability to responsibly account for the side effects of action. Thus, the main task of education is to forestall, through negative feedback and in cooperation with learner consciousness, absent-mindedness and the problems it causes.

Semiotic Theory of Learning asks what learning is and what brings it about, challenging the hegemony of psychological and sociological constructions of learning in order to develop a burgeoning literature in semiotics as an educational foundation. 　Drawing on theoretical research and its application in empirical studies, the book attempts to avoid the problematization of the distinction between theory and practice in semiotics. It covers topics such as signs, significance and semiosis; the ontology of learning; the limits of learning; ecosemiotics; ecology and sexuality. The book is written by five of the key figures in the semiotics field, each committed to the belief that living is a process of interaction through acts of signification with a signifying environment. While the authors are agreed on the value of semiotic frameworks, the book aims not to present an entirely coherent line in every respect, but rather to reflect ongoing scholarship and debates in the area. In light of this, the book offers a range of possible interpretations of major semiotic theorists, unsettling assumptions while offering a fresh, and still developing, series of perspectives on learning from academics grounded in semiotics. Semiotic Theory of Learning is a timely and valuable text that will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of educational studies, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, applied linguistics and media studies.

Learning and adaptation are central problems to both edusemiotics, or semiotics of education, and biosemiotics. Bildung, as an especially human way or form of learning, and evolution as the main form of adaptation for many biologists after Darwin are often regarded as mutually exclusive concepts even though human beings are undeniably one biological species among others. In this article I will try to build a bridge between the biosemiotical, edusemiotical and Bildung-theoretical stances. Central to this discussion is biosemiotician Kalevi Kull and some of his recent publications where he considers adaptation, evolution and learning. The primary theoretical resource that I utilize here, in addition to the general Greimassian, edusemiotical and Bildungtheoretical starting points, is perceptual control theory (PCT) to which I compare the Uexkullian conception of functional circle.

This study is about the meaning of education and the concept of meaning. The main aim is to develop a meta-theoretical object theory of education i.e. a theory about the research object of science of education, one which would be a valid reflection basis both for methodological and meta-theoretical questions of educational scientific research and for general pedagogical discussions. The development is based on the continental tradition of general pedagogy which acknowledges the pedagogical paradox by distinguishing between the concepts of educational influence and Bildung, and sees the need to unite them in the concept of pedagogical action. The basic ideas of general pedagogy are analyzed and explicated using the concepts developed in Greimassian semiotics. For example, the Greimassian core concepts like subject, competence, performance and manipulation offer good reasons for its use also in a pedagogical context. The semiotic theory is modified to make it more suitable for typical pedagogical questions. This is done by making the concept of meaning its basic concept. The aim is to make a dynamic and flexible theory which would better encapsulate an action which utilizes different semiotic systems and transfers from one system to another, like pedagogical action transfers from bio-semiotic communication to language and culture. The concept of meaning is approached firstly by relating it to the concepts of causality and structure. The analysis arrives at a result whereby, in spite of the close connections, the meaning relationship must be differentiated from causal relationships, and that only living beings can have meaning relationships. The meanings are based on the action of organisms and the semiotic competence of organisms is their precondition. Furthermore, the linguistic and cultural meanings of human beings must be distinguished as a special area with special features, like a partial or apparent detachment from immediate action and collectively binding semiotic systems which are changing historically because of people's action. Pedagogical action as a whole can be understood to be a meaningful object, with a deep structure that can be analyzed with semiotic concepts as a tension between the basic values of Nature and Culture. Following the semiotic theory of the generation of meaning, the structure of pedagogical action is analyzed as interaction of subjects who are trying to solve the tension between the basic values. The most important task for the follow-up studies is the continuation of the analysis to the empirical surface of the pedagogical action.

Eetu Pikkarainen describes the educational thinking of Johann AmosComenius (1592-1670) from a perspective of Bildung -theoretical problems. Comenius has had a remarkable influence on modern education, particularly through his language-learning and general didactical methods and principles. However, Comenius’ broader pansophic views have had somewhat more benign later effects. Comenius developed a reformation programme concerning the ‘main areas’ of reality, from theology and education to philosophy and language to social questions and world peace. This program has important connections to the modern theories of Bildung. Comenius connects individual human growth with global issues such as the growth of scientific knowledge, the justice of political systems, and world peace. In his philosophy, Comenius strongly criticises the problems of the rising modern thinking such as trapping to dualisms. From that angle, Comenius appears an almost postmodern thinker with surprising similarity to the thoughts of C S Peirce.

This entry addresses the action theoretical semiotics derived from A. J. Greimas’s theory and positions it in the context of edusemiotics. Greimas’s narratological theory is discussed and investigated in terms of its fruitfulness for education. The entry focuses on the major features of Greimas’s theory such as his famous actantial model as well as the anthropomorphic, or human- and subject-centered, approach in general. According to Greimas, at the core of the meaning of every significant discourse, there lies a typical human situation within which the actants – or entities that assume certain roles in a narrative story – function as Subject and Object, Sender and Receiver, and at times also as Helper and Opponent. Greimas’s central analytic tools, the semiotic square and the generative model, are interpreted in dynamic terms and applied to the analysis of education as a meaningful practice. These tools help us see education as a value-based action and shed a critical light on the presupposed dualism between nature and culture in the context of education. For the analysis of action, Greimas’s major concepts prove themselves to be especially useful. The conception of competences expressed, specifically, in modal verbs such as want, can, know, and must is significant for education. As such, education becomes an action that strives to develop students’ competences.

In this article, the concept of competence is studied from the point of view of the semiotics of education. It will be claimed that it is a central key concept when we are trying to analyse the meaning of education. Educational action can be reasonably understood as an insecure and complicatedly mediated trial to affect another person's competence. First, the recent discussion about the concept of competence and its relatives is shortly reviewed. Then, competence is analysed and defined according to Greimassian semiotic theory as a basic determining character of an acting subject. At the same time as competence is indispensably central for understanding the subjects of action, it is problematically empirically ineffable. This ineffability has a special meaning in education, where we must try to both plan our own educative action and evaluate the learning of the student according to these invisible features. It is proposed that in the recent discourse of education, the very popular use of the concept of competence is misguided and problematically mixed with its conceptual counterpart performance. From this viewpoint, the concept of competence should rather be connected to the ontological concept of disposition. The problem of multi-dimensionality of competence is considered with the help of the Greimassian conception of modalities to create a richer and more detailed picture of the role of competence in action, and especially in education

How can we theoretically and philosophically study the problem of values and authority in the context of education? The chapter uses the framework of action theoretical semiotics developed mainly on the conceptual structures of Greimassian semiotic theory. This detailed and elaborated theory of human discourse (utilized usually in terms of literary and “cultural” texts) will be expanded by biosemiotic and Peircean points of view to fit in the special problem area of education as transformation or extension from the biosemiotic and zoosemiotic sphere to anthroposemiotic sphere: from nature to culture. The main theoretical starting point for action theoretical semiotics is the concept of meaning which is defined as relationship of an object to the action of the subject. The chapter will connect the action theoretical semiotics to the conception of Bildung and modern idea of the normativity of the rational inference by, e.g., contemporary philosopher of semantics Robert Brandom, to consider the educational implications of this semiotic view.

In this article I try to show that the most deep level ontology can have rich meaning for our understanding of such practical and everyday phenomena as education and interaction. With this deep level ontology I mean the problem of universals. Starting from famous traditional stances of realism and nominalism, which both are for the modern theories of growth and Bildung, I continue to the third and more recently developed ontological theory, trope theory according to which the properties (qualities, relations etc.) are real (unlike in nominalism) but not universal (like in realisms). Then I will take a closer look at the trope theory of CB Martin. According to it every causal event is an interaction event between simple or complex beings in which their existing dispositions may produce manifesting properties. This point of view is radically anti dualistic because that basic level causal interaction has in the simplified forms all the elements of semiotic, meaningful of mental activity of such complex beings likes humans and animals. Ome of the main general conclusions of the article is that all causal affections contain a kind of “interpretation” from the side of affected object.

In this article, I attempt to describe how certain theoretical constructions of semiotics could be applied in educational theoretical work. First I introduce meaning as a basic concept of semiotics, thus also touching on concepts such as action, competence and causality. I am then able to define learning as a change of competences, and also refer to the pedagogical concept of learning i.e. Bildung, which can be roughly defined as valuable human learning. I then take up the problem of education as pedagogical direction and communication. Finally, I conclude with some considerations on the famous Greimassian semiotic square