How could we conceive of artefacts in a non-Cartesian world? We might try to investigate, how entities in general -- i.e. whatever we can differentiate, but before we divide in material vs. mental or any other categorization -- interact among themselves rather than how they impress themselves separately upon us. In a Cartesian view of the world, subjects or cognitive systems "in" humans, in particular, or res cogitantes, are thought apriorily to be completely different from objects, i.e. material givens or artefacts. The latter are considered just another form of res extensae, although they are systematically formed by humans, usually with mind involved, rather than arise just by themselves or by "nature".

This Cartesian perspective produces a highly fastidious notion of the relation between humans and the world, quite uncommon among cultures in the rest of the world. It is a relation of opposition between humans and nature, in despise of the fact that man is also a part of nature. If "ecological" refers to systems of genuine exchange between mutually dependent parts such as living entities and their living conditions, the Cartesian view of man is un-ecological if not anti-ecological.

As a consequence, occidental science has restricted itself for centuries to research how material entities have effects on material entities. And although the ensuing understanding is quite advanced, it is necessarily attained by a cognitive system. And shared knowledge, indispensable in social systems, is based on exchange between cognitive systems by means of symbols, linguistic, mathematical, diagrammatic, and similar entities which all are, obviously, at the same time material and mental. Our understanding of the world would then appear quite precarious in view of the fact, that we do only superficially understand how cognitive systems interact with each other and that we are altogether ignorant on how material entities act upon cognitive systems or how cognitive systems act upon material things. This is even true for the relation between cognitive facts and symbols while both partake in material and mental domains. Nobody has ever claimed the mental part of a symbol to interact with its material aspect; yet, if these are separate domains, how are they united in symbols and in brain-minds?

Dualistic world views thrive in the minds of people, but they fail in explaining their actions and have widely been given up in science for some apparently and allegedly monistic versions. Yet the contemporary materialistic analysis of the world misses essentials, and the opposing mentalistic constructions with their verbal bias risk of confounding the signifying with the signified. We have become used to saying that the latter, though they are mental in nature, need some material brain, and the former, though material in nature, partake in something mental. All this is not more than an undeveloped postulate. It is essentially contradictory to claim the universe to be material, yet, in order to state and communicate that fact, to rely exactly on somekind of mental entity.

In a non-Cartesian view, on the other hand, it is as exciting as relieving to postulate that cognitive systems and artefacts are similar in many respects. Also, there is no need to separately conceive of so-called mentifacts, i.e. symbolic artefacts (see Posner 1989) or "World 3" entities (Popper 1972). Triadic semiotic elaborated from the original proposals of C.S. Peirce has a potential of overcoming the Cartesian split between the two (or three) worlds, because both cognitive systems and artefacts can be seen as signs and signs are neither material nor mental. Leaving out either of these characters of signs misses exactly their sign quality. But separating them from each other leaves out of consideration exactly their most interesting potential. Indeed, Peirce considered "thought" (CP 5.594/1903), "human beings themselves" (CP 5.314/1868 or W 2:241, P 27), and perhaps "the entire universe", including, of course, artefacts, to be composed of signs (CP 5.448/1906) or "a vast representamen" (CP 5.119/1903; Peirce exaggerates a bit). "But a sign is not a sign unless it translates itself into another sign in which it is more fully developed" (CP 5.594 /1903). The question then is, to be asked of cognitive systems as well as of artefacts, how they are translated into other signs. And also, to ask Peirce, how signs can translate and develop themselves.

Against this background I propose here to proceed by Peirce's method of abductive inference (CP 5.171/1903; W2:217/1868, P 27). An explanatory hypothesis is suggested -- to see artefacts or cultural facts in general as sign-aspects or components of semioses that have no separate existence but as parts of ecological or person-environment-systems. Observations are then gathered to illuminate or to infer amendments of the hypothesis; until it proves itself nonsensical in the pragmaticists' sense, refutation is delayed in favor of progressive clarification and modification. (I speak here to keep things in range of "persons" and their environment; yet I could well generalize to living and many other entities found in similar relation with their environs.)

Starting from the (early) Peircean triadic conception of an object (i.e. the referent), a representamen (i.e. the sign vehicle or representant) and an interpretant seen in a mediating function (W2:53f./1867, P32, et passim; see also Scherer 1984), a "psychological" interpretation of semiotics is proposed. "Psychological", in this context, should not be confounded with mental. It means not much more than: include people or organisms when you look at artefacts. Psychology, the indispensable companion of a process-oriented semiotics, in my opinion, must be performed as a view from outside. For, speaking about internal or "mental signs", nothing can be publicly known about anything mental that has not been transformed from the inner mental-and-brain process into an external matter-energy-formation, i.e. a sign, be it functional (e.g. acts, objects, spaces) or symbolic (e.g. images or language, spoken or written) or both (see also W2:213/1868, P 27). Following Peirce's suggestion I understand as signs both artefacts and the psychological organization or "mind" (for lack of a better term) in the individual; but from then on I forget about Peirce's partial mentalism and at the same time avoid to fall into Morris' inconsequential materialism. The psychology available at Peirce's epoch was a Bewusstseinspsychologie, the one of Morris' was positivistic Behaviorism; it should be possible today to see the limits of both by exactly following lines towards a third kind, an ecological and semiotic psychology. Following Peirce's implicit advice that "this act [of comparison or making reference to a correlate] has not been sufficiently studied by the psychologists" (W2:53/1867, P32) and judging this statement as still correct today, I take the liberty of re-interpreting 20th century Cartesian psychological knowledge, whether materialistic or mentalistic in approach, to fit my purpose. That evidently exacts a fundamental reconstruction of psychology [and opens a path to lead semiotic out of its dualistic confines]. This should well be distinguished from so-called psychologism.

Semiosis thus is the process of producing and operating of both culture and mind; it is generally conceived as structure formation under the guidance of existing structures. Structure formations in and between living systems are historical processes. Although natural laws are not broken by the making of organic or artefactual structures, such formations are not sufficiently specified by the natural laws alone, because they are the offspring of encounters amongst two or more local systems, the laws of each of them might be known, yet not those of their particular historical compound. It is nonsensical to formulate and impossible to validate a law that will be valid only once and no more for ever if the encountering systems have no chance to meet again in the same states and under the same conditions. Living systems and some other types of systems are exactly of that historical nature. In particular, what is generally understood as the meaning of a sign (or the resulting interpretant of a semiosis in the later and today more common Peircean view) may be the dark depths of the mental trap. Once we have made the switch and consider all entities we can observe or conceive of to inseparably involve three aspects, viz. material, energetic and (in)formative, then what results from perceptual or cognitive processes is in any case just another such structure, as is the result of behavior or action. It is equally impossible to have matter without energy or energy without matter as it is to have both together, except in a formation. In addition it appears of no fundamental import, whether such formations are more transient or lasting, and whether they are located within or outside an organism or include both.

I use the terms formation and structure to refer to any observable matter-energy-compaction that has a discernible form. This definition includes formations that are formed the way they are by necessity, i.e. by physico-chemical law, or arbitrarily, i.e. by historical processes or unique encounters of two or more separate entities. In the first or closed system case determination is perfect; in the second or open system case a new formation results, under limiting constraints, but unpredictable from either subsystem alone, although the two subsystems up to the moment of their encounter may prove perfectly determined in retrospect. This definition, however, excludes all that has no specifiable place in space and time. It cannot therefore include anything called "mental". Thus entities such as numbers or concepts or companies are exactly then formations when they are signs, i.e. when they are incorporated in a matter-energy-formation such as a (necessary though obscure) brain structure or state, a sound wave, a trace on paper or bits in a computer, an office at an address and with people to address during office hours. There is no point in assuring the permanent existence of numbers or concepts, because they can only have effects when they are incorporated at some time and place. Be aware that this is not a materialistic view, because any physico-chemical description of the formation might miss its essential existence or informative potential.[This is so because in order to described physically, a system has to be considered isolation from its environment; and being in interaction with other systems is the essential character of systems from a certain complexity onwards.]

Furthermore, formations are then called structures when they to some degree resist influences from their surrounds "which would otherwise result in de-formation -- and/or when they have a potential of producing or having produced anaforms of themselves (see below for an explanation of this new term). This is no sharp and certainly no categorical distinction, but rather an inclusion of degree and point of view within the superset of formations. Yet a formation is an observable, structure must be inferred. All formations have a particular structurization, to be morphologically described, i.e. they have a place and a time, discernible parts and relations and other characters. When relations between parts are found to be of a non-accidental character, i.e. when there is some degree or organization or when there is a rule as to their construction, we tend to speak of structures. Structures can be ordered aggregates or wholes or parts of wholes. It is of no import whether their organizing principle is intrinsic, such as in organisms or kinship systems, or whether it is extrinsic, such as in artefacts (buildings or cities or the law or myths or any "text" in the structuralist's sense) or whether it rests in both. In fact, the third of these cases is the most common if not the only possible (perhaps I also exaggerate a bit). You cannot shape an object or build a house to your blueprint while neglecting the physico-chemical properties of your raw material and the static and dynamic conditions of their arrangement: what is extrinsic, what intrinsic? Often a slight deconstruction or simple change in a formation can result in a fundamental structure change, such as removing a link of a chain or adding a person to a group or closing the door of a meeting or repeating a phrase or putting it in quotes.

Structures are semiotically interesting only insofar as they are not completely determined by natural law but, in addition, by historical processes, although, of course nothing in them conflicts, I repeat, with nature's laws in any respect. In addition, whereas non-structure-formations are necessarily determined by and completely at mercy of their local composition and/or their surrounding conditions, structures maintain "themselves" somewhat apart or are made to withstand to some degree. They hold a certain autonomy within certain limits of external influence. They keep themselves or are kept buffered against some influence from or can become a partial master of their surrounds. In other words, structures in some respect obey their proper domain or profile of, instead of the totality of, the natural laws. E.g. crystals or organisms select (and reject) molecules from their surrounds and they arrange them not merely conforming to, say, gravity or other external field forces but rather according to local preference and organization; it is therefore that they are considered to be structures as long as they do not decay. Proteins are probably of the most important and prevailing structures of this kind. Also artefacts are mostly shaped or constructed to fulfil specific structural properties, and although their organization principle is perhaps primarily extrinsic (when compared with organisms) and they eventually also decay into other formations, they can be and often are repaired and replicated and procreated (as are proteins). The Shinto-shrines at Ise (Japan) exist since 690 A.D. although, or rather because, they are rebuilt in mimetic anaforms every 20 years. Again, be aware of not interpreting these statements ontologically; the structures of one context are often formations of another and vice versa, e.g. crystals and organisms as totalities underlie gravitational or other forces, and the Matterhorn is physically a random formation but a structure in perception.

Insofar as structures are formed to retain their specific formative character, they are usually said to contain information. It would be better to conceive of them in a more neutral way as particularly specified energy-matter-formations (or "formations" for short), which may (Peirce would perhaps have written: must) have resulted from and can also underlie semiotic processes. Processes of encounter between two structures, or of a formation and a structure, often result in the production of an anaform, i.e. one further structure, be it a new third or a modified second one. A chair thus is a sitting anaform to human anatomy or vice versa; the word "homme" is an anaform of the word "Mensch" by and for the comparing or interpreting dictionary writer or reader; this knowledge is an anaform gained by reading of that text, etc. The representant structure results from, is a part of and stands for (represents) that singular semiotic referent-with-interpretant-encounter-triad.

This deliberation should make clear that no formation or structure "contains" or "is" information per se; rather (in)formation depends on the particular interpretant involved. One formation in-forms another, its anaform, by mediation of a third. The same object may serve in turn as a referent for various interpretants, thus forming different representants and implying a variety of informations. Any particular referent informs its representant [1] and any particular representant is informed, and in turn capable of informing, about its referent in the perspective of a particular interpretant. Any description of a formation, and even more so of a structure -- because comparisons of formations are entirely in the beholder, whereas descriptions of structures can refer to their organizing principle which must be assumed to have effect also in re and thus give justifiably raise to {natural or cultural) class concepts --, is therefore to be considered as just one of a set of descriptions and should be accompanied by some indication of the particular interpretant involved.

By way of example, the physical description of an object such as what is called, e.g., a stone, is the representant of just one particular interpretant, viz. the science of physics or chemistry with their concepts and methods. Another interpretant such as a cultural knowledge or value attitude might describe the same object as a gem or as a gift from a beloved person or as a weapon to throw and, in the latter cases, it carries or informs of a social bond or opposition. Many more interpretants could take up the same individual object and produce more and further anaforms. It does not matter whether the gist of the triadic sign stems primarily from the referent or rather from the interpretant or equally from both. While a chemical composition or a physical mass description of the object are anaforms, the specifics of which refer in terms of a standardiszed interpretant largely to the referent or object -- we call it therefore "objective" --, the romantic love interpretant, on the other hand and as a rule, is a quite stronger determinant of its representants in comparison to its referents, wherefore the triad is called "symbolic" or "subjective"; any other object might have been chosen in the first place to no great immediate avail for the effective reality of its social meaning.

"Information" then is neither in the object, nor in the subject, but obviously is a character of the sign as a whole; it characterizes an unique semiotic triad and involves essentially characters of all three of its components: referent, interpretant and representant formations. Anaformation, on the other hand, is a synonym for semiosis understood as structure formation. The representant formation resulting from a semiotic process can transfer, in a singular or rule-determined or lawfully repeated way, formative characters from either or both the referent and the interpretant formations. Representants thus bear an anaform relation to referents and/or interpretants. Anaformation, in addition, is the fundamental instrument of development, i.e. of stability and change in the world of signs, insofar as anaform representants can retain, and at the same time deviate from, characters of their referents, while building self-identical and procreative series in time. Anaformation, thus is the cultural analogue of, or rather the inclusive, superordinate term for, the notion of variation in evolution; in cultural change the distinction between formation and structure is an expression of the selection phase. My neologism happily combines prefixes such as a-, an- and ana- to point to both deviation and similarity, continuity and opposition, between the entities involved. To come back to the ecological relation between culture and person, perception, for example, is semiotically an encounter between a source (situation) as a referent and a mediating perceptual-cognitive system as an interpretant to result in an altered or informed or anaform "mind-brain-structure" as a representant. The new internal anaform is definitely not a "representation" of the source, as it is in Cartesian understanding, "symbolic" or not, in whatever understanding, but rather a formation that stands for the encounter and has the potential not only of pro-creating further anaforms, i.e. variation, but also of co-creating anaforms that are equated among themselves or recognized, i.e. of founding the class concept. Memory, as the organized ontogenetic integration of all internal signs of an individual, does not image the world, but builds its own anaform world, however corresponding.

Cognitive systems in the traditional sense -- the term used in a very broad sense of internal psychological organization, including emotional and motivational aspects -- are then seen as semiotically attained (sign-)structures formed by series and nets, parallel and nested, of semiosic acts. According to present-day knowledge, both perceptual and executive acts and in addition presumed internal sign-processes "between" perception and action, i.e. endo-semioses that are traditionally called "mental" (conscious or unconscious), contribute to their semiotic buildup and differentiation in ontogenesis. The same can obviously be said of artefacts: they are semiotically attained external (sign-)structures formed by human action and in turn are potential referents for further perceptual processes contributing to the buildup of internal structures. So the internal structures or the mind of any person and external structures or culture, in abstract terms, are anaforms of each other. Neither of them has a totally independent existence.

By analogy to endosemiotics, the semiotic study of perception and action could be termed ecosemiotics, whereas, from the viewpoint of a person, all semiotic structure changes in the world and independent of herself, possibly involving other persons and/or their tools and devices, could fall under the rubric of exosemiotics. But we have to think in spiraling function-circles, semiotically elaborating von Uexküll's seminal idea. I am conceptualizing perceptual acts as IntrO-Semiosis, endosemiotic processes as IntrA-Semiosis, executive acts as ExtrO-Semiosis, and the processes of cultural change out there of a given person as ExtrA-Semioses. In addition, one' s own ExtrO-Semiosis normally appears as another person's ExtrA-Semiosis. The four steps of the spiraling function circle cannot be studied independently. Ontogenetic development as well as cultural change are inextricably connected. This can only be mentioned here to frame the program of an eco-psychological semiotics or an eco-semiotic psychology or, more generally, a semiotic ecology.

When cognitive systems or minds serve as control systems governing actions of the individuals, including orienting behavior in the service of perception, the same is again valid for artefacts: spatial structures guide our orienting behavior and locomotion, everyday things in our dwellings constantly engage our attention and steer our actions, from sitting to cooking to eating to reading and even at night a bed is catching us, not to speak of books and artwork. Artefacts or, broadly speaking, culture are thus in social systems what the body and the mind-brain is for individuals. Artefacts, like bodies, make anaforms of ones "mind" available to others, including to oneself; body and artefacts, i.e. external anaforms of their psychological organization bring the "minds" of the members of a social system at one's disposition and enforcement. And we spend a life's worktime and effort for caring not only for our and other's body, but we are gathering and storing all the artefactual chunk. Tidbits, tools, machines and instruments of all sorts including computers and not to speak of books or houses or clothes exert considerable power in channeling our actions, although they might leave sometimes some degrees of freedom, if we care.

Both, cognitive systems and artefacts are then seen as structural results of recursive and evolving processes, within the constraints of ontogenesis or of cultural change respectively. Both types of structures are dynamic, having a potential for self-regulation and of evolving anaform replication and procreation. No magic is involved when we realize that almost nothing pertinent to our life exists exclusively either within or without the person. Both worlds are not self-sufficient entities; each needs a complement: a natural and cultural environment in the case of the cognitive system, a cognitive (including perception and action) system in the case of artefacts. Reduced to itself each of them would simply stop to exist either as human or as culture. We are urgently wanting conceptions and generally agreed upon terminology to clearly differentiate between formations or structures, that refer to possible aspects of signs or components of semioses on the one hand (artefacts are outstanding examples) and, on the other hand, to those entities that stretch across the circle and thus refer to the inclusive signs. Artefacts are not signs in themselves: they should be seen as components of signs; their description or specification presupposes an interpretant which has to be specified to avoid confusion.

So, cognitive systems and artefacts, as both appear in our phenomenal world, act upon each other. This is as trivial, as it is true, yet not at all part of our conception of ourselves' existence in the world. We have the task of finding out, "how thoughts act on things" and vice versa (CP 5.106/1903). Semiotics is a promizing tool to describe the mutual interdependencies between these two subsystems of the ecological unit. There are further similarities between the two and also a number of interesting differences. But since we Cartesians are so accustomed to the differences, I thought it might be worth while here to preferably point out some (semiotic) similarities.

The present semiotic-ecological perspective of the person-environment-relation may be illustrated with material from studies on the communicative and regulative function of small objects and their topography in the home. We use the semiotic tools mainly to study humans with their things in their rooms, i.e. the activities of people with objectal and spatial arrangements made and used within and around residential settings (see Lang in press a and b; Slongo 1991).

A related approach to artefacts and psycho-social processes, yet essentially Cartesian and biased toward linguistic signs in basically a Saussurean sign conception, is the cultural-historical theory instigated by Vygotsky (see e.g. Wertsch 1985). Phylo- and ontogenetic relatedness of mental and artefactual phenoma and the mediating role of imagery and spoken and written words are clearly seen (see e.g. Cole, in press, for an example on the processes between children and computer-systems). This distinguishes the approach remarkably from most of 20th century psychological science. [2] Yet the conceptual tools used are mostly metaphorical and lack the elegance and power triadic semiotics allows for. A large spectrum of psychological and ecological problems gain surprising new sides in the light of ecosemiotics. Nature and culture sciences both could win and come closer by overcoming Cartesian dogma.

The present approach is obviously rooted in and pertinent to epistemology and philosophy of science and can be seen as an attempt to answer largely neglected questions as to the existence of scientific objects in general (see Lang in press c). Since the physical sciences have mostly given up the idea of an universal strict determinism in a world traditionally called "material" and enter considerations of historically open interactions among locally determined systems, the mental and cultural sciences can as well put down their insistence on the "separateness" of the epistemic subject, both as an universal "Weltgeist" and as an individual cognizing subject. If the concept of matter looses sense, at least as concerns things of a historical character (that is not fully accountable by yet comlying to natural law) the same must be true of concepts of spirit or mind and the like, because the two are defined as an opposition which has been imposed itself upon our perception and cognition in various disguises. What they might be in and for themselves, we can never know. They need not have a "real" counterpart. In fact, I believe, they are mal-incorporated artefacts (mentifacts), whose symbolic carriers (words and private experiences) might have played tricks on us by mediation of, among others, Descartes.

However, when we look at what we can differentiate in the world and how these entities deal with each other, semiosis appears to be a viable alternative description of what happens. And this is "more" or other than material interaction and "less" or other than res cogitantes. Semiotic in its history so far, or rather semiotics in their history, it is not to deny, have also been hampered by the mind-matter split. By conceiving of semiosis as structure guided structure formation, or anaformation, it might get an even more interesting future.

Notes [added 1998]

[1] Instead of "representant" I have begun soon after this text to prefer the term "presentant". The reason is not only to avoid mixing up the idea with (symbolic) representation but, more important, to shun that shade of reproduction and thus identity or error, at least in idea, contained in "representation". Anaformations are what they are whether in any respect correct or errorful. This was already clear in a later passage of the present text. <<<

[2] This capsule citation of the cultural-historical approach may call objections from representatives of the approach which understand themselves as Anti-Cartesian. In fact, it is not easy to disentangle the materialistic language use on its Marxistic background and much of the ordinary psychological vocabulary of consciousness and higher mental and nervous functions of the time. My remark is not meant to deny the genial impulse given by Vygotsky and taken up by some of his followers both in the former Sovjet Union and around the world. I only want to mark the need for conceptual developments going beyond metaphors such as internalization, appropriation etc. And I also think it necessary to overcome not only the individuo-centrism of Western psychology but also its converse, the essential socio-centrism of the Vygotsky inspired approach. Semiotic ecology, by focussing on the ecological function circle denies primacy to both the individual person and the socio-cultural system but sees them in a mutually constitutive relationship in the interwoven evolutive courses spanning the biotic, the individual and the cultural. <<<

References

Cole, Michael (in print ) Cultural psychology: some general principles and a concrete example. Chapter in: Engestrom, Y. & Punamaki, R.L. (Eds.) Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge Mass., Cambridge Univ. Press.

Lang, Alfred (in print a) The "concrete mind" heuristic -- human identity and social compound from things and buildings. Chapter in: Jaeger, Carlo; Nauser, Markus & Steiner, Dieter (Eds.) Human ecology: an integrative approach to environmental problems. London, Routledge.

Lang, Alfred (in print b) On the knowledge in things and places. Chapter in: Cranach, M.; Doise, W. & Mugny, G. (Eds.) Social representations and the social basis of knowledge. Bern, Huber.

Lang, Alfred (in print c) Die Frage nach den psychologischen Genesereihen -- Kurt Lewins grosse Herausforderung. Chapter in: Schoenpflug, Wolfgang (Ed.) [Gedenkband zum 100. Geburtstag von Kurt Lewin]. Bern, Lang.

Peirce, Charles Sanders (1931-35/1958) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. 8 Vols. Cambridge Mass., Harvard Univ. Press (Belknap Press). 2nd printing 1960. (quoted as CP volume.paragraph/year)

Peirce, Charles Sanders (1982ff.) Writings of Charles S. Peirce -- a chronological edition. 20 Vols. Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press. (quoted as W volume:page/year, catalogue #)

Popper, Karl R. (1972) Objective knowledge Ñ an evolutionary approach. Oxford, Clarendon. 395 Pp. (Revised 1979, 7th impression 1992).

Posner, Roland (1989) What is culture? Toward a semiotic explanation of anthropological concepts. Pp. 240-295 in: Koch, Walter A. (Ed.) The nature of culture. Bochum, Brockmeyer.

Scherer, Bernd Michael (1984) Prolegomena zu einer einheitlichen Zeichentheorie: Ch. S. Peirces Einbettung der Semiotik in die Pragmatik. Tübingen, Stauffenburg.

Slongo, Daniel (1991) Zeige mir, wie du wohnst -- eine Begrifflichkeit über externe psychologische Strukturen anhand von Gesprächen über Dinge im Wohnbereich. Diplomarbeit, Universität Bern, Psychologisches Institut.

Wertsch, James V. (1985) Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge Mass., Harvard Univ. Press.

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