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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN RELATIONAL SOCIOLOGY
Semiotic Sociology
Risto Heiskala
Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology
Series Editors
Nick Crossley
Department of Sociology
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
Peeter Selg
School of Governance, Law and Society
Tallinn University
Tallinn, Estonia
In various disciplines such as archeology, psychology, psychoanalysis,
international relations, and philosophy, we have seen the emergence of
relational approaches or theories. This series, founded by François
Dépelteau, seeks to further develop relational sociology through the
publication of diverse theoretical and empirical research—including that
which is critical of the relational approach. In this respect, the goal of the
series is to explore the advantages and limits of relational sociology. The
series welcomes contributions related to various thinkers, theories, and
methods clearly associated with relational sociology (such as Bourdieu,
critical realism, Deleuze, Dewey, Elias, Latour, Luhmann, Mead, network
analysis, symbolic interactionism, Tarde, and Tilly). Multidisciplinary
studies which are relevant to relational sociology are also welcome, as well
as research on various empirical topics (such as education, family, music,
health, social inequalities, international relations, feminism, ethnicity,
environmental issues, politics, culture, violence, social movements, and
terrorism). Relational sociology—and more specifically, this series—will
contribute to change and support contemporary sociology by discussing
fundamental principles and issues within a relational framework.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15100
Risto Heiskala
Semiotic Sociology
Risto Heiskala
Faculty of Social Sciences
Tampere University
Tampere, Finland
Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology

ISBN 978-3-030-79366-1 ISBN 978-3-030-79367-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79367-8
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Acknowledgements
I extend my thanks to those whose help was vital for the publication of this
book, that is, the Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Social Research
(IASR) at Tampere University, who in our weekly seminar commented on
the drafts of the book and provided their work for me to comment on
when it was their turn to present. My gratitude is no less great to Marita
Husso, my co-author in Chap. 7 and life companion. Living with her has
taught me a myriad of things about gender and close relationships over the
years, and I dedicate this book to her. I also thank Peeter Selg, who as a
series editor and a fellow soul in social, political and semiotic theory invited
the manuscript to this series, and Marjukka Virkajärvi, the coordinator of
the IASR, which I directed from year 2008 to 2018 in the University of
Tampere and, after its merger with Tampere University of Technology,
until the end of year 2020 in the new Tampere University before its short-
sighted new management run the institute down because they mistakenly
thought that academic traditions do not matter. Over the years, Marjukka
has in her competent way guided me through an abundance of technical,
linguistic and administrative problems and did so also with this book.
It is gratefully acknowledged that part of the work required for publish-
ing this book was done with the support (and sometimes at the expense)
of the Academy of Finland project 308740, which I directed from the year
2017 to 2021.
It is also worth noting that this is a book of its own, but it also has a
history because Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, even if rewritten for this book,
draw much of their material from the author’s previously published
v
vi Acknowledgements
articles listed below in the order of the chapters: Toward semiotic sociol-
ogy. A synthesis of semiology, semiotics and phenomenological sociology.
Social Science Information 53(2014), 1:35–53; Economy and society.
From Parsons through Habermas to semiotic institutionalism. Social
Science Information 46(2007), 2:243–271; Theorizing power. Weber,
Parsons, Foucault and neostructuralism. Social Science Information
40(2001), 2:241–264; Modernity and the intersemiotic condition. Social
Science Information 32(1993), 4:581–604; Modernity and the articula-
tion of the gender system: Order, conflict, and chaos. Semiotica 173(2009),
1/4:215–231; and From Goffman to semiotic sociology. Semiotica
124(1999), 3/4:211–234. I am grateful to the publishers, SAGE in the
first four cases and DeGruyter in the last two, who kindly granted the
permissions to use that material for this book. I am also grateful for the
insightful comments made on one or more of the chapters when they were
mere article drafts and the many corrections suggested to them by the
numerous people whom I have already thanked in the published versions
of the articles.
Praise for Semiotic Sociology
“Semiotic Sociology recalls classics of the field, such as Economy and Society by Neil
Smelser and Talcott Parsons or Pierre Bourdieu’s Logic of Practice, in its scope,
ambition, and subtle synthesis of remarkably different insights from opposed tradi-
tions of thought. Heiskala’s brilliance allows him to show how debates central to
social theory for more than 100 years look different when properly grounded in
the analysis of signification. Moving well beyond the cultural turn and debates
about “social construction,” this is a book for the 21st century, which rewrites
several vital concepts, among them power, modernity, and social structure.
Heiskala’s vision for sociology makes it a human science worthy of the name.”
—Isaac Ariail Reed, Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia, USA
“This is a wonderfully accomplished book in the tradition of grand theory. Risto

Heiskala skillfully integrates a plethora of intellectual traditions, from pragmatism
to critical theory, to propose an innovative and perspicacious account of contem-
porary societal issues, notably surrounding gender.”
—Patrick Baert, Professor of Social Theory, University of Cambridge, UK
“In Semiotic Sociology, Risto Heiskala tackles a bold and welcome synthesizing
challenge: to build bridges between theoretical approaches that have too
quickly, yet for decades, been deemed as incompatible in the mainstream socio-
logical selection of analytical tools. He makes this operation sound and seem
easy: so evident and clear are elements with which he joins together strands of
semiotics, pragmatism and phenomenology, as well as traditions that deal with
macro-sociological understandings of the society and different levels of power
theories. Yet, it is clear that these syntheses result from career-long scrutiny of
theoretical debates but also a constant, careful eye to the needs of contempo-
rary social research, a virtue not always present in theory building efforts.
Furthermore, discussing the modernity-postmodernity debate Heiskala offers a
sobering relief to all who have preferred to practice civil inattention to this
quarrel for long and felt it has not provided ways forward. Searching for such
ways, Heiskala takes two directions: the explorations of, first, gender as an illus-
tration of the consequences and means of modernization, and, secondly,
Goffman’s potential offerings to semiotic sociology, or perhaps to contempo-
rary sociology more at large. Both pursuits will certainly provide food for fruit-
ful sociological debate around the book’s proposals. For social scientists striving
to solve empirical puzzles of current societies, Semiotic Sociology offers both an
encouragement and worthy tools to confidently go the way that often works the
best: not a linear development of a theory jealous of its foundations and bound-
aries, but a synthetic, creative theorization of contemporary life.”
—Eeva Luhtakallio, Professor of Sociology, University of Helsinki,
EU Finland
Contents
1 Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology and Social Theory 1

References 7
2 Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and Phenomenological

Sociology 9
Structuralist Semiology 10
Pragmatism 17
Phenomenological Sociology 20
Conclusion: Implications for Cultural and Social Theory 25
References 29
3 Economy and Society in Semiotic Institutionalism 33

Structural-Functionalist Economic Sociology 36
Parsons: The AGIL Scheme of the Social System 36
Economy and Society in Habermas’s Theory of Communicative
Action: System and the Lifeworld 39
What Is Wrong with Parsons and Habermas? 43
The Challenge of Institutionalism 46
Institutionalism in Economics 47
Pragmatist and Phenomenological Institutionalism 48
Towards a Synthesis: Economy and Society in Semiotic
Institutionalism 52
Semiotic Institutionalism 52
Semiotic Interpretation of the System–Lifeworld Scheme 54
ix
x Contents
Conclusion: How Does Semiotic Institutionalism Overcome the

Limitations of the Structural-Functionalist Approach? 57
References 61
4 Power and Signification in Neostructuralism 65

Conceptions of Power 66
Resource Theories: Weber and Parsons 66
The Structural Approach: Foucault 68
The Neostructuralist Approach 71
Understanding the Four Approaches as a Scale 74
Applying the Scale of Power Conceptions 74
Interpreting Everyday Conversation Neostructuralistically 74
Big Case Comparison and Dispositifs in Historical Sociology 78
The Need for Less Complex Approaches 81
Conclusion 82
References 86
5 Modernity and the Intersemiotic Condition 89

Intersemiosis: Mystery Train and Michael Jackson 89
Modernity as Institutional Tendencies 92
Culture as Semiosis 96
The Postmodernity Debate and Sociological Analysis of Culture 102
Postmodernity or Just Modernity and Intersemiotic Condition? 109
References 110
6 Modernity and the Articulation of the Gender System115

Articulation and Social Sciences 116
Gender as a Biologically Motivated Cultural System 118
Gender and Modernity: The Levels of Articulation 122
Gender and Modernity: Order, Conflict and Chaos 125
Conclusion 129
References 131
7 The Power of Institutions: The Case of Gendered Agency135

Jointly with Marita Husso
Interpreting Agency: Biology and Rational Choice 136
An Institutionalist Reinterpretation: Regulations and Path
Dependency 139
Contents xi
Bounded Rationality: Normative and Cultural-Cognitive

Institutionalism 141
Cultural Institutionalism Reinterpreted: Discursive and
Habitual Institutionalism 143
The Cumulated Scheme Applied to Gender 145
Conclusion and Future Tasks 149
References 152
8 From Goffman to Semiotic Sociology157

Framing Goffman 158
Frame 1: Dramaturgic Sociology 161
Frame 2: Micro-revolution and Co-presence 164
Frame 3: Interaction Order and Ritual 168
Frame 4: Self and Interaction Contingency 171
Frame 5: Frame Analysis and Presence 174
Goffman and Semiotic Sociology 179
References 183
9 Conclusion: Semiotic Sociology in the Field of Social

Theory187
Semiotic Sociology and Social Ontology in Current Social Theory 187
Semiotic Sociology, Institutions and the Material Turn 197
Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Marx, Freud and the Frankfurt
School 200
References 213
Author Index217
Subject Index221
About the Author
Risto Heiskala is Professor of Sociology at Tampere University, EU

Finland (Orcid id: 0000-0003-4466-7491). He is the author of Society as
Semiosis and co-editor of Policy Design in the European Union and Social
Innovations, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. He is a
member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and Vice-Chair of
the Society for the Study of Power Relations (SSPR). He has been the
Director of the Institute for Advanced Social Research (IASR) at the
University of Tampere and a member of the executive committee of the
European Sociological Association (ESA) as well as a founding member of
its Social Theory Research Network.
xiii
List of Figures and Tables
Fig. 2.1 Meaning and project in Schutz’s phenomenology (Source:

Heiskala 2003: 81) 22
Fig. 2.2 The triangle model of meaning-analysis (Source: Heiskala,
2003: 321) 26
Fig. 3.1 The AGIL scheme on the level of general systems theory 37
Fig. 3.2 The social system within a wider context of the human condition 39
Fig. 3.3 Habermas’s reformulation of the Parsonian AGIL scheme of
the social system 41
Fig. 3.4 Social semiosis as a System–Lifeworld scheme 55
Fig. 3.5 The field of social semiosis 59
Fig. 7.1 The pie model of the mutual relationships of the principles
determining human agency. Key to sectors: (1) biological
dispositions; (2) rational choice; (3) regulative institutions; (4)
normative institutions; (5) discursive institutions; (6) habitual
dispositions147
Fig. 8.1 The field of study in dramaturgic sociology 163
Fig. 8.2 The relation of phenomenology and semiotics to the sign 178
Fig. 8.3 The field of Goffman’s study 179
Fig. 8.4 The field of study in semiotic sociology 180
Fig. 9.1 Doxa and the discursive universe. (Bourdieu, 1977: 168) 190
Table 7.1 Theoretical approaches to human agency (based on Scott,

2001: 52, Gronow, 2008: 368; and the text of this chapter) 146
xv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology

and Social Theory
Semiotics was for some reason bypassed by the cultural current that at the
turn of the twentieth century gave birth to the three basic modern social
sciences: economics, political science and sociology. All three study ‘us’ in
the deluge called ‘modernity’ in the same way in which anthropology
studies ‘them’ in the wake of colonialism, the other side of the coin called
‘modernity’. That semiotics never became a master discipline in modern
academia is a weird thing because one would imagine that in an era that
many have for a good reason called ‘information society’, the ‘time of
communication’, or the ‘time of the sign’, there would be great demand
for a discipline studying the general patterns of signification.
In some sense, this general discipline did emerge because the time gave
birth to a great deal of semiotic conceptions, including the Saussurean
tradition of semiology in France and Europe more generally and the
Peircean tradition of semiotics in the US. Yet semiotics has always been
flooded with too many conceptions that have too often been thought to
be contradictory, as is often said about the relationship between the struc-
turalist tradition of semiology and the pragmatist tradition of semiotics.
The discipline, therefore, has not managed to be consolidated but has
been left into the state of hesitation and anomie. This book is an attempt
to construct a synthetic conception covering the pragmatist and the struc-
turalist tradition in social semiotics and extending within social theory to
the fields of phenomenological sociology and action theory as well. The
core idea is that an equation can be made between the structuralist
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
R. Heiskala, Semiotic Sociology, Palgrave Studies in Relational
Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79367-8_1
2 R. HEISKALA
conception of articulation, the pragmatist conception of interpretant and

the phenomenological conception of prereflective intentional act. The
chapters included can be no more than prolegomena, but they form a
research programme for a unified semiotic cultural theory and a social
theory building on it. That is how they lay the foundation for semiotic
sociology.
There are two basic reasons to present a book like this. First, if semiot-
ics wants to consolidate and spread as an academic discipline, it needs to
leave behind the balkanized internal wars that have characterized its his-
tory thus far. To make this happen, synthetic conceptions are needed, and
this book offers itself as one candidate for such a synthetic conception.
Second, as the great popularity of cultural studies in all social sciences
shows, there is a great need for conceptions capable of analysing significa-
tion in the social sciences. It also seems that ‘cultural studies’ left alone
without semiotics will not be capable of coming up with an adequate tool-
box for that task. The time might be ripe, therefore, for someone to pres-
ent a research programme for semiotic sociology. With this book, I
volunteer.
This book is published in a series on relational sociology. So, how is this
relational sociology? Even if relationalism has become popular as a term
only quite recently, as an approach it actually has long roots. The semiotic
theories of both Saussure and Peirce, which provide the rock bottom of
the current inquiry, are both thoroughly relational. To become convinced
of that, one only needs to think of Saussure’s definition of the sign and
Peirce’s description of the sign process or semiosis, both of which consist
of relations and relations of relations. Moreover, the constructively critical
scrutiny of other forms of social theory (phenomenological sociology,
structural functionalism and action theory in particular) in the book
emerges from their relationalism and strives for a synthetic model, which
is relational in nature. So, what better place to make such views public
than a book series on relational sociology!
The book consists of nine chapters, which can be briefly described as
follows. This chapter, ‘Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology and
Social Theory’, opens the inquiry with a project outline and an explication
of the motive of writing it.
In Chap. 2, ‘Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and Phenomenological
Sociology’, a mediation is sought between structuralist semiology (the
Saussurean tradition), pragmatist semiotics (the Peircean tradition) and
phenomenological sociology (Husserl, Schutz, Garfinkel and Berger &
1 INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS SEMIOTIC SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY 3
Luckmann). This is a deviation from the common view that these tradi-
tions are seen as mutually exclusive alternatives and thus competitors of
each other. The net result of the synthesis is that a conception emerges
wherein action theories (rational choice, Weber etc.) are based on phe-
nomenological sociology and phenomenological sociology is based on
neostructuralist semiotics, which is a synthesis of the Saussurean and the
Peircean traditions of understanding habits of interpretation and interac-
tion. The core idea in the field of cultural theory providing the base for the
rest is that an equation can be made between the structuralist conception
of articulation, the pragmatist conception of interpretant and the phe-
nomenological conception of prereflective intentional act.
Chapter 3, ‘Economy and Society in Semiotic Institutionalism’, takes
the discussion from the terrain of cultural theory to one of the core issues
of social theory of our time. It maintains that the great transformation to
modernity made the economy the major organizing factor of the social
synthesis, thus bringing forth the issue of the economy/society relation-
ship as the central problem of modern social theory. The chapter deals
with two broad approaches to this problem: Parsons’s and Habermas’s
variants of structural functionalism, on the one hand, and the various cur-
rents of (neo)institutionalism on the other. An attempt to synthesize the
benefits of these conflicting approaches is made from the point of view of
semiotic institutionalism. What emerges is a general theoretical frame-
work, which is better equipped than the original structural functionalist
and institutionalist conceptions for the analysis of the economy/society
relationship.
Chapter 4, ‘Power and Signification in Neostructuralism’, discusses
another central topic of social theory: power. It develops a synthetic con-
ception of the topic based on Weber’s, Parsons’s and Foucault’s writings.
The aim is, first, to build a bridge between what are called resource theo-
ries of power (Weber, Parsons) and the structural approach (Foucault)
and, second, to do this in the form of a conception which would be usable
on both macro- and micro-levels at the same time. Four theories are dis-
cussed: the distributive approach (Weber), the collective approach
(Parsons), the structural approach (Foucault) and the neostructuralist
approach developed here. It is argued that these approaches can be ordered
on a scale on which the complexity of analysis increases as one gradually
moves from the first to the last and that the selection of an appropriate
level of analysis in an empirical study is a practical issue relative to the aim
of the study. The types of analyses characteristic of the more complex
4 R. HEISKALA
levels are illustrated by a discussion of the problem posed by Big Case

Comparison in historical sociology (the structural approach) and analysis
of everyday conversations (the neostructuralist approach), including a dis-
cussion on phenomenological sociology and conversation analysis.
Taken together, Chaps. 2, 3 and 4 describe the programme for semiotic
sociology presented in this book. Chapter 2 presents the cultural-
theoretical basic idea of building mediation between semiology, semiotics
and phenomenology (articulation = interpretant = intentional act), thus
forming the cultural-theoretical base for semiotic social theory and sociol-
ogy. Chapters 3 and 4 extend the programme to the core of sociology, that
is, to a macro-sociological description of society (Chap. 3) and the strat-
egy to study the division of power in society (Chap. 4). The three follow-
ing chapters then give two examples of the way in which the programme
can be applied, Chap. 5 in covering the modernity/postmodernity debate
from the semiotic perspective and Chaps. 6 and 7 by way of presenting an
interpretation of the changing orders of gender. Finally, Chap. 8 discusses
micro-sociology. Focusing on Erwing Goffman’s work, it shows how the
semiotic approach can improve analyses of signification also in the field of
micro-sociology. Chapter 9 then closes by situating semiotic sociology
into the more general field of social theory and by discussing the possible
strategies of social criticism.
To be more specific, Chap. 5, ‘Modernity and the Intersemiotic
Condition’, is a semiotic account of the early postmodernity debate. It
makes a distinction between modernity as a process of institutional trans-
formation of the structure of society at large, which, once emerged, is a
relatively constant factor, and postmodernism as a cultural style, which is
characterized by ambivalence and celebrates it. The chapter also shows
that what has been called ‘postmodern condition’ is not something unique
but has been faced many times in history whenever heterogeneous popu-
lations have gathered in urban centres and cultural messages from several
sources have mixed and brought up ‘cultural chiasms’. The chapter pro-
poses intersemiotic condition to be used as an analytic term under which
the analysis of such cultural phenomena can proceed.1
Chapter 6, ‘Modernity and the Articulation of the Gender System’,
takes us to the field of gender. Its point of departure is that gender system
can be understood as a cultural system rooted in biological differences.
Semiotically speaking, it is a binary sign system (male: female) with some
variation involved (transsexuals and the whole LBGTQIA+ rainbow). In
the process of modernity, the biological motivation of the gender system
is being loosened by technological innovations such as contraception and

mother’s milk substitute. At the same time, the state has replaced family
and kin as the organizing structure of society and the cultural ideal of
equality has gained a strong position. These and similar changes together
have made gender flow in ‘post-traditional’ societies. The chapter deals
with this process, paying attention to the three theoretically possible con-
stellations in the determination of semiotic identities in the social process:
functional order in the Parsonian sense, formation of struggling parties in
the sense of Weber and Bourdieu, and anomie in the sense of Durkheim
and Berger & Luckmann. It turns out that elements of all of these three
theoretical constellations are present in the current transformation of the
gender system. This is elaborated with empirical material drawn from the
change of the Finnish gender system from the 1950s onwards.
While Chap. 6 discusses what is happening to gender in modernity,
Chap. 7, ‘The Power of Institutions: The Case of Gendered Agency’, co-
authored with Marita Husso, takes us to the methodology of its study. It
opens with a scrutiny of the simplest versions of the interpretation of
agency, which rely on biological dispositions, often supplemented with
rational choice explanations. The chapter shows that better explanations
can be reached if biological and rational choice explanations are supple-
mented with different forms of institutionalism. These have been distin-
guished into regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutionalism,
and later on, the last one of these has been further divided into discursive
and habitual institutionalism. The chapter applies the distinction between
the aforementioned six explanatory strategies to the analysis of gendered
agency. Here the interest is, first, to develop a synthetic conception in
which explanatory strategies complement each other, and second, to
reduce the binarity of the nature: culture debate. The third task is to start
applying the conception to other mechanisms of differentiation, such as
age, ethnicity/race and social class, which again can be linked back to the
study of gender along the ideas presented in the debate on
intersectionality.
Chapter 8, ‘From Goffman to Semiotic Sociology’, is a tribute to a
great sociologist and draws its material from his work, but it is also a
demarcation between the semiotic and the phenomenological approaches
to signification. It starts from the commonplace that even if Erwing
Goffman was an influential micro-sociologist, his work is not easy to clas-
sify. The chapter therefore interprets different aspects of Goffman’s work
in applying his own frame analysis to it and discusses five different ways to
6 R. HEISKALA
frame Goffman. The frames are dramaturgical sociology; micro-revolution

and the rise of the study of co-presence in sociology; interaction order and
ritual; self as a necessary illusion and the contingency of interaction; and,
finally, frame analysis and the problem of presence. It turns out that all
these framings reveal important features of Goffman’s work and open up
fruitful paths for social research. Yet it is also shown that even if Goffman
spoke a great deal about signs, his understanding of signification was pre-
semiotic in the sense that in his analyses, the vital question is always the
subject’s relationship to a present sign. To escape such ‘metaphysics of
presence’, his conceptions should be opened up for analysis of the rela-
tionship of present signs, not only to the subject and other signs present
but also to absent signs. Such a change would bring this important prede-
cessor of semiotic sociology genuinely to its ground. That again would
make it easier to link the field of micro-sociology to that of macro-
sociology, that is, to make the mediation that Goffman himself was both
reluctant and unable to do.
The closing Chap. 9, ‘Conclusion: Semiotic Sociology in the Field of
Social Theory’, explicates where semiotic sociology stands in regard to
social ontology and how it is a contribution to current social theory. It also
includes a brief comment on the constructionism/material turn debate.
The chapter closes with a section on the hermeneutics of suspicion and a
discussion on alternative strategies to justify social criticism.
That will be the structure of the programme to be presented in the
forthcoming chapters. For those who will find it interesting and worth
studying further, it might be good to know that this book is part of a theo-
retical project that I also pursue in my Society as Semiosis (Heiskala, 2003)
and the two books supplement each other. Thus, in addition to some
repetition, the reader of both books will find that some of the questions
evoked in one book are answered in the other, although the reader will
also find out that, even taken together, the two books are no more than a
prolegomenon for something that will hopefully grow up to a blossoming
discipline in the future.
Note
1. Originally, this part of the book was planned to consist of two chapters.
However, for copyright reasons transcending the understanding of an ordi-
nary professor, the other one, titled Modernity, Postmodernity and Reflexive
Modernization, had to be left out of the book because its earlier version was
published as a journal article with a very restrictive publication rights con-

tract (Heiskala, 2011). For the information of those readers who may be
interested in it, here is the outline of the article, which starts from the fact
that in the sociological tradition, modernization has usually been under-
stood as increasing differentiation. Theorists as different as Marx, Durkheim,
Weber and Parsons all shared the view that modernization meant the open-
ing of new horizons. The publication of Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
transformed the discursive universe: contrary to the tradition of
differentiation-theoretical sociology, the pamphlet interpreted moderniza-
tion as a process in which the plurality of local cultural traditions was
destroyed and their various narratives were rearticulated into a unified mod-
ern canon under the repressive metanarratives of science, progress and the
Enlightenment. At first, sociologists were at odds with this new interpreta-
tion until Beck, Giddens and Lash brought up the idea of modernity in two
phases in their Reflexive Modernization and related publications. According
to them, ‘traditional modernity’ was based on cultural closures, such as uni-
fied class-identities, nationalities and fixed gender identities, but it was fol-
lowed by a ‘second’ or ‘reflexive modernity’, where several traditions lived
side by side, just as the postmodernists claimed. An intense debate emerged.
In addition to describing the debate, the chapter asks: did we learn anything
from the debate on reflexive modernization and, if so, can the lessons learnt
be used fruitfully in the study of contemporary society? The answer seems to
be negative for the most part. However, the modernization-theoretical
approach can still be seen as a useful tool for framing research questions and
contributing to the diagnosis of the era. This is how it can still provide a
point of departure for research but not deliver all the answers, which is the
task of empirical social research rather than abstract theoretical schemes of
orientation.
References
Heiskala, R. (2003). Society as Semiosis. Neostructuralist Theory of Culture and
Society. Peter Lang.
Heiskala, R. (2011). From Modernity Through Postmodernity to Reflexive
Modernization. Did We Learn Anything? International Review of Sociology,
21(1), 3–19.
CHAPTER 2
Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics

and Phenomenological Sociology
The most common way to understand the relationship between structur-

alist semiology, pragmatist semiotics and phenomenological sociology is
to conceive them as mutually exclusive alternatives. This view sees each of
them as a bunker into which theoreticians can dig and from which they
can fire on the occupants of the other two bunkers. Going against the
custom of the field, I depart from the bunker model and try to synthesize
the three approaches.
In the following section, I start from a version of structuralism which
can be called structuralist code theory and try to expand its horizon of
study using the criticisms made of it. The result is a way of reading the
classic of structuralist semiology, Saussure (1974, 1983 [1916]), which
can be called neostructuralist. Neostructuralist semiology pays attention
to the flowing nature of meanings but does not have the conceptual tools
to give an exact description of the flow and must therefore be supple-
mented by Peirce’s (1931–1966, 1992, 1998) pragmatist semiotics. To
make this possible, an isomorphic relation must be developed between
Peirce’s and Saussure’s analyses of the sign. This is done in the next sec-
tion, where Peirce’s analysis of the object-relation of the sign is also used
as a way of introducing an understanding of the motivated nature of the
sign into neostructuralism, which makes it possible to surpass the Cartesian
dualism between nature and culture, the besetting sin of the structuralist
tradition. Neither Saussure nor Peirce gives us a definitive answer to the
question of where exactly signs and structures of meaning take place. A

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10 R. HEISKALA
section of its own approaches this issue from the point of view of Schutz’s
(1982 [1932]) mundane phenomenology. From this point of departure,
articulation of the Saussurean sign and the interpretant of the Peircean
sign can be understood as Husserl’s (1982 [1931]) intentional act. This
enables social theory to go beyond the usual sociological dualism between
culture and the institutional structure of society because institutions, fol-
lowing Berger and Luckmann (1966), can be understood as specific pat-
terns of the organization of people’s habits and everyday knowledge.
Finally, the concluding section discusses the problems the synthetic pro-
gramme raises in cultural and social theory as well as the question of the
appropriate area of application of different theoretical approaches.
Structuralist Semiology
Following Saussure, structuralist semiology understands the sign as the
result of an interrelated articulation of two parallel orders. These are the
order of signifiers, or the material bearers of meaning, on the one hand,
and the order of signifieds, concepts, associations or meanings, on the
other. It is through this process, in which these two parallel orders are
articulated together, that the cultural structure, which makes it possible to
communicate with signs, emerges.
In both of these orders, the identity of the parts of the sign is formed
through the play of differences. This means that the identity of the sign
consists in being what the other signs are not: ‘In a language there are only
differences, and no positive terms’ (Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 166, original
emphasis). This makes language work as a purely arbitrary system of signs
in which signifiers, on the one hand, and signifieds, on the other, get their
identity as relative values. The play of differences is not boundless, how-
ever: ‘To say that in a language everything is negative holds only for the
signified and the signifier considered separately. The moment we consider
the sign as a whole, we encounter something which is positive in its own
domain’ (Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 166). And ‘everything having to do
with languages as systems needs to be approached … with a view to exam-
ining the limitations of arbitrariness’ (Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 182).1 In
other words, the play of differences is congealed, and the negatively deter-
mined identities are replaced by oppositions with a positivity of their own
when the orders of signifiers and signifieds are articulated together. At this
level, a language is a social fact, which enables communication because
every signifier transmits a signified that is shared by a linguistic community.2
2 SYNTHESIS OF SEMIOLOGY, SEMIOTICS AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL… 11
Saussure differentiated two types of relation that determine the identity

of the sign. Associative relations determine the sign through their absence.
In the sentence a man used a fork, the sign a man gets its identity because
of the fact that it is not the sign a woman or a child. In a similar vein, the
sign a fork gets its associative identity because it is not the sign a spoon, a
knife, an axe, a mobile telephone or to dance. Associative relations are com-
plex. In such a relation ‘any given term acts as the centre of a constellation,
from which connected terms radiate ad infinitum’ (Saussure, 1983 [1916]:
174). Syntagmatic relations, for their part, determine the identity of the
sign through their presence. They are signs with which the sign can com-
bine so as to make a chain of signs interpretable as a meaningful syntagma.
In the aforementioned example, the identity of the sign a man is syntag-
matically determined by the signs used and a fork. The possibility of com-
municating in speech (parole) makes it necessary to generate syntagmatic
chains of signs. In addition to this, Saussure thought that syntagmatic
relations contribute to the determination of the identity of the sign on the
level of linguistic structure (langue). Yet it is not clear how exactly he
understood this. In what follows I will argue for an extensive interpreta-
tion according to which all those syntagmatic chains contribute to the
identity of the sign, in which the sign can be placed so that the chain is
understood as a meaningful communicative act in a cultural realm.
Combined with the aforementioned definition of associative relation, this
definition of syntagmatic relation leads to a broad concept of structure.3
Saussure was a linguist of spoken natural language, and by ‘order of
signifiers’, he meant order of phonemes. He thought, however, that follow-
ing the pattern of linguistics of spoken language facilitated studying other
systems of signs such as ‘writing, the deaf- and-dumb alphabet, symbolic
rites, forms of politeness, military signals, and so on’ (Saussure, 1983
[1916]: 33). He referred to this field of study as sémiologie, which he
understood as a science ‘which studies the role of signs as part of social
life’ and investigates ‘the nature of signs and the laws governing them’
(Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 33). In speech, the signs are completely arbitrary.
Language is the most complex of all systems of expression and has been
studied extensively. It is for these reasons that ‘linguistics serves as a model
[patron général] for the whole of semiology, even though languages rep-
resent only one type of semiological system’ (Saussure, 1983 [1916]:
101). And it is because of these and similar statements that Saussure can
be seen as the founding father of semiology. At the same time, however, it
is important to know that Saussure himself did not proceed any further
12 R. HEISKALA
towards the field of semiological study. This was left for other scholars,
such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes and A.J. Greimas.
Saussure’s followers expanded his programmatic statements on semiol-
ogy to an actual corpus of semiological study. In doing this, however, they
also articulated his statements on language and cultural systems of mean-
ing into a new form, which I call ‘structuralist code theory’. What spread
all over the Western world in the 1960s and 1970s was this form of struc-
turalist semiology, developed in France in the 1950s and 1960s and influ-
enced by the writings of other linguists in addition to Saussure such as
Roman Jakobson and Louis Hjelmslev. In what follows, I build up an ideal
type of structuralist code theory consisting of seven theoretical commit-
ments. I by no means make the claim that all French semiologists would
have approved of all seven. What I do claim, however, is that every one of
the seven commitments was part of one or more influential interpretations
of structuralist semiology and that criticism of the structuralist programme
has found its target primarily if not exclusively in them. This is essential
because, as I argue later, it is possible to outline a form of structuralism
which breaks loose from all of the seven commitments and yet is based on
the Saussurean programme.
The seven commitments of structuralist code theory are the following:
1. Structures are understood to be closed codes. They work like the

oil-pressure gauge in a car, which selects the difference between
‘empty’ and ‘full’, but ignores other states such as ‘half full’ and
‘nearly empty’. The subjects thus are completely tied to the structure
in their action. All messages that can be transferred are already
included in the code, and ‘before the transmission has even begun,
the receiver already knows everything that it is possible to say. The
only thing he does not know is what, in fact, will be said’ (Descombes,
1979: 93–94).
2. Associative relations are reinterpreted as paradigmatic relations,
which have a finite number of elements (Barthes, 1994 [1964]: 59).
3. Syntagmatic relations are excluded from the structure and incorpo-
rated into the domain of realization taking place in discourse, that is,
speech (Barthes, 1994 [1964]: 59–60).
4. Relations between the elements of structure are binary (Greimas &
Rastier, 1968; Lévi-Strauss, 1963 [1958]).
5. Relations between the elements of structure are not only binary but
also hierarchical, in the sense that one term is the default value and
the other a derivative member of the opposition. This idea is based

on Roman Jakobson’s axiomatization of phonology. Jakobson him-
self made attempts to expand the hierarchical pattern to higher levels
of linguistic study (where the route to be followed naturally is pho-
nology—morphology—syntax—semantics—pragmatics), and an
extreme version can be found in the way Derrida takes this interpre-
tation of the nature of cultural differences as an unquestioned point
of departure which makes deconstructive criticism possible and nec-
essary (e.g. Derrida, 1973 [1967], 1981 [1972]).
6. The structures are unconscious. An anthropological version of this
commitment is Lévi-Strauss’s (1963 [1958]) interpretation of a set of
actual myths from different cultures as evidence of the existence of a
more general mythological structure which binds the myth-tellers and
their audience, but is not known by them, even if a sophisticated
anthropologist is able to recognize it. A psychoanalytical version is
Lacan (1977 [1966]) who, to begin with, turned the Saussurean
description of the sign upside down in writing the signifier above and
the signified under the bar, separating them in the pictorial representa-
tion of the sign. Second, he interpreted the task of psychoanalysis as
studying the bar that separates the signifier and the signified. Third,
what Lacan understands by the signifier is what Saussure understood
as the entire linguistic system and all other semiological systems. For
Lacan, then, the signified is identical with the unconscious, and it is
this reinterpretation of the Saussurean terms which makes it possible
to reformulate Freud’s psychoanalytical discourse into a semiologi-
cally oriented, Lacanian psychoanalytical discourse dealing with ‘the
discontents of civilization’ (Freud, 2010 [1930]).
7. The structures are universal. A philosophically and anthropologically
justified version of this commitment was made in Lévi-Strauss’s
(1963 [1958]) mythological studies, enabling him to join to the
classical tradition of the search for anthropological constants. An
anthropologically and linguistically justified version was presented
by Chomsky (1964; see also Lyons, 1970), for whom the linguistic
faculty of mankind is based on the physiological characteristics of the
human brain, even though different languages make use of the pos-
sibilities offered in somewhat different ways. Chomsky’s theoretical
background is, of course, different from that of the French structur-
alists, but ideas drawn from his transformational linguistics were
often involved in the North American reception of French structur-
alism. He is thus a relevant figure in this context.
14 R. HEISKALA
A form of structuralism that makes these commitments, as well as most

forms of structuralism which make even some of them, runs into problems
with at least two issues. First, it is unable to answer the question of how
the structure changes. Second, it is incapable of dealing with the situation-
ally creative use of coded meanings (e.g. see Sperber & Willson, 1986).
This does not make them useless in empirical research, but it does make
them unsuitable descriptions of the ontology of culture and society.4 In
what follows I outline a version of structuralism that is more fruitful in this
sense. I call it ‘neostructuralism’ and proceed now to the seven commit-
ments of the structuralist code theory in spelling out neostructuralist
responses to the ‘seven deadly sins’ of the code theory.
1. There are (relatively) closed codes in semiosis, such as the system of

phonemes, traffic signs or military ranks, but this is a special case
rather than the rule. The entire culture itself as a huge structured
and structuring system of meaning is in a constant flux of articula-
tion. Derrida’s term différance refers to this flux but is not a new
invention. Instead, it refers to the same set of problems that con-
cerned Saussure when he discussed the emergence of the sign in the
process of articulation of the signifier and the signified (1983
[1916]: 156). The moment of articulation is exactly the point at
which the play of differences transforms, through the process of
limitation, into the linguistic or semiological structure as a social fact
(e.g. see: Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 166–167, 182). This social fact is
not a solid and closed code without change, however, but a process
of structuration or articulation and rearticulation.
2. Linguistic tradition after Saussure shows that many French semiolo-
gists and their followers interpreted associative relations as finite and
clear-cut paradigms. Saussure, however, never said anything of the
kind. He explicitly understood associative relations as infinite and
radiating in several directions from any given term in a way that pro-
duced a situationally varying network in constant flux.
3. As hinted earlier, it is possible to interpret the concept of structure
so that syntagmatic as well as associative relations contribute to it.
Moreover, this can be done following the broad interpretation
according to which it is not just those other signs that the sign is
actually chained with which contribute to its identity, but all those
syntagmatic chains of signs in which it could be placed, so that the
chain is understood as a meaningful communicative act.5
4. Binary relations may be considered an important type of relation in

cultural semiosis, but there is no reason to believe that all relations
are binary. Peirce, for instance, interprets the sign relation as triadic.
In the next section, I try to show that this conception of the sign
relation can, without any major alteration, be understood as a
description of the articulation of the elements of structure—a line of
interpretation with the side effect of implying the introduction of
the structuralist idea of the play of differences into Peircean semiotics.
5. The question of the nature of the elements of the structure is a con-
tingent issue, and this makes empirical research in different contexts
necessary. It is obvious that there are hierarchical differences in cul-
ture (e.g. military ranks). It is also obvious that there are systems of
differences that are partly hierarchical (the gender system, e.g., the
erosion of which has been progressing so that women have adopted
positions and qualities formerly associated with the identity of men
only). However, there are also systems of differences which are not
hierarchical at all (e.g. the points of the compass) or are partly hier-
archical and partly not (e.g. the gender system, again).
6. While there may be unconscious structures, there is no need for a
structure to be unconscious, and a great many (most?) of the struc-
tures studied by social scientists and semiologists are either com-
pletely or predominantly within the reach of the actors’ conscious or
preconscious reflection. In this case, the scholar’s contribution is pri-
marily in his or her extensive and explicit codification of the system.
Because of this extensiveness and explicitness, the scholar’s results
may be enlightening for the actors even in cases where there is, in the
codification of the structure, not a single surprising statement as long
as each is taken separately (e.g. see Schneider, 1980 [1968]).
7. There are universal structures, and there are universal dimensions in
many structures. The human sound system and auditory sense, for
example, are formed in such a way that our ability to produce and
recognize sounds is limited. Therefore, the sound system can only
exist within naturally given limits. It is well known that Chomsky has
made much more far-reaching claims about the universality of the
human linguistic faculty. I do not have competency to evaluate the
validity of these statements, but as a matter of principle, there is no
sense in denying that we are corporeal beings and live in an environ-
ment which is but partly culturally structured. For this reason, there
are some universal dimensions in every cultural system; that is,
16 R. HEISKALA
instead of being completely arbitrary, the signs are biologically moti-

vated to a certain extent (a point to be taken up again later).
However, there are two specifications to be made. First, since our
growing technological capacity makes it possible for us to transform
the motivated nature of signs (up to a limit) the characteristics of
which have been naturally given, currently existing limits for the
variation of cultural systems may not obtain in the future. If we take
the progressive transformation in today’s gender system as an exam-
ple, we can say that the development of contraceptive methods and
substitutes for mother’s milk have already brought significant
changes; further, the prospects for more and more thorough sex-
change operations, genetic manipulation and baby-farming in labo-
ratories set the stage for a society in which the biological motivation
of the signs of the gender system will be dissolved, step by step, in
the future (for more on this see Chaps. 5 and 6). Second, even if we
admit that there are universal dimensions in structures and that their
study may be fruitful, the social scientist or researcher into culture is
usually interested in processes and structures that vary over time and
place. In the study of these spatially and temporally limited struc-
tures, Saussure’s idea of linguistics as the commander-in-chief of
semiological study implies a methodological point of departure that
would involve the researcher in describing the structure as a system
of arbitrary signs. Information about biological or other kinds of
motivation, if necessary for a valid description of the structure, can
enter the research process in later phases.
The seven alternative solutions outlined above give a preliminary

description of neostructuralism as a variant of structuralism that is differ-
ent from the structuralist code theory and that is immune to the criticisms
that are fatal to the latter. The informed reader will recognize that many
of these points have already been made in debates about what is often
called ‘post-structuralism’. The reason I prefer the term neostructuralism
is two-fold. First, it is possible to write critical theory from the neostruc-
turalist point of view, but there is no necessary reason why neostructuralist
analysis of culture and society should be critical. Here it differs from post-
structuralism, which has its substratum in different versions of critical
theory. Second, the term post-structuralism is misleading. What post-
structuralism comes after is not Saussure’s structuralism but after structur-
alist code theory, which is only one possible reinterpretation of Saussure’s
theory. But there are others, and ideas usually said to be post-structuralist
often direct us to problems already present in Saussure. A reminder of this

is the fact that the aforementioned outline of an up-to-date version of
structuralism is in many respects compatible with the careful close reading
of Saussure made by historian of linguistics Roy Harris (1987), even if
there are differences in detail and area of application. It is thus better to
refer to this and similar reinterpretations of structuralism as neostructural-
ism, a term originally coined by Manfred Frank (1989 [1984]). In the
next section, I extend the description of neostructuralism by means of an
attempt at synthesis.
Pragmatism
The founding father of American pragmatist semiotics was C.S. Peirce. It
is commonly believed that his semiotic theory of signs is incompatible
with that outlined by Saussure. Here I try to show that their theories of
signs can be made commensurable with and complementary to each other.
Of course, this is not the only possible point of view from which these
theories can be approached, but I believe that it is the most fruitful one.
Semiology needs this cooperation for at least three reasons. First, Saussure’s
term articulation and Derrida’s term différance locate a central problem
for study, but neither of them describes the problem adequately. Peirce’s
theory of ‘interpretants’ is useful here. Second, and related to the first
point, to see the structure as a process, which is in a constant flux of articu-
lation and rearticulation, is a fruitful point of departure, but it too is left
insufficiently determined in structuralism. Peirce’s ideas about constant
semiosis can be helpful here. Third, Peirce’s studies in the object-relation
of the sign help to map the field of problems surrounding the arbitrariness
and motivation of the sign, which has traditionally been the weak point of
structuralism. What Peircean semiotics receives in turn for its conceptual
arsenal in this synthesis is the core idea of structuralism that the identity of
the sign is determined through the play of differences. I will call the syn-
thesis of these approaches ‘neostructuralist semiotics’, thus taking one
term from each tradition. An alternative term, designating the same prin-
ciple, would be semiological pragmatism, but to avoid unnecessary com-
plexity, I will use the former term exclusively.
It is commonly said that Peirce’s and Saussure’s definitions of the sign
differ from each other on this basis: Peirce’s triadic definition of the sign
involves the object-relation of the sign (object), the physical part of the
sign (representamen or sign) and its interpretation (interpretant). By
18 R. HEISKALA
contrast, Saussure presents a two-fold conceptual split of the sign into

signifier and signified, leaving no place for referential relations. In what
follows I offer a neostructuralist conception according to which the
Saussurean sign is triadic in a way resembling the Peircean sign. This is so
because the articulation of the signifier and the signified can be interpreted
as forming the third component of the sign. Moreover, an isomorphic
relation between the Saussurean and the Peircean sign can be presented,
such that the signifier = representamen, the signified = object, and the
articulation of signifier and signified = interpretant.
The core of this proposal for synthesis is the identification of articula-
tion with the interpretant. Before turning to this idea, however, I deal
with the other parts of the isomorphic relationship. The identification of
the signifier and the representamen hardly raises objections, but the iden-
tification of the signified with the object-relation may be found less obvi-
ous. Hence, two specifications are necessary. To begin with, most readings
of Peirce have put emphasis on his theory of arguments or scientific semio-
sis and, in addition to this, taken natural sciences as the paradigmatic
model of science (e.g. Apel, 1981 [1967]; Hookway, 1985). There is
nothing wrong in this, since Peirce himself also saw this part of his work
as important. Still, his merits in this field should not obscure the fact that
the scope of the theory of semiosis is much broader than that of the theory
of science. In this broader field, Peirce very often worked with a concep-
tion of semiosis in which the object of the sign was not a referent external
to semiosis but a representation within it. Thus, he could make claims
such as ‘the object of representation can be nothing but a representation’
(1931–1966, 1: 339). In this more general semiotic field of culture, the
object is identical with the Saussurean signified. In other words, it is a
construction that stabilizes in the process of culture. There is use for the
natural scientific conception of object in the human sciences, but the more
general semiotic conception is even more important because in every soci-
ety many central entities emerge that are institutions and thus have an
existence and influence only in semiosis.
Peirce’s semiotic objects were thus not always material entities such as
objects of natural scientific arguments. For him semiosis was the way cul-
ture happens, and in this broader field of semiotic study, his understanding
of the object came close to the way Saussure understood the signified.
Peirce’s theory can therefore be interpreted from a Saussurean point of
view. At the same time, however, it seems to me that we should proceed
also in the reverse order. Saussure did not go very far in developing the
theme of arbitrariness versus motivation. An extreme interpretation of his

stand leads to the Cartesian dualism between nature and culture, which is
still a prevalent interpretation today. An alternative interpretation pays
attention to his discussion of the physiological structure of the human
body (sound system and auditory sense). The latter makes it impossible
for the forms of spoken language to vary without limits since our ability to
produce and hear sounds is itself limited. If we proceed in this latter direc-
tion, we see that Peirce advanced much further in his discussion of the
object-relation of the sign than did Saussure. In his theory of arguments,
Peirce thought that referential objects external to semiosis can motivate
the interpretations they receive in semiosis. This is how he presented a
conception which is constructionist and materialistic at the same time: our
interpretations of natural phenomena are our constructions, but we are
not free to formulate these constructions as we please because the objects
are not completely malleable in relation to our interpretations of them. As
is well known, Peirce made a more specific division into iconic, indexical
and symbolic aspects of the object-relation of the sign. The symbolic
aspect equates to the completely arbitrary characteristics of the sign, but
every sign also has iconic and indexical aspects. Different aspects dominate
in different signs, but all three subsist in every sign. Adaptation of this line
of thought to structuralism does not make semiology less effective. This is
especially true if we follow Saussure and consider the arbitrary linguistic
sign as the point of departure to which all other systems of signs are com-
pared, and if we introduce information about the motivated nature of
signs only in cases where there is a need to do so. In such cases, however,
the Peircean method supplies the structuralist tradition with tools it has
lacked until now.
We have now discussed two of the three apexes of the isomorphic tri-
angle, that is, the equations ‘signifier = representamen’ and ‘signified =
object’. Now it is time to focus on the core of the issue, which is how the
‘articulation = interpretant’ equation enriches both the structuralist and
the pragmatist traditions. In spite of all post- and neo-structuralist aspira-
tions, the structuralist tradition remains a static way of describing culture.
Associative relations refer to the structure and, on the above interpreta-
tion, so do syntagmatic relations. What, then, refers to motion and change?
The neostructuralist answer is: articulations, which can be understood as a
temporal flow of the chain of Peircean interpretants. This is to say that the
way the neostructuralist structure is in a constant process of articulation
and rearticulation can be understood as Peircean semiosis. The reverse
20 R. HEISKALA
side of this interpretation of Peircean semiosis is that, in the light of the

structuralist tradition, it must be seen as a process in which signs do not
just ‘grow’, but they ‘grow’ in such a way that in every interpretation the
whole meaning-structure is rearticulated though the associative and syn-
tagmatic relations determining the identity of the sign. This is how we get
the most general possible description of semiosis as a process in which
culture as a structure of sign-relations is constantly rearticulated in the
flow of interpretants.
But what are interpretants and articulations, and where do they take
place? To make my position on this issue clear, I next spend some time on
a discussion of the conceptual toolbox of phenomenological sociology,
even if it is not possible to accept the phenomenological view either with-
out reformulation.
Phenomenological Sociology
Edmund Husserl (1982 [1931]) and in his wake Alfred Schutz (1982
[1932]) defined meaning starting from the idea of an intentional act of
consciousness, which they understood as the basic form of human experi-
ence. The phenomenologists did not, however, think that all intentional
acts of consciousness are meaningful. Says Schutz, ‘Meaning does not lie
in the experience. Rather, those experiences are meaningful which are
grasped reflectively. The meaning is the way in which the Ego regards its
experience. The meaning lies in the attitude of the Ego toward that part
of its stream of consciousness which has already flowed by, toward its
“elapsed duration”’(1982 [1932]: 69–70, original emphasis). Later, he
specified that meaning is ‘the result of an interpretation of a past experi-
ence looked at from the present Now with a reflective attitude’ (Schutz,
1976a [1945]: 210).
For phenomenologists, then, life is an infinite temporal flow of experi-
ence (Erlebnis). This flow takes place in the form of a set of successive acts
in which the attention of consciousness becomes attached to one and then
another object. But an intentional act taken separately is not yet a mean-
ing. It is made meaningful by another, succeeding intentional act, which
has the previous intentional act as its object. This is how meaning emerges
in everyday life. For Husserl, however, who was a philosopher of science
in the Kantian sense, the ‘natural attitude’ of everyday life was only a point
of departure from which he wanted to move, by means of ‘phenomeno-
logical reduction’ or ‘bracketing’ of the natural attitude, to the plane of
‘transcendental phenomenology’. The aim of transcendental phenome-

nology was to justify the intersubjective validity or universal nature of
mathematics and theoretical natural sciences from the phenomenological
point of view. The challenge in carrying this out was the phenomenologi-
cal clause that the philosopher should proceed in his/her argument in
such a way that nothing can be taken as given other than such phenomena
which appear to the consciousness in the form of intentional acts. After
bracketing the natural attitude of mundane life, this point of departure,
characterized by Husserl himself as radically ‘solipsistic’ (1982 [1931]:
30), led to problems so great in the attempt to ground the intersubjective
validity of knowledge that, even if Husserl himself thought that he had
managed to solve the puzzle, others have argued that what he managed to
establish, at most, was that one consciousness is able to have an idea of
another consciousness (Hammond et al., 1991: 222).
This is bad news and means more work for transcendental phenome-
nologists, but there is no need for us to stop here. This is so because
Schutz established the possibility of phenomenological sociology by liber-
ating the phenomenological approach from Husserl’s orientation to the
Kantian critique of pure reason, and by concentrating instead of the phi-
losophy of science and transcendental phenomenology in the phenome-
nology of mundane life and the natural attitude of everyday knowledge. In
this sphere, the existence of the Alter is not a problem, since intersubjec-
tivity and validity of knowledge are taken for granted so long as action
based on these assumptions does not run into a crisis.6 Still, this is but one
half of the foundation of phenomenological sociology. Another move
made by Schutz was to introduce social-scientific problems and social the-
ory into the phenomenological frame of reference by integrating it with
Max Weber’s (1968 [1922]) action-theoretical approach. He was able to
do this by directing attention to a specific class of intentional acts, which
had not aroused Husserl’s interest, since the latter was oriented to the
philosophy of science. Schutz termed this class projects. For Schutz, a proj-
ect is an anticipated chain of actions, which is in an intentional act of con-
sciousness ‘thought in the future perfect tense (modo futuri exacti)’ (1982
[1932]: 61). A project is, then, an intentional act directed to the future as
an anticipated action. In Fig. 2.1, I provide graphical representations for
Schutz’s definitions of meaning and project (as a specific type of meaning).
Schutz was the founding father of phenomenological sociology, but all
his work was rather abstract and almost exclusively oriented to the justifi-
cation of its philosophical and methodological foundation (for more on
22 R. HEISKALA
(a) Interpretation of meaning as a reflective intentional act (directed in point

t 2to the Ego’s intentional act in point t1)
X X X X
t0 t1 t2 t3
(b) Project as a reflective intentional act (directed in point t 1to the Ego’s
intentional act in point t 2)
X X X X
t0 t1 t2 t3
Fig. 2.1 Meaning and project in Schutz’s phenomenology (Source: Heiskala

2003: 81)
Schutz, see Heiskala, 2011). Because his seminal work, Der sinnhafte
Aufbau der sozialen Welt (1982 [1932]), was not translated into English
until the 1970s (under the title The Phenomenology of the Social World), it
was Schutz’s fate to achieve fame through his students.7 In this respect,
two books published in the US in the latter half of the 1960s were espe-
cially important. Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology (1984
[1967]) followed the Husserlian rather than the Weberian root of phe-
nomenological sociology but tried to transform the phenomenology of
everyday life into an empirical study, the most vital tradition of which is
today constituted by conversation analysis (Heritage, 1984). Peter
L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality
(1966), in turn, followed the Weberian line, which it complemented with
G.H. Mead’s (1934) socialization theory. This was how they created a
phenomenologically based social theory. This was not easy to figure out,
however, as the subtitle of the book was ‘a treatise in the sociology of
knowledge’. Nonetheless, their definition of knowledge covered the whole
sphere of everyday knowledge, and they set out to establish gradually,
starting from everyday knowledge and habitualized behaviour, a concep-
tion of the totality of social institutions and their legitimation. They
defined an ‘institution’ as a form of habitualized behaviour in which the

kinds of actors and typical action schemes are reciprocally typified, and
‘legitimation’ as the discursive justification of an institution (e.g. as con-
cerns its history of birth or function). These definitions benefitted social
theory by making it unnecessary to draw a sharp line of demarcation
between the cultural interpretations of meaning, on the one hand, and the
institutional structure of society, on the other, and then to ask which
determines which.8 Instead, the route from interpretations of meaning to
the facts of social structure was a continuum, wherein the relations of
interdependence and determination of different elements can vary in con-
tingent ways at different points in time.
In addition to its benefits, there are problems involved in the phenom-
enological tradition. The most important of these is already present in the
subtitle of Berger and Luckmann’s book. Why must a study in social the-
ory be a ‘treatise in the sociology of knowledge’? The answer is included
in the way phenomenological sociology defines meaning as a reflective
intentional act. It is for this reason that Berger and Luckmann understand
the study of everyday ‘knowledge’ as the basic level of cultural sociology;
the basic concept of ethnomethodology is an accounting of the meaning
of events immediately preceding the account; and, according to Schutz’s
definition of meaning, the latter is not an intentional act but the reflective
intentional act succeeding it. Compared to the theory of action, which
deals only with means-and-ends chains, these definitions make it possible
for the social scientist to expand considerably the area of the study of soci-
ety. Yet they exclude those dimensions of culture that affect the actors but
that escape their conscious reflection. In Peirce’s terms (1931–1966, 5:
480), we can say that, in the continuum habit—belief—veritable belief,
the way Berger and Luckmann alter the focus of the sociology of knowl-
edge is by a transition from the category of ‘veritable belief’ to the cate-
gory of ‘belief’; but their concept of ‘habit’ is also defined at that level,
and is unable to push to the more fundamental level of the Peircean notion
of habit. This is the case with habits of interpretation as well as with other
habits. As far as structuralism is concerned, we could also say that phe-
nomenological sociology is not able to approach all articulations of mean-
ing.9 What conclusion should we draw from this?
One possibility is to conclude that phenomenological sociology pro-
vides the social scientist with a programmatic guideline but is unable to go
all the way to the destination. This makes it necessary to seek help from
24 R. HEISKALA
the synthesis of structuralism and pragmatism, as developed in the previ-

ous sections. This can be integrated with phenomenological sociology by
the idea that the articulation of meaning (Saussure) or the linking of the
object and the sign by the interpretant (Peirce) can be understood as an
‘intentional act’. This idea has two implications for phenomenological
sociology and two implications for neostructuralist semiotics.
First, the scope covered by phenomenological sociology expands,
since the sphere of meaning is not restricted exclusively to reflective
intentional acts, that is, those habits of interpretation which are not
everyday knowledge, are also included in its field of research. This nat-
urally has the implication of opening up a subfield of research in which
the actors themselves are not competent interpreters of their significa-
tion, and instead of or in addition to their interpretations, we need
hypothetical interpretations by, for example, semioticians, critical soci-
ologists or psychoanalysts (see Bourdieu, 1990 [1980]; Silverman,
1983). Second, phenomenological sociology is no longer compelled to
define meaning as a relationship between the consciousness and a sign,
which is present, in the sense that it appears to the consciousness (see
Chap. 8 later, and MacCannell, 1983: 24–25). Instead, the structural-
ist theory of articulation introduces, in addition to the act of appear-
ance of the sign to the consciousness, the associative and syntagmatic
relations that the sign has to other signs. This is how the phenomeno-
logical approach is liberated from the ‘metaphysics of presence’ and an
involved attempt to seek ‘internal speech’ (Husserl) or some other
transcendental signified, which would not be polluted by the impact of
signifiers (see Derrida, 1973 [1967], 1981 [1972]).
The reverse side of this synthetic idea is that, first, neostructuralist semi-
otics is enriched with a useful interpretation of the nature of articulation
or chain of interpretants, which can be understood as a series of successive
intentional acts in the stream of consciousness. Peirce’s analysis of the
object-relation of the sign, however, frees the synthesis from Husserl’s
solipsistic, underlying assumptions. Second, the synthesis provides a pleth-
ora of phenomenological social-theoretical concepts for neostructuralist
semiotics. These concepts are, after the internal relationship to the meta-
physics of presence and cognitivism has been jettisoned, readily available
for further work.
Conclusion: Implications for Cultural

and Social Theory
I have presented here a programmatic synthesis which can be crystallized

into the equation ‘articulation = interpretant = intentional act’. To con-
clude the argument, I try to answer the question: What can we do with the
synthetic conception and in what direction should we proceed in the future?
As far as the theory of culture is concerned, the synthetic conception
opens up a tripolar field consisting of Saussure, Peirce and Husserl/
Schutz, that is, structuralist semiology, pragmatist semiotics and phenom-
enology. Between these three poles, three bipolar subfields of debate
emerge, some of which have already been theorized up to a point. The
relationship between Saussure and Husserl has been studied by Derrida
(1974 [1967], 1978 [1962]), but he has done this only from the point of
view of metaphilosophical criticism. The relationship between Saussure
and Peirce, in turn, has been discussed by Heiskala (2003: 205–233), but
there is still work to be done in this field. The least studied of the subfields,
however, is the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology and
Peirce’s ‘phaneroscopy’. It is equally difficult to find literature on the
entire tripolar field, even though I have presented an outline of it here.
As to social theory, I have already touched on this issue in this chapter.
The main idea was that, in neostructuralist semiotics, we have a basis for
the theory of meaning which enables redefinition of phenomenological
sociology in such a way that it is not tied to the ‘metaphysics of presence’,
and which does not limit the sphere of meaning so that it consists exclu-
sively of everyday knowledge or reflective interpretation of meaning.
Nothing much was said here about the theory of action, but this line of
thought can be extended to it, as Schutz (1982 [1932]) has already done,
so that we can understand phenomenological sociology as a basis in cul-
tural theory for action theories such as Weber’s or rational-choice theory.
This is how we arrive at Fig. 2.2, which is built on the idea that each of the
three approaches has its own area of application. If we progress from the
narrowest application towards the more broad-based ones, it can be said
that the theory of action makes certain types of social research possible. In
Schutz’s terms, we are dealing here with enclaves of social reality that are
organized by projects. Outside the sphere of projects, however, what is
needed is a broader approach, exemplified by phenomenological sociol-
ogy, which directs its attention to the totality of every-day knowledge in
addition to projects. Yet even this totality does not cover the whole
26 R. HEISKALA
action theory
phenomenological
sociology
neostructuralism
Fig. 2.2 The triangle model of meaning-analysis (Source: Heiskala, 2003: 321)
process of social semiosis. Hence, we need a neostructuralist semiotics,

which, in addition to projects and everyday knowledge, is interested in
articulations of meaning or habits of interpretation which are not projects
or knowledge and yet make both of these possible.
Two things should be noted in Fig. 2.2. First, it determines the area of
valid application for each approach. In this sense, it is an attempt to guide
research so as to avoid mistakes and the use of residual categories, both of
which arise when an approach is put to use outside its appropriate area of
application (e.g. as happens in Habermas’s, 1984 [1981] attempt to
ground the whole theory of meaning in an action-theoretical model, or in
the attempt of phenomenological sociologists to deal with non-reflective
intentional acts with categories that tie the definition of meaning to reflec-
tive intentional acts). At the same time, it is a synthetic attempt to map the
route through which it is possible to transition from one theoretical tradi-
tion to another whenever the research task at hand requires it. Second, it
must be specified what exactly is implied by presenting the differences
between the theoretical approaches in a cumulative way, so that phenom-
enological sociology covers all problems formulated in action theory and
neostructuralist semiotics covers all problems formulated in
phenomenological sociology. It is possible to read this formulation as a

programmatic declaration that neostructuralist semiotics makes phenom-
enological sociology and action theory obsolete. But this is not what is
meant here, because there are serious reasons, having to do with the
proper allocation of research resources, to hold to the principle that one
should work with as simple as possible a theory in each individual research
context. This should be clear, for example, to anyone who has ever trans-
formed an action-theoretical description of a situation into an ethnometh-
odological or conversation-analytical type description of the procedural
chain of conversational implicatures. Such a person knows only too well
that the amount of research work, the time spent on it, and the space
needed for publication of the results grows exponentially. Since the same
thing happens when we move from a phenomenological approach to neo-
structuralist semiotics, these transitions are reasonable only in cases where
we can assume that the benefits will outweigh the extra effort. In other
cases, one must be content with the use of the simplest possible set of
concepts, and it is for this reason that all three approaches in Fig. 2.2 have
an appropriate area of application.
The conception presented in this chapter is the foundation of the syn-
thetic approach of this book. We now proceed to two chapters giving meat
around the bones of the approach. First of those deals with the question
of the economy/society relationship and the second that of power. With
those two topics covered, we can then move to the applications of the
approach.
Notes
1. The new translation by Roy Harris (Saussure, 1983 [1916]) used every-
where in this article translates the terms signifié/signifiant as ‘signification/
signal’ instead of ‘signified/signifier’ used in Wade Baskin’s earlier transla-
tion (Saussure, 1974 [1916]). I here stick to Baskin’s wording because it is
established and widely used in semiotic literature and cultural studies.
2. A claim has been made that the structuralist way to grasp the emergence of
meaning through negation is time barred. This claim has been made by
those drawing upon so-called prototype semantics (Holland & Quinn,
1987; Leino, 1987). They think that a more effective way to determine
meanings is to find a prototype which is ‘the best instance of a word’s use,
and expect real-world cases to fit this best example more or less’ (Sweetser,
1987: 43). The category of bird, for example, is defined, in prototype
semantics, by referring to the swallow, but it also applies, to a lesser degree,
28 R. HEISKALA
to the hen and the penguin (Leino, 1987: 38). The structuralist counter-
argument to this reasoning is that it may well be so that, in many empirical
descriptions of cultural systems, prototype semantics is a handy way to
describe the cultural system, but as an ‘ontology of culture’, it is unable to
answer the question of how the swallow is able to remain the central proto-
type of the bird. The structuralist answer would refer to the negative play of
differences, which is the necessary condition for the articulation of signs as
elements of the cultural structure.
3. For more on different interpretations of structure (langue), speech (parole)
and their mutual relationships, see Heiskala (2003: 173–179).
4. Sulkunen and Törrönen (1997a, b), for example, are based on Greimas’s
theory, and there is no doubt that they can enrich empirical study of culture
and society. As an ontology of society or culture, however, the Greimassian
approach is problematic to say the least.
5. One benefit of this interpretation is that it solves Saussure’s problem of the
temporal nature of syntagmatic relations. Saussure thought that the flow of
time is halted in synchronic linguistics in order for the researcher to have a
research object that is not in a state of change. As concerns associative rela-
tions, this is not a problem, but syntagmatic relations are all threatened with
being interpreted as existing only in the sphere of speech, since they are
realized in a temporal chain (Saussure, 1983 [1916]: 172–173). If, how-
ever, we conceive of syntagmatic relations as internal potentialities of the
sign to participate in certain syntagmatic chains, then syntagmatic relations
can contribute to the structure in the same sense as do associative relations.
6. It is also possible, on the level of mundane phenomenology, to attempt to
justify the validity of knowledge and the intersubjectivity of interpretation
(e.g. see Natanson, 1986; Schutz, 1976b [1948]; 1976c [1942]; 1982
[1932]). This, however, is not the only issue that interests the researcher,
and it is not the privileged point of departure for the phenomenologist of
everyday life.
7. The first complete English translation was made in 1972, and the first one
with relatively acceptable terminology in 1976.
8. Alternatives here include Marx: the (economic) base structure determines
cultural interpretations; Weber: there is a dualism between the structure and
cultural interpretations, and each can determine the other depending on the
case; and Parsons: (interpretations of) values determine the structure.
9. This is how the logic of the conceptual system runs. In actual ethnomethod-
ological descriptions by Garfinkel and others and in recognizing relevant
tasks for research, Berger and Luckmann often try to deal with meanings
that have not been explicated in the form of everyday knowledge. The
problem here, however, is that they do this on the basis of the phenomeno-
logical set of concepts, which does not provide the theoretical tools to do so.
Talcott Parsons (1968 [1937]) called attempts such as this the use of ‘resid-
ual categories’. For him, finding residual categories in a theoretical corpus
was always an indication of the limited nature of the set of concepts in use
and always called for a synthetic attempt to create a more extensive set of
categories. Even though many of Parsons’s ideas have been shown to be
dated in more recent sociological debate, this one still seems pertinent.
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CHAPTER 3
Economy and Society in Semiotic

Institutionalism
The relationship between the economy and the rest of social reality has
been a central theme in modern social theory (for some of the most clas-
sical examples, see Durkheim, 1984; Marx, 1971; Simmel, 1990; Smith,
1976; Sombart, 1987; Weber, 1968) simply because the emergence of the
modern world can be characterized as the ‘great transformation’, which
made the economy the major organizing factor of the social synthesis and
thus brought forth the problem of political regulation of the economy
(Polanyi, 1944). Recent debate on globalization shows that, even if the
approaches of different authors vary, they all agree that the relationship
between the economy and the rest of social reality is an even more burn-
ing question today than in the time of the classics (cf. Held et al., 1999;
Hirst & Thompson, 1999; Castells, 2000; Sassen, 2001; Mann, 2013;
Milanovic, 2019).
The centrality of the economy in the modern world could make us
think that among the social sciences it is economics towards which one
should turn for an illuminating account of the economy/society relation-
ship. Curiously enough this is not the case, and it is sociology rather than
economics that one will have to consult for an analysis of this relationship.
To understand why this is so, we will have to spend some time with the
basic concepts of these two modern disciplines.

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to about two hundred young priests and theological students on “The
Personal Qualifications for a Minister of Religion.” The address was
in no important respect different from that which would be suitable on
the same subject for an audience of theological students in England
or the United States; nor did its reception and appropriation seem
any less thorough and sincere.
After inspecting the work in drawing and water-colours of which—so
the posted notice read—“An Exhibition is given in honour of ——,”
Mrs. Ladd returned to Tokyo; but I remained to carry out my purpose
of spending a full day and night among my priestly Buddhist friends.
In our many confidential talks while we were in the relations of
teacher and pupil, the latter had avowed his life-work to be the moral
reform and improved mental culture of the priesthood of his sect. It
had then seemed to me a bold, even an audacious undertaking. But
seeming audacity was quite characteristic of the youth of all those
very men who now, in middle life and old-age, are holding the posts
of leadership in Japan in a way to conserve the best results of the
earlier period of more rapid change. Besides, I knew well that my
pupil had the necessary courage and devotion; for he was not only a
priest but also a soldier, and had been decorated for his bravery in
the Chino-Japanese war. And again, toward the close of the Russo-
Japanese war, when he had been called out with the reserves, he
had once more left the position of priestly student and teacher to
take his place at arms in the defence of his country.
How wholesome and thoroughly educative of their whole manhood
was the training which was being given to these young temple boys,
I had abundant reason to know before leaving the Nichiren College
at Osaki. After tea and welcome-addresses by one of the teachers
and two of the pupils, followed by a response by the guest, an
exhibition of one side of this training was given in the large dining-
hall of the school. For as it was in ancient Greece, so it is now in
Japan; arms and music must not be neglected in the preparation to
serve his country of the modern Buddhist priest. Sword-dancing—
one of the chants which accompanied the action being Saigo’s
celebrated “death song”—and a duet performed upon a flute and a
harp constructed by the performer out of split bamboo and strings of
silk, followed by banzais for their guest, concluded the
entertainment.
Of the nine who sat down to dinner that evening in a private room
belonging to another building of the school, four besides the host
were priests of the Nichiren sect. They constituted the body of the
more strictly religious or theological instructors; the courses in
literature and the sciences being taught for the most part by
professors from the Imperial University or from the private university
founded by Japan’s great teacher of youth, the late Mr. Fukuzawa.
Of the priests the most conspicuous and communicative was proud
to inform me that he had been the chaplain of General Noghi at the
siege of Port Arthur. With reference to the criticisms passed at the
time upon that great military leader he said with evident emotion that
General Noghi was “as wise as he was undoubtedly brave.” This
same priest had also interesting stories to tell of his experiences in
China. In speaking of the ignorance of the teachers of religion in that
country he declared, that of the hundreds of Tâoist priests he had
met, the vast majority could not even read the Chinese ideographs
when he wrote them; and none of the numbers he had known could
make any pretence to scholarship. They were quite universally
ignorant, superstitious, and physically and morally filthy. Among the
Buddhist priests in China, however, the case was somewhat better;
for perhaps three or four in every ten could make some pretence of
education; and there were even a very few who were real scholars.
But neither Tâoists nor Buddhists had much influence for good over
the people; and “priest, priest,” was a cry of insult with which to
follow one. As to their sincerity, at one of the Tâoist temples he had
asked for meat and wine, but had been told that none could be had,
because they abstained religiously from both. But when he replied
that he had no scruples against either, but needed them for his
health and wished to pay well for them, both were so quickly
produced he knew they could not have come from far away. (I may
remark in this connection that if the experiences and habits of the
Chinese in Manchuria resemble at all closely the experiences and
customs of the Koreans in their own country, the unwillingness to
furnish accommodations to travelling strangers is caused rather by
the fear of having them requisitioned without pay than to any
scruples, religious or otherwise, as to what they themselves eat and
drink or furnish to others for such purposes).
The same subject which had been introduced at the priests-house,
on occasion of the all-night festival at Ikegami, was now brought
forward again. What had been my impressions received from the
spectacle witnessed at that time? When to the inquiry I made a
similar answer,—namely, that only a portion of the vast crowd
seemed to be sincere worshippers, but that with the exception of a
few rude young men in the procession, who appeared to have had
too much saké, I saw no immoral or grossly objectional features—all
the priests expressed agreement with my views. Where the
superstitions connected with the celebration were not positively
harmful, it was the policy of the reforming and progressive party of
the sect to leave them to die away of themselves as the people at
large became more enlightened.
After a night of sound sleep, Japanese fashion, on the floor of the
study in my pupil’s pretty new home, we rose at six and hastened
across the fields to attend the morning religious services in the
chapel of the school. Here for a full half-hour, or more, what had
every appearance of serious and devout religious worship was held
by the assembled teachers and pupils. All were neatly dressed in
black gowns; no evidences of having shuffled into unbrushed
garments, with toilets only half-done or wholly neglected, were
anywhere to be seen, nor was there the vacant stare, the loud
whisper, the stolen glance at newspaper or text-book; but all
responded to the sutras and intoned the appointed prayers and
portions of the Scriptures, while the time was accented by the not too
loud beating of a musical gong. Certainly, the orderliness and
apparent devotion quite exceeded that of any similar service at
“morning prayers” in the average American college or university.
A brief exhibition of judo, (a modified form of jiujitsu), and of
Japanese fencing, which was carried on in the dining-room while the
head-master was exchanging his priestly for his military dress, in
order to take part in a memorial service to deceased soldiers, at
which General Noghi was expected to be present, terminated my
entertainment at this Buddhist school for the training of temple boys.
As we left the crowd of them who had accompanied us thus far on
the way, and stood shouting banzais on the platform of the station,
there was no room for doubting the heartiness of their friendly feeling
toward the teacher of their teacher; although the two, while sharing
many of the most important religious views, were called by names
belonging to religions so different as Christianity and Buddhism.
The impressions from these two visits to Ikegami regarding the
changes going on in Buddhistic circles in Japan, and in the attitude
of Buddhism toward Christianity, were amply confirmed by
subsequent experiences. At Kyoto, the ancient capital and religious
centre of the empire, I was invited by the Dean of the Theological
Seminary connected with the Nishi Honwangi to address some six
hundred young priests of various sects on the same topic as that on
which the address was given at the Nichiren College near Ikegami. It
should be explained that this temple is under the control of the Shin-
shu, the most numerous and probably the most wealthy sect in the
Empire. The high priest of this sect is an hereditary count and
therefore a member of the House of Peers. He is also a man of
intelligence and of a wide-spreading interest in religion. At the time of
my visit, indeed, the Count was absent on a missionary tour in
China. This address also was listened to with the same respectful
attention by the several hundred Buddhist priests who had gathered
at the temple of Nishi Honwangi. Here again Mrs. Ladd and I were
made the recipients of the same courteous and unique hospitality.
Before the lecture began, we were entertained in the room which
had been distinguished for all time in the estimate of the nation by
the fact that His Majesty the Emperor held within its walls the first
public reception ever granted to his subjects by the Mikado; and after
the lecture we were further honoured by being the first outsiders ever
invited to a meal with the temple officers within one of the temple
apartments.
Later on at Nagoya, further evidence was afforded of the important
fact that the old-time religious barriers are broken down or are being
overridden, wherever the enlightenment and moral welfare of the
people seem likely to be best served in this way. Now Nagoya has
hitherto been considered one of the most conservative and even
bigoted Buddhist centres in all Japan. Yet a committee composed of
Buddhists and of members of the Young Men’s Christian Association
united in arrangements for a course of lectures on education and
ethics. This was remarked upon as the first instance of anything of
the sort in the history of the city.
When we seek for the causes which have operated to bring about
these important and hopeful changes in the temper and practises of
the Buddhism which is fast gaining currency and favour in Japan, we
are impressed with the belief that the greatest of them is the
introduction of Christianity itself. This influence is obvious in the
following three essential ways. Christian conceptions and doctrines
are modifying the tenets of the leading Buddhistic thinkers in Japan.
As I listened for several hours to his exposition of his conception of
the Divine Being, the divine manner of self-revelation, and of his
thoughts about the relations of God and man, by one of the most
notable theologians of the Shin Shu (the sect which I have already
spoken of as the most popular in Japan), I could easily imagine that
the exponent was one of the Alexandrine Church-Fathers, Origen or
Clement, discoursing of God the Unrevealed and of the Logos who
was with God and yet who became man. But Buddhism is also giving
much more attention than formerly to raising the moral standards of
both priests and people. It is sharing in the spirit of ethical quickening
and revival which is so important an element of the work of Christian
missions abroad, but which is alas! so woefully neglected in the so-
called Christian nations at home. Japanese Buddhism is feeling now
much more than formerly the obligation of any religion which asks
the adherence and support of the people, to help the people, in a
genuine and forceful way, to a nobler and better way of living.
Hitherto in Japan it has been that peculiar development of Confucian
ethics called Bushidō, which has embodied and cultivated the nobler
moral ideals. Religion, at least in the form which Buddhism has taken
in Japan, has had little to do with inspiring and guiding men in the life
which is better and best, here and now. But as its superstitions with
regard to the future are falling away and are ceasing practically to
influence the body of the people, there are some gratifying signs that
its influence upon the spiritual interests of the present is becoming
purer and stronger.
That Buddhism is improving its means of educating its followers, and
is feeling powerfully the quickening of the national pulse, due to the
advancing strides in educational development, is obvious enough to
any one able to compare its condition to-day with its condition not
more than a score of years ago. There are, of course, in the ranks of
all the Buddhist sects leaders who are ready to cry out against
heresies and the mischief of changes concealed under the guise of
reforms. The multitudes of believers are still far below the desirable
standard of either intelligence in religious matters, or of morals as
controlled by religious motives. But the old days of stagnation and
decay seem to be passing away; and the outlook now is that the
foreign religion, instead of speedily destroying the older native
religion, will have helped it to assume a new and more vigorous and
better form of life.
As the period of more bitter conflict and mutual denunciation gives
way to a period of more respectful and friendly, and even co-
operative attitude in advancing the welfare of the nation, the future of
both Buddhism and Christianity in Japan affords a problem of more
complicated and doubtful character. The nation is awakening to its
need of morals and religion,—in addition to a modern army and
navy, and to an equipment for teaching and putting to practical uses,
the physical sciences,—as never before. The awakening is
accompanied there, as elsewhere in the modern world, by a thirst for
reality. Whatever can satisfy this thirst, however named, will find
acceptance and claim the allegiance of both the thoughtful and the
multitudes of the common people; for in Japan, as elsewhere in the
modern world, men are not easily satisfied or permanently satisfied
with mere names.
CHAPTER X
HIKONÉ AND ITS PATRIOT MARTYR
Among the feudal towns of Japan which can boast of a fine castle
still standing, and of an illustrious lord as its former occupant, there
are few that can rival Hikoné. Picturesquely seated on a wooded hill
close to the shores of Lake Biwa, with the blue waters and almost
equally blue surrounding mountains in full sight, the castle enjoys the
advantages of strength combined with beauty; while the lords of the
castle are descended from a very ancient family, which was awarded
its territory by the great Iyéyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa
Shōgunate, in return for the faithful services of their ancestor,
Naomasa, in bringing the whole land under the Tokugawa rule. They
therefore belonged to the rank of the Fudai Daimio, or Retainer
Barons, from whom alone the Roju, or Senators, and other officers of
the first class could be appointed. Of these lords of Hikoné much the
most distinguished was Naosuké, who signed the treaty with the
United States negotiated in 1857 and 1858. And yet, so strange are
the vicissitudes of history, and so influential the merely incidental
occurrences in human affairs, that only a chance visit of the Mikado
saved this fine feudal castle from the “general ruin of such buildings
which accompanied the mania for all things European and the
contempt of their national antiquities, whereby the Japanese were
actuated during the past two decades of the present régime.” Nor
was it until recent years that Baron Ii Naosuké’s memory has been
rescued from the charge of being a traitor to his country and a
disobedient subject of its Emperor, and elevated to a place of
distinction and reverence, almost amounting to worship, as a clear-
sighted and far-seeing statesman and patriot.
“PICTURESQUELY SEATED ON A WOODED HILL”
However we may regard the unreasonableness of either of these two
extreme views of Naosuké’s character, one thing seems clear. In
respect to the laying of foundations for friendly relations between the
United States and Japan, we owe more to this man than to any other
single Japanese. No one can tell what further delays and resulting
irritation, and even accession of blood-shed, might have taken place
in his time had it not been for his courageous and firm position
toward the difficult problem of admitting foreigners to trade and to
reside within selected treaty-ports of Japan. This position cost him
his life. For a generation, or more, it also cost him what every true
Japanese values far more highly than life; it cost the reputation of
being loyal to his sovereign and faithful to his country’s cause. Yet
not five Americans in a million, it is likely, ever heard the name of
Baron Ii Kamon-no-Kami, who as Tairō, or military dictator, shared
the responsibility and should share the fame of our now celebrated
citizen, then Consul General at Shimoda, Townsend Harris. My
purpose, therefore, is two-fold: I would gladly “have the honour to
introduce” Ii Naosuké to a larger audience of my own countrymen;
and by telling the story of an exceedingly interesting visit to Hikoné, I
would equally gladly introduce to the same audience certain ones of
the great multitude of Japanese who still retain the knightly courtesy,
intelligence and high standards of living—though in their own way—
which characterised the feudal towns of the “Old Japan,” now so
rapidly passing away.
Baron Ii Naosuké, better known in foreign annals as Ii Kamon-no-
Kami, was his father’s fourteenth son. He was born November 30,
1815. The father was the thirteenth feudal lord from that Naomasa
who received his fief from the great Iyéyasu. Since the law of
primogeniture—the only exceptions being cases of insanity or bodily
defect—was enforced throughout the Empire, the early chances that
Naosuké would ever become the head of the family and lord of
Hikoné, seemed small indeed. But according to the usage of the Ii
clan, all the sons except the eldest were either given as adopted
sons to other barons, or were made pensioned retainers of their
older brother. All his brothers, except the eldest, had by adoption
become the lords of their respective clans. But from the age of
seventeen onward, Naosuké was given a modest pension and
placed in a private residence. He thus enjoyed years of opportunity
for training in arms, literature, and reflective study, apart from the
corrupting influences of court life and the misleading temptations to
the exercise of unrestricted authority—both of which are so injurious
to the character of youth. Moreover, he became acquainted with the
common people. That was also true of him, which has been true of
so many of the great men of Japan down to the present time. He
made his friend and counsellor of a man proficient in the military and
literary education of the day. And, indeed, it has been the great
teachers who, more than any other class, through the shaping of
character in their pupils, have influenced mankind to their good. It
was Nakagawa Rokurō who showed to Naosuké, when a young
man, the impossibility of the further exclusion of Japan from foreign
intercourse. It was he also who “influenced the future Tairō to make a
bold departure from the old traditions” of the country.
On the death, without male issue, of his oldest brother, Naosuké was
declared heir-apparent of the Hikoné Baronetcy. And on Christmas
day of 1850 he was publicly authorised by the Shōgunate to assume
the lordly title of Kamon-no-Kami. It is chiefly through the conduct of
the man when, less than a decade later, he came to the position
which was at the same time the most responsible, difficult and
honourable but dangerous of all possible appointments in “Old
Japan,” that the character of Baron Ii must be judged. On the side of
sentiment—and only when approached from this side can one
properly appreciate the typical knightly character of Japanese
feudalism—we may judge his patriotism by this poem from his own
hand:
Omi no mi kishi utsu nami no iku tabimo,

Miyo ni kokoro wo kudaki nuru kana;
or as freely translated by Dr. Griffis:—
“As beats the ceaseless wave on Omi’s strand

So breaks my heart for our beloved land.”
(Omi is the poetical appellation of Lake Biwa, on which the feudal

castle of the lords of Hikoné has already been said to be situated.)
How the sincerity of this sentiment may be reconciled with the act
which for an entire generation caused the baron to be stigmatised a
traitor is made clear through the following story told by the great
Ōkubo. In the troubled year of 1858, the Viscount, just before
starting on an official errand to the Imperial Court at Kyoto, called on
Baron Ii, who was then chief in command under the Shōgun, to
inform him of his expected departure on the morrow. He had
embodied his own views regarding the vexed question of foreign
affairs, on his “pocket paper,” in the form of a poem. This paper the
Viscount handed to the Baron and asked him whether his views
were the same as those of the poem. Having carefully read it Ii
approved and instructed Ōkubo to act up to the spirit of the poem,
which reads:
“However numerous and diversified the nations of the earth may be,
the God who binds them together can never be more than one.”
Whatever differences of view prevailed, between his political
supporters and his political enemies, as to the purity of Naosuké’s
patriotic sentiments, there was little opportunity for difference as to
certain other important elements of his character. He had
conspicuously the qualities needed for taking a position of dictatorial
command in times of turbulence and extreme emergency. Serious in
purpose, but slow in making up his mind, he had undaunted firmness
in carrying out his plans, such that “no amount of difficulties would
make him falter or find him irresolute.”
The burning question of foreign intercourse which the coming of
Commodore Perry had forced upon the Shōgunate in 1853, had
afterward been referred to the barons of the land. They favoured
exclusion by a large majority; and some of them were ready to
enforce it at the expense of a foreign war. But the recent experience
of China at the hands of the allied forces was beginning to teach the
Far East that lesson of preparedness by foreign and modern
education which Japan has since so thoroughly learned; and to the
fuller magnitude of which China herself is just awakening. To take
the extreme position of complete and final resistance to the demands
of the foreign forces seemed obviously to court speedy and
inevitable ruin for the country at large. Yet none of the barons,
except the Baron of Hikoné, had a plan to propose by which to
exclude alike the peaceful foreigner come to trade and the armed
foreigner come to enforce his country’s demand for peaceful
intercourse by the use of warlike means.
It is interesting to notice that Naosuké answered the question of the
Shōgunate in a manner to indicate the consistent policy of his
country from 1853 down to the present time. He did not, it is
probable, love or admire the personality of the foreign invader more
than did his brother barons; or more than does the average Chinese
official at the present time. On consulting with his own retainers, he
found the “learned Nakagawa” the sole supporter of his views. All the
clan, with the exception of this teacher and scholar, favoured
exclusion at any cost. “The frog in the well knows not the great
ocean,” says the Japanese proverb. And as to the Japanese people,
who at that time were kept “in utter ignorance of things outside of
their own country,” Count (now Prince) Yamagata said in 1887, with
reference to the superior foresight of Baron Ii: “Their condition was
like that of a frog in a well.”
In spite of the almost complete loneliness of his position among the
barons of the first rank, Naosuké advised the Shōgunate that the
tendencies of the times made it impossible longer to enforce the
traditional exclusiveness of Japan. But he also—and this is most
significant of his far-sighted views—advised the repeal of the law,
issued early in the seventeenth century, which prohibited the building
of vessels large enough for foreign trade; and this advice he coupled
with the proposal that Japan should build navies for the protection, in
future, of her own coasts. “Thus prepared,” he writes, “the country
will be free from the menaces and threatenings of foreign powers,
and will be able to uphold the national principle and polity at any
time.”
The division of opinion, and the bloody strifes of political parties, in
Japan, over the question of exclusion were not settled by the
Convention for the relief of foreign ships and sailors which followed
upon the return of the war-ships of the United States, and of other
foreign countries, in 1854. Quite the contrary was the truth. When
Mr. Townsend Harris arrived as Consul General in 1856, and began
to press the question of foreign trade and residence in a more
definite form, the party favouring exclusion was stronger, more bitter,
and more extreme than before. In their complete ignorance of the
very nature of a commercial treaty, the rulers of Japan quite
generally mistook the American demand to open Kanagawa, Yedo,
Osaka, Hiogo, and Niigata for an extensive scheme of territorial
aggression. This they were, of course, ready to resist to their own
death and to the ruin of the country. When the senators prepared a
memorial to the Imperial Cabinet, stating their difficulty and the
necessity of conforming to the foreign demand, and sent it to the
Imperial Capital by the hand of their president, Baron Hotta, they
were therefore instructed to delay, and to consult further with the
Tokugawa Family and with the Barons of the land, before again even
venturing to refer the matter to the Government at Kyoto. These
instructions were, under the circumstances, equivalent to a flat and
most dangerous refusal to allow the opening of the country at all.
It has not been generally recognised in his own country, how
extremely important and yet how difficult was the position of Mr.
Townsend Harris during the years, 1857-1858. Nor has he, in my
judgment, been awarded his full relative share of credit for laying in
friendly foundations the subsequent commercial and other forms of
intercourse between the United States and Japan. Mr. Harris’ task
was in truth larger and more complicated than that of Commodore
Perry. The factors of Japanese politics opposed to its
accomplishment were more manifold and vehement. Moreover, the
question of foreign intercourse was then complicated by two other
questions of the most portentous magnitude for the internal politics
and political development of Japan. These were, the question of who
should be the heir-apparent to the then ruling Shōgun; and the yet
more important, and even supremely important question of how the
Shōgunate should in the future stand related to the virtual—and not
merely nominal—supremacy of the Imperial House. The opposition
on both these questions was substantially the same as the
opposition to permitting foreign trade and residence in the land. If
then Commodore Perry deserves the gratitude of all for making the
first approaches, in a way without serious disruption and lasting
hatred, to begin the difficult task of opening Japan, Townsend Harris
certainly deserves no less gratitude for enlarging and shaping into
more permanent form the same “opening,” while quite as skilfully
and effectively avoiding the exasperation of similar and even greater
political evils.
His many embarrassments forced upon the somewhat too timid and
hesitating Shōgun the necessity of selecting some one man upon
whom the responsibility and the authority for decisive action could be
confidently reposed. Seeing this man in the person only of Ii Kamon-
no-Kami, Lord of Hikoné, he appointed him to the position of Tairō.
Now, this position of Tairō, or “Great Elder,” which may be
paraphrased by “President-Senator,” was one of virtual dictatorship.
Only the Shōgun, who appointed him, could remove the Tairō or
legally resist his demands. Naosuké was the last to hold this office;
for fortunately for Japan the Shōgunate itself soon came to an end;
but he will be known in history as Go-Tairō,—the dictator especially
to be honoured, because he was bold, clear-sighted, and ready to
die in his country’s behalf. On June 5, 1858, Baron Ii was installed in
the position which gave him the power to conclude the treaty, and
which at the same time made him responsible for its consequences
of weal or woe, to individuals and to the entire nation,—even to the
world at large. In this important negotiation the Japanese Baron
Naosuké, and the American gentleman, Harris, were henceforth the
chief actors.
It is not my intention to recite in detail the history of the negotiations
of 1858, or of the difficulties and risks which the Tairō had to face in
his conduct of them. While the Mikado’s sanction for concluding the
treaty with Mr. Harris was still anxiously awaited, two American men-
of-war arrived at Shimoda; and a few days later these were followed
by Russian war-ships and by the English and French squadrons
which had so recently been victorious in their war with China. It was
by such arguments that America and Europe clinched the consent of
reluctant Japan to admit them to trade and to reside within her
boundaries!
It seemed plain enough now that the Yedo Government could not
longer wait for permission from the Imperial Government to abandon
its policy of exclusion. Two of its members, Inouyé and Iwasé, were
forthwith sent to confer with the Consul General at Shimoda. When
Mr. Harris had pointed out the impossibility of continuing the policy of
exclusion, the dangers of adhering obstinately to the traditions of the
past, and had assured them of America’s friendly intervention to
secure favourable terms with the other powers of the West, the
commissioners returned to Yedo to report. But still the opposing
party grew; and still the Imperial Government delayed its consent.
Meantime the bitterness against Baron Ii was increased by the
failure of his enemies to secure the succession to the Shōgunate for
their favoured candidate. None the less, the Tairō took upon himself
the responsibility of despatching the same men with authority to sign
that Convention between the United States and Japan which, in spite
of the fact that it bore the name of the “Temporary Kanagawa Treaty”
and was subject to revision after a specified term of years, remained
unchanged until as late as 1895. This important event bore date of a
little more than a half-century ago—namely, July 29, 1858.
It is foreign to my purpose to examine the charges, urged against Ii
Kamon-no-Kami, of disobedience to the Imperial Government and of
traitorous conduct toward his country. The latter charge has long
since been withdrawn; and for this has been substituted the praise
and homage due to the patriot who is able to oppose public opinion,
to stand alone, to be “hated even by his relatives,” and to sacrifice
his life in his country’s behalf. That the Tairō did not obey the
Imperial command to submit again the question of exclusion to a
council of the Tokugawa princes and the Barons of the land is indeed
true. On the other hand, it is to be said that the Imperial Government,
by not forbidding the Treaty, had thrown back upon the Shōgunate
the responsibility for deciding this grave question; and that the
appearance of the foreign war-ships gave no further opportunity, in
wisdom, for continuing the policy of procrastination and delay. The
hour demanded a man of audacity, of clear vision into the future, and
of willingness to bear the full weight of a responsible decision. The
hour found such a man in the Japanese Naosuké, hereditary feudal
lord of Hikoné, but by providence in the position of Tairō, or military
dictator. It was fortunate, indeed, for the future relations of the United
States and Japan, and for the entire development of the Far East
under European influences, that an American of such patience,
kindliness, tactful simplicity, and sincere moral and religious
principle, met at the very critical point of time a Japanese of such
knightly qualities of honour, fearlessness, and self-centred force of
character. This point of turning for two political hemispheres, this
pivot on which swung the character of the intercourse between Far
East and Occident, owes more, I venture to think, to Townsend
Harris and to Ii Kamon-no-Kami than to any other two men.
The concluding of the Treaty did not allay the excitement of the
country over the intrusion of foreigners, or discourage the party of
the majority which favoured the policy of either risking all in an
immediate appeal to arms, or of continuing the effort to put off the
evil day by a policy of prevarication and temporising. Less than a
fortnight after its signing, the Shōgun became suddenly ill, and four
days later he died. Two days before his death, the three English
ships had anchored at Shinagawa, a suburb of the capital of the
Shōgunate; while the Russians had invaded the city of Yedo itself
and established themselves in one of its Buddhist temples.
Everything was now in confusion. The influence of the party for
exclusion—forceful, if necessary—was now greatly strengthened
among the Imperial Councillors at Kyoto; and intrigues for the
deposition of the Tairō and even for his assassination went on
apace. A serious and wide-spreading rebellion was threatened. The
resort of the Baron of Hikoné to force in order to crush or restrain his
enemies served, as a natural and inevitable result, to combine them
all in the determination to effect his overthrow—a result which his
opponents suggested he should forestall by committing harakiri, after
acknowledging his mistakes; and which his friends urged him to
prevent by resigning his office at Tairō.
Since Ii Kamon-no-Kami was not the man to retreat in either of these
two cowardly ways, he was destined to perish by assassination. On
March 25, 1860, one of the five annual festivals at which the princes
and barons of the land were in duty bound to present themselves at
the Shōgun’s Castle to offer congratulations, the procession of the
Tairō left his mansion at “half-past the fifth watch,” or 9 o’clock a. m.
Near the “Cherry-Field” gate of the castle, they were attacked by
eighteen armed men, who were all, except one, former retainers of
the Mito Clan, whose princes had been the most powerful enemy of
Baron Ii, but who had resigned from the clan, and become ronin, or
“wave-men,” in order not to involve in their crime the lord of the clan.
The suddenness of the attack, and the fact that the defenders were
impeded by the covered swords and flowing rain-coats which the
weather had made necessary, gave the attacking party a temporary
advantage. Baron Ii was stabbed several times through the sides of
his palanquin, so that when dragged out for further wounding and
decapitation, he was already dead. Thus perished the man who
signed the treaty with Townsend Harris, fifty years ago, in the forty-
sixth year of his age.
The motives of the two parties—that of the majority who favoured
exclusion and that of the minority who saw the opening of the
country to be inevitable—can best be made clear by stating them in
the language of each, as they were proclaimed officially to the
Japanese of that day. Fortunately, we are able to do this. So bitter
was the feeling against their feudal lord, even after his death, that it
seemed necessary, in order to prevent complete ruin from falling
upon the whole Clan of Hikoné, that all his official papers and
records should be burned. But Viscount Ōkubo, at no inconsiderable
danger to himself, managed “to save the precious documents”; for,
said he, “There will be nothing to prove the sincerity and unmixed
fidelity of Lord Naosuké, if the papers be destroyed. Whatever may
come I dare not destroy them.”
From one of these papers we quote the following sentences which
show why Baron Ii as Tairō signed, on his own responsibility, this
detested treaty with the hated and dreaded foreigners. “The question
of foreign intercourse,” it says, “is pregnant with serious
consequences. The reason why the treaty was concluded with the
United States was because of the case requiring an immediate
answer. The English and French Squadrons, after their victory over
China, were very soon expected to our coasts; and the necessity of
holding conferences with different nations at the same time might
cause confusion from which little else than war could be expected.
These foreigners are no longer to be despised. The art of navigation,
their steam-vessels and their military and naval preparations have
found full development in their hands. A war with them might result in
temporary victories on our part; but when our country should come to
be surrounded by their combined navies, the whole land would be
involved in consequences which are clearly visible in China’s
experience.... Trying this policy for ten or twelve years, and making
full preparation for protection of the country during that period, we
can then determine whether to close up or open the country to
foreign trade and residence.... If it were only one nation with which
we had to deal, it would be much easier; but several nations, coming
at this time with their advanced arts, it is entirely impossible to refuse
their requests to open intercourse with our country. The tendency of
the times makes exclusion an entire impossibility.”
But the assassins, on their part, before entering on their bloody
deed, had drawn up a paper which, as signed by seventeen, or all
except one of their number, they wished to have go down to posterity
in justification of their course. They, too, all met death either on the
spot, or subsequently by public execution, for their crime of
assassination. “While fully aware,” says this manifesto, “of the
necessity of some change in policy since the coming of the
Americans to Uraga, it is entirely against the interest of the country
and a shame to the sacred dignity of the land, to open commercial
relations, to admit foreigners into the castle, to conclude a treaty, to
abolish the established custom of trampling on the picture of Christ,
to permit foreigners to build places of worship of their evil religion,
Christianity, and to allow three Foreign Ministers to reside in the
land. Under the excuse of keeping the peace, too much compromise
has been made at the sacrifice of national honour. Too much fear
has been shown in regard to the foreigners’ threatening.”
This remarkable paper then goes on to charge the Tairō, Baron Ii,
with being responsible for so dishonourable an act of compromise.
He has assumed “unbridled power”; he has proved himself “an
unpardonable enemy of his nation,” a “wicked rebel.” “Therefore we
have consecrated ourselves to be the instruments of Heaven to
punish this wicked man; we have assumed on ourselves the duty of
putting an end to a serious evil by killing this atrocious autocrat.” The
assassins then go on to swear before Heaven and earth, gods and
men, that their act was motived by loyalty to the Emperor, and by the
hope to see the national glory manifested in the expulsion of
foreigners from the land.
At this distance of half a century, and considering the spirit of the
former age, we need not judge between Naosuké and his murderers
as regards the sincerity of their patriotism. But as to which of the two
parties followed the path of wisdom, there can be no manner of
doubt. Both Japan and its foreign invaders still owe a great debt of
gratitude and a tribute of wisdom, to Baron Ii Kamon-no-Kami. While
over all our clouded judgment hangs serene the truth of the
autograph of four Chinese characters with which, years afterwards,
the Imperial Prince Kitashirakawa honoured the book written to
vindicate the Tairō: “Heaven’s ordination baffles the human.”
How the memory of its former feudal lord is cherished in Hikoné, and
how his spirit still survives and in some sort dominates its citizens, I
had occasion to know during two days of early February, 1907. The
little city, headed by Mr. Tanaka, the steward of the present Count Ii,
by letter and then by a personal visit from the Christian pastor, Mr.
Sonoda, had urgently invited us to visit them, with the promise that
we should see the castle and other reminders of its former feudal
lord. I, on my part, was to speak to them on education and morality,
the two subjects about which the serious people of Japan are just
now most eager to hear. The same gentleman who had been the
medium of the invitation, was to be our escort from Kyoto to Hikoné.
But on the way, although the wind was piercing and light snow was
falling, we saw again the familiar objects of interest about the lower
end of Lake Biwa;—Miidera Temple, with its relics of the legendary
giant Benkei, such as the bell which he carried part way up the hill
and then dropped and cracked, and the huge kettle out of which he
ate his rice; then the wonderful pine-tree at Karasaki, the sail down
the lake and under the bridge of Seta; and, finally, the sights of
Ishiyama.
At a tea-house near the station here we were met by Mr. Tanaka,
who had come by train to extend the welcome of the city and who
emphasised this welcome by referring to the interest which we, as
Americans, in common with all our countrymen, must feel in the
place that had been the residence of the great Tairō. For had not he
“influenced the Shōgunate to open the country to the United States,
and lost his life for his advanced views?”
As the train conveyed us into the uplands, the snow began to fall
more heavily until it lay nearly a foot deep upon the plain and
wooded hill, crowned with its castle, of the ancient feudal town. Just
as the setting sun was making the mountains and the clouds aglow
with a rose colour, as warm and rich as anything to be seen in
Switzerland, we reached the station of Hikoné, and were at once
taken into its waiting-room to receive and return greetings of some
thirty of the principal citizens who had come out to welcome the city’s
guests. On account of the deep snow it was a jinrikisha ride of nearly
half an hour to the place where we were to be lodged—the Raku-
raku-tei, just beside the castle-moat, under its hill, and almost in the
lake itself. Here a beautiful but purely Japanese house, which was
built by the lord of the castle as a villa, stands in one of the finest
gardens of all Japan.
The fear that their foreign guests would not be entirely comfortable,
even if entertained in the best Japanese style, made it difficult for us
at first to discard or neglect the accessories especially provided, and
disport ourselves as though we were really cherishing, and not
feigning, the wish to be treated by them as their feudal lord would
have treated his friends at the beginning of the half century now
gone by. In the end, however, we succeeded fairly well in the effort to
merge ourselves, and our modern Western habits and feelings, in
the thoughts, ways and emotions of the so-called “Old Japan.”
Flags were hung over the quaint Japanese doorway of the villa; and
the manager, the landlord, and all the servants, were in proper array
to greet the long line of jinrikishas which were escorting the guests.
Our shoes removed, we were ushered through numerous rooms and
corridors, made attractive with the quiet beauty of choice screens
and the finest of mats, into the best apartment of the house. Here
bright red felt had been spread over the mats; a tall lacquer hibachi,
daimyo style, stood in the middle of the chamber; and large lacquer
or brass candlesticks, with fat Hikoné candles and wicks nearly a
half-inch thick, stood on either side of the hibachi and in each of the
corners of the room.
Thus far, the surroundings were well fitted to carry our imaginations
back to the time of Ii Kamon-no-Kami himself. But there were two
articles of the furnishing sure to cause a disillusionment. These were
a pair of large arm-chairs, arranged throne fashion behind the
hibachi, and covered with green silk cushions (or zabuton) which
were expected to contribute both to our comfort and to our sense of
personal dignity, while we were “officially receiving”—so to say.
Without offending our kind hosts, I trust, and certainly to the increase
of our own satisfaction, we begged permission to slip off from our
elevated position, so calculated to produce the feelings of social

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More information about this series at

Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology

“This is a wonderfully accomplished book in the tradition of grand theory. Risto

1 Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology and Social Theory 1

2 Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and Phenomenological

3 Economy and Society in Semiotic Institutionalism 33

Conclusion: How Does Semiotic Institutionalism Overcome the

4 Power and Signification in Neostructuralism 65

5 Modernity and the Intersemiotic Condition 89

6 Modernity and the Articulation of the Gender System115

7 The Power of Institutions: The Case of Gendered Agency135

Bounded Rationality: Normative and Cultural-Cognitive

8 From Goffman to Semiotic Sociology157

9 Conclusion: Semiotic Sociology in the Field of Social

Risto Heiskala is Professor of Sociology at Tampere University, EU

Fig. 2.1 Meaning and project in Schutz’s phenomenology (Source:

Table 7.1 Theoretical approaches to human agency (based on Scott,

Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

conception of articulation, the pragmatist conception of interpretant and

levels are illustrated by a discussion of the problem posed by Big Case

is being loosened by technological innovations such as contraception and

frame Goffman. The frames are dramaturgical sociology; micro-revolution

published as a journal article with a very restrictive publication rights con-

Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics

The most common way to understand the relationship between structur-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 9

Saussure differentiated two types of relation that determine the identity

1. Structures are understood to be closed codes. They work like the

the other a derivative member of the opposition. This idea is based

A form of structuralism that makes these commitments, as well as most

1. There are (relatively) closed codes in semiosis, such as the system of

4. Binary relations may be considered an important type of relation in

instead of being ­completely arbitrary, the signs are biologically moti-

The seven alternative solutions outlined above give a preliminary

often direct us to problems already present in Saussure. A reminder of this

contrast, Saussure presents a two-fold conceptual split of the sign into

theme of arbitrariness versus motivation. An extreme interpretation of his

side of this interpretation of Peircean semiosis is that, in the light of the

‘transcendental phenomenology’. The aim of transcendental phenome-

(a) Interpretation of meaning as a reflective intentional act (directed in point

Fig. 2.1 Meaning and project in Schutz’s phenomenology (Source: Heiskala

defined an ‘institution’ as a form of habitualized behaviour in which the

the synthesis of structuralism and pragmatism, as developed in the previ-

Conclusion: Implications for Cultural

I have presented here a programmatic synthesis which can be crystallized

process of social semiosis. Hence, we need a neostructuralist semiotics,

phenomenological sociology. It is possible to read this formulation as a

Husserl, E. (1982 [1931]). Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to

Economy and Society in Semiotic

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 33

Omi no mi kishi utsu nami no iku tabimo,

or as freely translated by Dr. Griffis:—

“As beats the ceaseless wave on Omi’s strand

(Omi is the poetical appellation of Lake Biwa, on which the feudal

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1 Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology and Social Theory 1

2 Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and Phenomenological

3 Economy and Society in Semiotic Institutionalism 33

4 Power and Signification in Neostructuralism 65

5 Modernity and the Intersemiotic Condition 89

6 Modernity and the Articulation of the Gender System115

7 The Power of Institutions: The Case of Gendered Agency135

8 From Goffman to Semiotic Sociology157

9 Conclusion: Semiotic Sociology in the Field of Social

instead of being completely arbitrary, the signs are biologically moti-