Universals in the Context of Juri Lotman's Semiotics

This book looks afresh at the heritage of cultural semiotician Juri Lotman - the founder of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics. The author proceeds from the idea that 'intellect' is one of the central categories of Juri Lotman's semiotics. Intellect becomes an important concept in Lotman's heritage - starting with the series of lectures given by him in the autumn and winter of 1967 at the University of Tartu (the lectures are published for the first time as an appendix to the book).

In these lectures the reader will find a preliminary schema of the specific "communicative functions" of intellect that have a universal character (the magical, religious and artistic functions; and after a few years, the mythological function is added). These ideas are developed further in the book, claiming that mythologicality, magicality, metaphoricality, religiosity and antitheticity are certain intellectual algorithms, which in culture have a central, stable and constructive role, generating the structure of culture and guaranteeing balance in cultural processes.

The author defends the hypothesis that these algorithms have common characteristics, which in the historical perspective have been most expressively represented in the sacralised structure of ancient ritual. This system of algorithms is also an argument that supports the central concept of Juri Lotman's semiotics: the similarity of the structures of intellect, text and culture - so-called vertical isomorphism.

The book should be of use to researchers and practitioners in the field of communication theory and public relations (including advertising), to (social) psychologists and folklorists, and generally in the fields of rhetoric and, of course, aesthetics - not to mention in the theory of semiotics and culture. Perhaps this book will also help to cool down those persons who, in their attacks on religion and religiosity, have not bothered to delve more deeply into the issue.

This is the first comprehensive and expert study on this topic, which should demonstrate that the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics is still relevant in semiotics, and holds a heuristic weight deserving of attention.

1. Universals in connection with the interpretation of magic in Juri Lotman's semiotics

2. Specifics of mythological and magical semiosis

3. Antithesis in culture and sign-creation

4. The uniqueness and universality of magic in culture

5. Universal forms of the reproductivity of intellect