The book deals with manifestations and relics of magical thinking in the narrative folklore of Ci... more The book deals with manifestations and relics of magical thinking in the narrative folklore of Cieszyn Silesia (Teschen Silesia, Těšín Silesia). The point of departure is a phenomenological and social constructivist approach to human cognition. The author follows the cognitive dimensions of pre-modern folklore and popular texts in general. They are conventional in the sense that they are repeated in many variants inside one communicative group. Habituation based on more or less accurate reproduction of stereotypes (and corresponding experiences), motives, action scenarios, rationalizations, and motivations, is the source of relatively stable world image. The key concept developed in the book is redefined categorization understood as the simplification and stabilization of too complex and changing reality through shared narratives.
The aim of the paper is to identify the function of naïve realism within the Czech commonsense c... more The aim of the paper is to identify the function of naïve realism within the Czech commonsense construction of the Muslim community, especially in new media folklore and in social media discourses as such. Muslims appear here o en as one homogenous global community with one common set of values, convictions and acting patterns. Drawing on P.L. Berger and T. Luckmann, the author examines the social impacts of such a cognitive habitus on a case of social hysteria connected with so called migration crisis (2015-2017). Reification of socially constructed groups, where diffeerent individuals are merged into one ‘organism’ due to their alleged belonging to one essentialized religion, is a form of dehumanization. This way individuals lose their personalities in favour of reified and personified collectivities. The author points to the necessity of development of popular discourses based on the category of neighbour, which could undermine the obviousness of such reification.
Between trauma and reification, or on aestheticization of representations of the past and on patt... more Between trauma and reification, or on aestheticization of representations of the past and on patterns of social memory. This paper attempts to answer two questions: first, how aestheticization and mediatization of representations of the past affects the possibility of their transmission between milieus distinguished by incompatible social memories, identifications or value and symbolic systems; second, how aestheticization of narratives of the past can affect the ability of their recipients to distinguish between individuals and collectives. The key concept is the degree of reification of collectives and the impact of such reification on the possibility to communicate representations of traumatic experiences of individuals. The author focuses on some feature films and analyses their ability to promote or inhibit dehumanization of individuals. K e y w o r d s: nation; social memory; aesthetic function; sensualism; reification; spontaneous perception
The aim of the paper is to define the difference between nationalisms of the modern era and conte... more The aim of the paper is to define the difference between nationalisms of the modern era and contemporary nationalisms. The proposition is methodolog-ically based on the phenomenological and semiotic analysis of texts representing genres of new media folklore shared within digital communicative networks as well as on the analysis of conditions of their production, consumption, and reproduction. The author claims that the social reproduction of new national-isms takes place beyond traditional (modern) social structures and hierarchies of knowledge credibility. He attempts to prove that new nationalisms are based on magical-mythical perception and thinking.
The author deals with the question of growing importance of commonly shared connotations, which i... more The author deals with the question of growing importance of commonly shared connotations, which is a response on growing role of slogans, catchwords and icons in new media communication practices. Commonly shared connotations can provide necessary contexts to elliptical statements. This means the growing importance of mythologies in the sense of Roland Barthes within the contemporary public spheres. Connotations are axiologically characterised accompanying meanings, which in a spontaneous experience syncretically pass into the sign and even ‚absorb’ it. In Barthes’ understanding, mythical thinking is characterised by control of the connotative content (the unobjectified valuebearing associations) over phenomena. The author focuses on connotation as a figure of myth on account of its ability to create a clear, easily legible, obvious world. Connotation, employed instrumentally, is able to legitimize literally everything.
Fenomenologie Jana Patočky a otázky jazykového konstruování světa
(shrnutí)
Článek pojed... more Fenomenologie Jana Patočky a otázky jazykového konstruování světa (shrnutí) Článek pojednává o koncepci jazykového konstruování žitého světa, která je obsahem díla Jana Patočky. S ohledem na jazyk jako předmět fenomenologického bádání, porovnává autor úvahy Jana Patočky s konceptem epoché Edmunda Husserla. Autor věnuje pozornost momentům, kde myšlenky Jana Patočky korespondují s koncepcí každodennosti Alfreda Schütze a tezemi Petera L. Bergera a Thomase Luckmanna obsaženými v knize „Sociální konstrukce reality” z roku 1966. V ní je jazyk prezentován coby nástroj budování a reprodukce intersubjektivně sdílených zkušeností. Podle Jana Patočky musí být fenomenologická epoché zaměřena na sociální prostředí a jazyk (chápaný jako sociální fakt), který formuje každý subjekt.
It is the aim of the paper to point to the essential conditionings of symbolic systems which dete... more It is the aim of the paper to point to the essential conditionings of symbolic systems which determine forms of the objectified tradition (of the tradition image) and of the not objectified tradition (of the tacit or invisible tradition). Such conditionings are on one side universal with respect to the fact that all images of the past and the images of the Own and the Other are to consider as a result of cognitive processes which consist in making simple of what is complicated and making constant of what is mutable. On the other side they are particular since they are determined by local circumstances related to different forms of domination and power. Such circumstances can gradually or suddenly change and they can be the cause of corresponding tradition changes which are not always identified so that the tradition can be still recognised by its agents as ancestral and durable. The fact that tradition images and images of the past can be extremely mutable can be observed in borderlands which often changed their State dependence. Such a borderland is Teschen Silesia where boundary changes caused tacit transmutations of identities. The author focuses on mental consequences of the emergence of the Austro-Prussian frontier (1740) as well as the Polish-Czechoslovakian frontier (1920) which divided the territory of the former Duchy of Teschen.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here - in accordance with the propositions of P. G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson - to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations, motive, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stable image of the world. Folkloristic texts - emerging from discursive practices - participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioural) habits of its agents.
The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how common sense presuppositions (assumptions) provide an ... more The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how common sense presuppositions (assumptions) provide an understanding of past-related texts repeated within one linguistic community. Any linguistic approach to social memories must be interested in commonly shared presuppositions functioning as implicit or tacit knowledge, which is an inevitable layer of any social memory discourse, dominated by presentism and essentialism. The paper proposes that the importance of commonly shared presuppositions grows in proportion to the growing role of slogans, catchwords and icons in contemporary communication practices. Thus, commonly shared presuppositions can provide the necessary contexts for elliptical statements related to the past. This entails the growing importance of mythologies within social memories, in the sense proposed by Roland Barthes.
The aim of the paper is to consider, by means of phenomenological analysis of object-constitution... more The aim of the paper is to consider, by means of phenomenological analysis of object-constitution, the way Ferdinand de Saussure makes language the object of his examinations. Drawing on phenomenological method, on Pierre Bourdieu (Le sens pratique) and also on other attempts (Bronisław Malinowski et al.), the author offers a critique of the Saussurean concept of language. The very proposition of the paper is the claim that de Saussure forgets the language as energeia (as force acting in the human mind), seeing it in some aspects as an autonomous ergon (an object), to speak in terms of Wilhelm von Humboldt. De Saussure takes no account of the embeddedness of language in human action, in speech acts, where the same utterance can be guided by various intentions and can aspire to different aims. Following the proposals of Ferdinand de Saussure, the author of the paper raise the question of how language changes. He focuses on the dynamic, mutual (dialectical) relations between the layers of la langue and parole. Such relations can be regarded as the basis of discourse changes, i.e. the changes in the ways a human being speaks about reality, as well as perceives and handles it.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the function of affective experiences within the identity cons... more The aim of the paper is to analyze the function of affective experiences within the identity construction. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of ballance between methodological subjectivism and objectivism the author considers, for the first, the reciprocal dependencies between objective and subjective determinants of identity. He primarily examines relations between autoidentification changes (modifications of mental representations of the self as a society member) and acquiring of new language skills as well as additional elements of cultural patterns. In such intersubjectively valid patterns there are embedded tacit or apparent criteria of the distinction between "the own" and "the other" which shapes autoidentifications. For the second, the author deals with the role of affective experiences within the primarily socialization, where autoidentifications emerge and shape. He focuses on the axiological layer of connotation, which can be understood as a nebula of associative images accompanying every notion. Connotations can function as a rhetorical instrument in such a way that they can legitimize narratives about the past.
The aim of the paper is to consider the co-influence of cognitive and social conditions on the re... more The aim of the paper is to consider the co-influence of cognitive and social conditions on the reconstruction of the past within individual memories. The point of the departure is the assertion, that memory which would flawlessly represent the past is not possible (G. Borges). The issue is to examine the forgetting of the difference between immediate experience and its further representations occuring under new conditions. By means of general semantics, the theory of magic (B. Malinowski) as well as the theory of cognitive blending (M. Turner, G. Fauconnier) the author tries to answer the question, how diverse representations of the past can merge in one social memory. First, he points at the necessity to distinguish the memory as a code (langue) and memory as a text (parole) even if one of such memory layers mutually determines the other one. Second, he considers the problem of identification of map with territory (A. Korzybski) crucial for understanding of confusions between past experiences and their representations in memories.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here – in accordance with propositions of P.G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson – to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations, motives, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stabile world image. Folkloristic texts participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioral) habits of its agents. In the folkloristic creativity the collective images of the past which legitimize changing social institutions are very often unnoticed adjusted to such changes. Hence, narratives reproduced within a society which are considered by its members as memorates are very often fabulated. The author explains modifications of narratives as well as transformations of their modes by means of concepts elaborated within the cognitive ethnolingustics. He focuses especially on connotation which seems to be crucial for " tacit " legitimizations of various phenomena. He follows diverse reciprocal legitimizations between representations in folkloristic narratives and representations spread by media. The mechanisms of world construction are studied on diverse cases. One of them is a narrative about " airplane ghosts " which appears in one episode of Mayday which is a popular TV series of aircrash documentary reconstructions produced by the Canadian company Cineflix.
It is the aim of the paper to show the difference between images (connotations) related to such c... more It is the aim of the paper to show the difference between images (connotations) related to such categories as "journey" and "home" which are embedded in symbolic systems and the contemporary experiences of journey and home. The author follows the successive disappearance of former attributes of journey such as dangers, unpredictability or sacredness which emerged from facing the strange: places of transition become habitual and similar to home-places. He also traces the gradual extinction of former features of home characteristic for settled societies. Depending upon the rate of mobility within a society home loses its uniqueness and stability and turns into a place of transition. The number of people grows, who remember not only one "native home" but many of them. It is not necessary that currently inhabited places should lose their value for the benefit of remembered (i.e. constructed) "aboriginal places". Under specific circumstances value can be connected to a greater amount of places in human experience.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here -in accordance with propositions of P.G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson – to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations,motives, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stabile world image. Folkloristic texts participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioral) habitsof its agents. In the folkloristic creativity the collective images of the past which legitimize changing social institutions are very often unnoticed adjusted to such changes. Hence, narratives reproduced within a society which are considered by its members as memorates are very often fabulated. The author focuses especially on connotation which seems to be crucial for “tacit“ legitimizations of various phenomena. He follows diverse reciprocal legitimizations between representations in folkloristic narratives and representations spread by media.
The aim of the paper is to identify the constructive, as well as pragmatic or rhetoric dimension ... more The aim of the paper is to identify the constructive, as well as pragmatic or rhetoric dimension of Barhesian myth-connotation. The author is concerned with the functional similarities and objective differences between the myth as connotation and myth as narrative. The domain of the world-constructing function of connotations is deemed here to be "synthetical discourse", which is primarily characterized by the tendency to the indistinctiveness, or insufficient distinctiveness of notions and of perceived phenomena, and secondly, by the tendency to use vague expressions understood by means of habitual connotative grammar. Such a state of discourse and of the corresponding intentionalities (habitual attitudes to phenomena) of its members can support and sustain vulnerability to persuasion. It can support the inability to oppose rhetorical strategies.
Celem artykułu jest zidentyfikowanie konsekwencji kognitywnego rozproszenia powodowanego między ... more Celem artykułu jest zidentyfikowanie konsekwencji kognitywnego rozproszenia powodowanego między innymi rzeczywistym brakiem czasu, względnie subiektywnie spostrzeganym brakiem czasu powodowanym przymusami związanymi z niedokładnie określonym, niedostatecznie zdefiniowanym, rozmytym pojęciem „efektywności”. Podobne okoliczności mogą przyczyniać się do powstawania tzw. dyskursu syntetycznego, odznaczającego się tendencją do nierozróżnialności bądź niedostatecznej rozróżnialności znaczeń. Taki stan dyskursu i odpowiadającej mu intencjonalności (habitualnych nastawień do zjawisk) wśród jego nosicieli może wspierać czy podtrzymywać bezrefleksyjność i bezkrytyczność, podatność na perswazję (małą odporność wobec strategii retorycznych), przez co może być szkodliwy dla dociekań naukowych.
The aim of the paper is to consider such ethnolinguistic categories as magic, connotation, and co... more The aim of the paper is to consider such ethnolinguistic categories as magic, connotation, and cognitive blending as possible keys to the following questions: How is it possible that we can perfectly adopt different representations of the past and internalize them as our past? How can we reconcile different representations of the past and how is it possible that diverse representations of the past merge in one social memory? Such amalgamations of various forms of representations and diverse scales of objectification can be clarified by means of the theory of magic, by means of the law of resemblance, and the law of contiguity. Such considerations are supported here by empirical study of the construction of social memories in Teschen Silesia. In this text I will consider the origin of the criteria a person uses to select and evaluate narratives about the past. I intend to look at the social transmission of narratives about the past from the perspective of phenomenology and semiotics. The essence of the phenomenological approach to a text is reflected in the etymology of the term—the verb φαανεσθαι, whose Polish equivalent means to appear, to show oneself to someone. Such a perspective is characterized, inter alia, by a suspension of the automatic question as to which texts referring to the past, in social circulation, are true and which untrue. For the social anthropologist, what is more important is how a given text comes to be experienced by its recipient—a potential future transmitter—as true or untrue. In short: how is the truth of a text constituted in experience? The basic advantage of the phenomenological approach to constructing the past is that all analyses begin with the first person 'I': from a reflexive consideration of the way we ourselves experience one content or another. This method, drawn from the work of Edmund Husserl, was grafted onto the social sciences by Alfred Schütz, and was also used with success by Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Clifford Geertz, and many others. Here I will be analyzing my own methods of viewing narratives about the past produced by various entities or institutions and I will try to determine how far they accord with the standards of retrospection in Teschen Silesia. I am referring to standards of spontaneously legitimizing and delegitimizing images of the past, which, on account of their cognitive and social bases, are common to entities (persons) regardless of their preferred vision of the past or choices of self-identity.
The book deals with manifestations and relics of magical thinking in the narrative folklore of Ci... more The book deals with manifestations and relics of magical thinking in the narrative folklore of Cieszyn Silesia (Teschen Silesia, Těšín Silesia). The point of departure is a phenomenological and social constructivist approach to human cognition. The author follows the cognitive dimensions of pre-modern folklore and popular texts in general. They are conventional in the sense that they are repeated in many variants inside one communicative group. Habituation based on more or less accurate reproduction of stereotypes (and corresponding experiences), motives, action scenarios, rationalizations, and motivations, is the source of relatively stable world image. The key concept developed in the book is redefined categorization understood as the simplification and stabilization of too complex and changing reality through shared narratives.
The aim of the paper is to identify the function of naïve realism within the Czech commonsense c... more The aim of the paper is to identify the function of naïve realism within the Czech commonsense construction of the Muslim community, especially in new media folklore and in social media discourses as such. Muslims appear here o en as one homogenous global community with one common set of values, convictions and acting patterns. Drawing on P.L. Berger and T. Luckmann, the author examines the social impacts of such a cognitive habitus on a case of social hysteria connected with so called migration crisis (2015-2017). Reification of socially constructed groups, where diffeerent individuals are merged into one ‘organism’ due to their alleged belonging to one essentialized religion, is a form of dehumanization. This way individuals lose their personalities in favour of reified and personified collectivities. The author points to the necessity of development of popular discourses based on the category of neighbour, which could undermine the obviousness of such reification.
Between trauma and reification, or on aestheticization of representations of the past and on patt... more Between trauma and reification, or on aestheticization of representations of the past and on patterns of social memory. This paper attempts to answer two questions: first, how aestheticization and mediatization of representations of the past affects the possibility of their transmission between milieus distinguished by incompatible social memories, identifications or value and symbolic systems; second, how aestheticization of narratives of the past can affect the ability of their recipients to distinguish between individuals and collectives. The key concept is the degree of reification of collectives and the impact of such reification on the possibility to communicate representations of traumatic experiences of individuals. The author focuses on some feature films and analyses their ability to promote or inhibit dehumanization of individuals. K e y w o r d s: nation; social memory; aesthetic function; sensualism; reification; spontaneous perception
The aim of the paper is to define the difference between nationalisms of the modern era and conte... more The aim of the paper is to define the difference between nationalisms of the modern era and contemporary nationalisms. The proposition is methodolog-ically based on the phenomenological and semiotic analysis of texts representing genres of new media folklore shared within digital communicative networks as well as on the analysis of conditions of their production, consumption, and reproduction. The author claims that the social reproduction of new national-isms takes place beyond traditional (modern) social structures and hierarchies of knowledge credibility. He attempts to prove that new nationalisms are based on magical-mythical perception and thinking.
The author deals with the question of growing importance of commonly shared connotations, which i... more The author deals with the question of growing importance of commonly shared connotations, which is a response on growing role of slogans, catchwords and icons in new media communication practices. Commonly shared connotations can provide necessary contexts to elliptical statements. This means the growing importance of mythologies in the sense of Roland Barthes within the contemporary public spheres. Connotations are axiologically characterised accompanying meanings, which in a spontaneous experience syncretically pass into the sign and even ‚absorb’ it. In Barthes’ understanding, mythical thinking is characterised by control of the connotative content (the unobjectified valuebearing associations) over phenomena. The author focuses on connotation as a figure of myth on account of its ability to create a clear, easily legible, obvious world. Connotation, employed instrumentally, is able to legitimize literally everything.
Fenomenologie Jana Patočky a otázky jazykového konstruování světa
(shrnutí)
Článek pojed... more Fenomenologie Jana Patočky a otázky jazykového konstruování světa (shrnutí) Článek pojednává o koncepci jazykového konstruování žitého světa, která je obsahem díla Jana Patočky. S ohledem na jazyk jako předmět fenomenologického bádání, porovnává autor úvahy Jana Patočky s konceptem epoché Edmunda Husserla. Autor věnuje pozornost momentům, kde myšlenky Jana Patočky korespondují s koncepcí každodennosti Alfreda Schütze a tezemi Petera L. Bergera a Thomase Luckmanna obsaženými v knize „Sociální konstrukce reality” z roku 1966. V ní je jazyk prezentován coby nástroj budování a reprodukce intersubjektivně sdílených zkušeností. Podle Jana Patočky musí být fenomenologická epoché zaměřena na sociální prostředí a jazyk (chápaný jako sociální fakt), který formuje každý subjekt.
It is the aim of the paper to point to the essential conditionings of symbolic systems which dete... more It is the aim of the paper to point to the essential conditionings of symbolic systems which determine forms of the objectified tradition (of the tradition image) and of the not objectified tradition (of the tacit or invisible tradition). Such conditionings are on one side universal with respect to the fact that all images of the past and the images of the Own and the Other are to consider as a result of cognitive processes which consist in making simple of what is complicated and making constant of what is mutable. On the other side they are particular since they are determined by local circumstances related to different forms of domination and power. Such circumstances can gradually or suddenly change and they can be the cause of corresponding tradition changes which are not always identified so that the tradition can be still recognised by its agents as ancestral and durable. The fact that tradition images and images of the past can be extremely mutable can be observed in borderlands which often changed their State dependence. Such a borderland is Teschen Silesia where boundary changes caused tacit transmutations of identities. The author focuses on mental consequences of the emergence of the Austro-Prussian frontier (1740) as well as the Polish-Czechoslovakian frontier (1920) which divided the territory of the former Duchy of Teschen.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here - in accordance with the propositions of P. G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson - to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations, motive, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stable image of the world. Folkloristic texts - emerging from discursive practices - participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioural) habits of its agents.
The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how common sense presuppositions (assumptions) provide an ... more The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how common sense presuppositions (assumptions) provide an understanding of past-related texts repeated within one linguistic community. Any linguistic approach to social memories must be interested in commonly shared presuppositions functioning as implicit or tacit knowledge, which is an inevitable layer of any social memory discourse, dominated by presentism and essentialism. The paper proposes that the importance of commonly shared presuppositions grows in proportion to the growing role of slogans, catchwords and icons in contemporary communication practices. Thus, commonly shared presuppositions can provide the necessary contexts for elliptical statements related to the past. This entails the growing importance of mythologies within social memories, in the sense proposed by Roland Barthes.
The aim of the paper is to consider, by means of phenomenological analysis of object-constitution... more The aim of the paper is to consider, by means of phenomenological analysis of object-constitution, the way Ferdinand de Saussure makes language the object of his examinations. Drawing on phenomenological method, on Pierre Bourdieu (Le sens pratique) and also on other attempts (Bronisław Malinowski et al.), the author offers a critique of the Saussurean concept of language. The very proposition of the paper is the claim that de Saussure forgets the language as energeia (as force acting in the human mind), seeing it in some aspects as an autonomous ergon (an object), to speak in terms of Wilhelm von Humboldt. De Saussure takes no account of the embeddedness of language in human action, in speech acts, where the same utterance can be guided by various intentions and can aspire to different aims. Following the proposals of Ferdinand de Saussure, the author of the paper raise the question of how language changes. He focuses on the dynamic, mutual (dialectical) relations between the layers of la langue and parole. Such relations can be regarded as the basis of discourse changes, i.e. the changes in the ways a human being speaks about reality, as well as perceives and handles it.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the function of affective experiences within the identity cons... more The aim of the paper is to analyze the function of affective experiences within the identity construction. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of ballance between methodological subjectivism and objectivism the author considers, for the first, the reciprocal dependencies between objective and subjective determinants of identity. He primarily examines relations between autoidentification changes (modifications of mental representations of the self as a society member) and acquiring of new language skills as well as additional elements of cultural patterns. In such intersubjectively valid patterns there are embedded tacit or apparent criteria of the distinction between "the own" and "the other" which shapes autoidentifications. For the second, the author deals with the role of affective experiences within the primarily socialization, where autoidentifications emerge and shape. He focuses on the axiological layer of connotation, which can be understood as a nebula of associative images accompanying every notion. Connotations can function as a rhetorical instrument in such a way that they can legitimize narratives about the past.
The aim of the paper is to consider the co-influence of cognitive and social conditions on the re... more The aim of the paper is to consider the co-influence of cognitive and social conditions on the reconstruction of the past within individual memories. The point of the departure is the assertion, that memory which would flawlessly represent the past is not possible (G. Borges). The issue is to examine the forgetting of the difference between immediate experience and its further representations occuring under new conditions. By means of general semantics, the theory of magic (B. Malinowski) as well as the theory of cognitive blending (M. Turner, G. Fauconnier) the author tries to answer the question, how diverse representations of the past can merge in one social memory. First, he points at the necessity to distinguish the memory as a code (langue) and memory as a text (parole) even if one of such memory layers mutually determines the other one. Second, he considers the problem of identification of map with territory (A. Korzybski) crucial for understanding of confusions between past experiences and their representations in memories.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here – in accordance with propositions of P.G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson – to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations, motives, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stabile world image. Folkloristic texts participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioral) habits of its agents. In the folkloristic creativity the collective images of the past which legitimize changing social institutions are very often unnoticed adjusted to such changes. Hence, narratives reproduced within a society which are considered by its members as memorates are very often fabulated. The author explains modifications of narratives as well as transformations of their modes by means of concepts elaborated within the cognitive ethnolingustics. He focuses especially on connotation which seems to be crucial for " tacit " legitimizations of various phenomena. He follows diverse reciprocal legitimizations between representations in folkloristic narratives and representations spread by media. The mechanisms of world construction are studied on diverse cases. One of them is a narrative about " airplane ghosts " which appears in one episode of Mayday which is a popular TV series of aircrash documentary reconstructions produced by the Canadian company Cineflix.
It is the aim of the paper to show the difference between images (connotations) related to such c... more It is the aim of the paper to show the difference between images (connotations) related to such categories as "journey" and "home" which are embedded in symbolic systems and the contemporary experiences of journey and home. The author follows the successive disappearance of former attributes of journey such as dangers, unpredictability or sacredness which emerged from facing the strange: places of transition become habitual and similar to home-places. He also traces the gradual extinction of former features of home characteristic for settled societies. Depending upon the rate of mobility within a society home loses its uniqueness and stability and turns into a place of transition. The number of people grows, who remember not only one "native home" but many of them. It is not necessary that currently inhabited places should lose their value for the benefit of remembered (i.e. constructed) "aboriginal places". Under specific circumstances value can be connected to a greater amount of places in human experience.
The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social constructio... more The paper answers the question, how folkloristic narrations participate in the social construction of reality. The notion of folklore relates here -in accordance with propositions of P.G. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson – to poetic texts aimed at la langue. Such texts are conventional in the sense that their semantic structures are broadly reproduced inside one communicative society. Habitualisation based on more or less accurate repeatability of stereotypical representations,motives, action scenarios, rationalisations and motivations, is the source of relatively stabile world image. Folkloristic texts participate this way in constitution of experiences, beliefs and cognitive (noetic and behavioral) habitsof its agents. In the folkloristic creativity the collective images of the past which legitimize changing social institutions are very often unnoticed adjusted to such changes. Hence, narratives reproduced within a society which are considered by its members as memorates are very often fabulated. The author focuses especially on connotation which seems to be crucial for “tacit“ legitimizations of various phenomena. He follows diverse reciprocal legitimizations between representations in folkloristic narratives and representations spread by media.
The aim of the paper is to identify the constructive, as well as pragmatic or rhetoric dimension ... more The aim of the paper is to identify the constructive, as well as pragmatic or rhetoric dimension of Barhesian myth-connotation. The author is concerned with the functional similarities and objective differences between the myth as connotation and myth as narrative. The domain of the world-constructing function of connotations is deemed here to be "synthetical discourse", which is primarily characterized by the tendency to the indistinctiveness, or insufficient distinctiveness of notions and of perceived phenomena, and secondly, by the tendency to use vague expressions understood by means of habitual connotative grammar. Such a state of discourse and of the corresponding intentionalities (habitual attitudes to phenomena) of its members can support and sustain vulnerability to persuasion. It can support the inability to oppose rhetorical strategies.
Celem artykułu jest zidentyfikowanie konsekwencji kognitywnego rozproszenia powodowanego między ... more Celem artykułu jest zidentyfikowanie konsekwencji kognitywnego rozproszenia powodowanego między innymi rzeczywistym brakiem czasu, względnie subiektywnie spostrzeganym brakiem czasu powodowanym przymusami związanymi z niedokładnie określonym, niedostatecznie zdefiniowanym, rozmytym pojęciem „efektywności”. Podobne okoliczności mogą przyczyniać się do powstawania tzw. dyskursu syntetycznego, odznaczającego się tendencją do nierozróżnialności bądź niedostatecznej rozróżnialności znaczeń. Taki stan dyskursu i odpowiadającej mu intencjonalności (habitualnych nastawień do zjawisk) wśród jego nosicieli może wspierać czy podtrzymywać bezrefleksyjność i bezkrytyczność, podatność na perswazję (małą odporność wobec strategii retorycznych), przez co może być szkodliwy dla dociekań naukowych.
The aim of the paper is to consider such ethnolinguistic categories as magic, connotation, and co... more The aim of the paper is to consider such ethnolinguistic categories as magic, connotation, and cognitive blending as possible keys to the following questions: How is it possible that we can perfectly adopt different representations of the past and internalize them as our past? How can we reconcile different representations of the past and how is it possible that diverse representations of the past merge in one social memory? Such amalgamations of various forms of representations and diverse scales of objectification can be clarified by means of the theory of magic, by means of the law of resemblance, and the law of contiguity. Such considerations are supported here by empirical study of the construction of social memories in Teschen Silesia. In this text I will consider the origin of the criteria a person uses to select and evaluate narratives about the past. I intend to look at the social transmission of narratives about the past from the perspective of phenomenology and semiotics. The essence of the phenomenological approach to a text is reflected in the etymology of the term—the verb φαανεσθαι, whose Polish equivalent means to appear, to show oneself to someone. Such a perspective is characterized, inter alia, by a suspension of the automatic question as to which texts referring to the past, in social circulation, are true and which untrue. For the social anthropologist, what is more important is how a given text comes to be experienced by its recipient—a potential future transmitter—as true or untrue. In short: how is the truth of a text constituted in experience? The basic advantage of the phenomenological approach to constructing the past is that all analyses begin with the first person 'I': from a reflexive consideration of the way we ourselves experience one content or another. This method, drawn from the work of Edmund Husserl, was grafted onto the social sciences by Alfred Schütz, and was also used with success by Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Clifford Geertz, and many others. Here I will be analyzing my own methods of viewing narratives about the past produced by various entities or institutions and I will try to determine how far they accord with the standards of retrospection in Teschen Silesia. I am referring to standards of spontaneously legitimizing and delegitimizing images of the past, which, on account of their cognitive and social bases, are common to entities (persons) regardless of their preferred vision of the past or choices of self-identity.
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Papers by Jan Kajfosz
This paper attempts to answer two questions: first, how aestheticization and mediatization of representations of the past
affects the possibility of their transmission between milieus distinguished by incompatible social memories, identifications or value and symbolic systems; second, how aestheticization of narratives of the past can affect the ability of their recipients to distinguish between individuals and collectives. The key concept is the degree of reification of collectives and the impact of such reification on the possibility to communicate representations of traumatic experiences of individuals. The author focuses on some feature films and analyses their ability to promote or inhibit dehumanization of individuals.
K e y w o r d s: nation; social memory; aesthetic function; sensualism; reification; spontaneous perception
(shrnutí)
Článek pojednává o koncepci jazykového konstruování žitého světa, která je obsahem díla Jana Patočky. S ohledem na jazyk jako předmět fenomenologického bádání, porovnává autor úvahy Jana Patočky s konceptem epoché Edmunda Husserla. Autor věnuje pozornost momentům, kde myšlenky Jana Patočky korespondují s koncepcí každodennosti Alfreda Schütze a tezemi Petera L. Bergera a Thomase Luckmanna obsaženými v knize „Sociální konstrukce reality” z roku 1966. V ní je jazyk prezentován coby nástroj budování a reprodukce intersubjektivně sdílených zkušeností. Podle Jana Patočky musí být fenomenologická epoché zaměřena na sociální prostředí a jazyk (chápaný jako sociální fakt), který formuje každý subjekt.
This paper attempts to answer two questions: first, how aestheticization and mediatization of representations of the past
affects the possibility of their transmission between milieus distinguished by incompatible social memories, identifications or value and symbolic systems; second, how aestheticization of narratives of the past can affect the ability of their recipients to distinguish between individuals and collectives. The key concept is the degree of reification of collectives and the impact of such reification on the possibility to communicate representations of traumatic experiences of individuals. The author focuses on some feature films and analyses their ability to promote or inhibit dehumanization of individuals.
K e y w o r d s: nation; social memory; aesthetic function; sensualism; reification; spontaneous perception
(shrnutí)
Článek pojednává o koncepci jazykového konstruování žitého světa, která je obsahem díla Jana Patočky. S ohledem na jazyk jako předmět fenomenologického bádání, porovnává autor úvahy Jana Patočky s konceptem epoché Edmunda Husserla. Autor věnuje pozornost momentům, kde myšlenky Jana Patočky korespondují s koncepcí každodennosti Alfreda Schütze a tezemi Petera L. Bergera a Thomase Luckmanna obsaženými v knize „Sociální konstrukce reality” z roku 1966. V ní je jazyk prezentován coby nástroj budování a reprodukce intersubjektivně sdílených zkušeností. Podle Jana Patočky musí být fenomenologická epoché zaměřena na sociální prostředí a jazyk (chápaný jako sociální fakt), který formuje každý subjekt.