Toward a reterritorialization of cultural theory

Abstract

This article argues that from a territorial perspective a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. We understand Estonian theory as a local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. The article focuses on the older layers of Estonian theory, discussing the work of Karl Ernst von Baer, Victor Hehn, Gustav Teichmüller, Jakob von Uexküll, Hermann Keyserling, Johannes Gabriel Granö, Juri Lotman a.o. We examine the philosophical foundations of Estonian theory as well as its main epistemic facets. The article concludes that the conceptualization of Estonian theory could contribute to a general transformation of contemporary (cultural) theory, a redefining of the relations between the centre and the peripheries.

Keywords

cultural geography cultural theory episteme Estonian theory Tartu

Theory as local episteme

This article undertakes to test a hypothesis according to which a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. This hypothetical, relative, continually transforming and evolving body we shall call Estonian theory, with full awareness of the tentative nature of such a designation but also of its compliance with contemporary theoretical discourse.¹ A conceptual parallel and example are provided by the recognition, first in America in the 1970s and 1980s, of a certain generic similarity shared by recent French theoretical and philosophical research that came to be called ‘French theory’ (see Cusset, 2003). More recently, the term ‘Russian theory’ has occasionally been used to refer to the Russian literary and cultural theoretical studies of the first half of the 20th century (see Zenkin, 2004; Dmitriev, 2010); and attempts have also been made to conceptualize the philosophical tradition of cultural and social theory that evolved in the German cultural space as ‘German theory’ (see Steinmetz, 2006).

This kind of approach is underpinned by the notion of a condensation of theories within the heterogeneous network of cultural communication, and of the evolution of certain local peculiarities which then lend support to the thinkers’ pursuits and form a mental atmosphere, powerfully shaping the ideas and questions raised by those participating in it. An obvious part is played in this mechanism by the attractiveness of essential concepts, which in itself rallies thinkers around it. Fundamental understandings and productive theories can, of course, spring up anywhere in the world. But an idea proposed in the framework of contextually more familiar basic attitudes and distinctions is more easily accepted by the colleagues. Therefore a certain localness is inevitable and, due to its autocatalytic and cumulative nature, relatively persistent even in science. Differences of language and origins need not seriously hinder a meeting of ideas; such difficulties are generally outweighed by mutually compliant basic attitudes and intelligibility.

Although the discussions so far have failed to propose a clear definion of theory in this context, or to reach agreement on all details, they do take note of the main characteristics. In the context of French theory, Jonathan Culler writes: ‘[W]hat counts as theory are works that succeed in exercising influence outside their original discipline because their analyses of language, mind, identity, or social and political structure prove productive for rethinking other domains of signification’ (Culler, 2014: 4). In his description of Russian theory, Sergei Zenkin stipulates that theory must be historical-geographical, interdisciplinary and ‘international – at least potentially’ (Zenkin, 2004: 8–9).² These important aspects highlighted by him fully coincide with our approach. Speaking about German theory, George Steinmetz emphasizes that ‘the focus here is on theorists whose ideas are still (or once again) attractive’ (Steinmetz, 2006: 5). This is not a researcher’s accidental position but addresses a significant feature of the theory – because the figures whom we regard as belonging to the core of the theory are precisely the ones whose share in building up the enduring part of the local intellectual memory is the greatest. Steinmetz makes room in the local theory even for émigrés, refugees and other intercultural migrants. This is an important aspect, since scientific-cultural experiences play a huge role in introducing vigorous (and therefore also better recognizable within the given scientific culture) concepts, meaning that a great contribution is often made to the local episteme³ by those who have spent only a part of their life working in the given locus. It is also linked to the fact that such theories do not evolve through opposition to others; for instance, those of the neighbours. Therefore, different theories, including Estonian theory and Russian theory, can easily have some parts in common, and many scholars may well belong to both, or several, at once.

Methodologically, we shall be guided by two main points of view. On the one hand, we shall be engaged in archeological analysis in the Foucaldian sense of the term, that is, our aim is to analyse the archive of Estonian theory – the cultural-theoretical statements accumulated over the last two centuries, their interconnections and groupings into various conceptual communities. In so doing, we are well aware that ‘the archive cannot be described in its totality; and in its presence it is unavoidable’ (Foucault, 2002[1969]: 147). Thus we offer just a few extracts and bold generalizations based on them, in the hope that they may encourage further research. From another vantage point, the analysis moves into the sphere of genealogical analysis (this time, however, only weakly related to the sense that Foucault gave to this term); yet it is not the origins of Estonian theory that are highlighted, but we aim at (re)constructing the continuities inherent in the local theoretical tradition. We are interested in Estonian theory not merely in its historical evolution, but also as it relates to the present; we are happy to adopt the ‘retrospective look’ and try to construct a genealogical network for Estonian theory. Unlike traditional historians who try ‘to erase the elements in their work which reveal their grounding in a particular time and place’ (Foucault, 1984[1971]: 89), we consider it necessary to point out our own perspective and vantage point.

In addition to that, the present article also includes two more general epistemological attitudes that are at the same time also appeals. First, we find that cultural theory is in need of greater historicization than it has so far received, since productive theoretical reflexion must be aware of the origins of the concepts, ideas and attitudes it uses.⁴ Second, we call for a territorialization of theory. Whereas such historically bent discussions as the present one generally prefer a certain unity of time – Zeitgeist or air du temps – as their points of departure, we believe that the unity of space – genius loci or air du lieu – is even more important than temporal unity. Estonian theory sets forth from space rather than time: the theoretical thought related to Estonia is born primarily from the spirit of place, not of time. The principle of territorialization also allows us to delimit the subject matter of our research: we include in the archive of Estonian theory all the scholarly texts whose authors have been closely linked to Estonia, either through origin, studies, or teaching. Thus, by choosing the territorial principle as our point of departure in outlining Estonian theory, we are not constrained by ethnic or linguistic criteria.⁵ Nor is it insignificant that any territorialization (of theory), as pointed out by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, inspired in their turn by Jakob von Uexküll, ‘presupposes a prior deterritorialization’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994[1991]: 68), a reshuffling of previous relations, something that is important also for the present undertaking. The conceptualization of Estonian theory could, in such a way, contribute to a general transformation of contemporary (cultural) theory, a redefining of the relations between the centre and the peripheries.

The article focuses on the older layers of Estonian theory, mainly from the beginning of the 19^th to the middle of the 20^th centuries. Therefore, the authors discussed here will, for the main part, be German (both Baltic and Reichsdeutsch, or Imperial German), later also Finnish and Russian scholars linked to Estonia, as well as the first Estonian scholars. We will not explicate here the associations that unite the scholars of yore with those of the present, but implicitly we keep in mind that the continuity of ideas may occasionally be very strong and significant. At the same time we are aware that any theoretical self-description of a culture, as well as a description of the culture theory’s own local history, in turn influence the further identity and evolution of the described culture.

The archive of Estonian theory

Before going on to analyse the archive of Estonian theory, we should take a look at its constituters and organizing principles. First, we must answer two questions: (1) which is the institutional environment in the sphere, and under the influence, of which Estonian theory has taken shape and which has given it a legitimate point of application? And (2) who are the individuals that speak in Estonian theory, what is their status and in what fields do they belong (cf. Foucault, 2002[1969]: 26–8)?

Presumably the most important institutional generator of the archive of Estonian theory is the University of Tartu. Although it might be possible, with meticulous research, to detect fragments of an evolving Estonian theory from the end of the medieval period onwards – keeping in mind, for instance, the Baltic Enlightenment movement – it is only after the reopening of Tartu University in 1802 that we can speak about it with an important degree of particularity and comprehensiveness. Since this is not the right place to go into a lengthier discussion of the history of Tartu University, we shall outline only a few characteristics and developmental features that are important for our present purposes.

The main peculiarity of Tartu University in the 19^th century was certainly the fact that it was a university simultaneously both Russian and German. It was established in order to meet the intellectual needs of the Russian Empire, and financed mainly from the funds of Russia’s central government, yet up to the last quarter of the 19^th century Tartu University clearly enjoyed special status and autonomy, as compared with the other higher-education establishments of the Russian Empire. The structure of the university was modelled on German examples, and professors were invited mainly from Germany. In the years 1802–86, a total of 209 professors worked in Tartu, of whom more than a half (118) came from Germany, 64 from the Baltic provinces, and 22 from Russia (Meyer, 1887: 6).

The development of the reopened Tartu University up to the Second World War can, with some simplification, be articulated into three stages: the German University of Dorpat (1802 through the 1880s), the Russian University of Yuryev (the 1880s through 1918),⁶ and the Estonian University of Tartu (1920–40).⁷ Each of these periods was characterized by clear changes in scientific orientation, the choice of professors, and language policies. These turns of fate have left a significant mark on the shaping of the archive of Estonian theory. The vantage point of the present article does not, to any considerable extent, cover the developments that took place in Estonian theory after the Second World War; yet institutionally, the changes in Tartu University’s former scientific orientation and freedom of activity, as well as the recruiting of new professors from Russia and new contacts made with Russian scholars in Moscow, Leningrad and elsewhere, must also be kept in mind during that period.

Although the University of Tartu has been the undisputed institutional centre of Estonian theory, as a force of both attraction and repulsion, other institutional environments should not be neglected. The most important of these appears to be the manor. It is certainly no accident that several central authors of Estonian theory have come from a manorial background and frequently also worked in a manor. Suffice it to name Karl Ernst von Baer, who was born in Piibe [German: Piep] manor; or Alexander and Hermann Keyserling, the squires of Raikküla [German: Rayküll]; or Jakob von Uexküll, who spent his summers on Puhtu [German: Pucht] manor. Theoretical thinking remained the privilege of the upper class in Estonia for a long time, and manors were the nobility’s most important living environment. Literary historian Jaan Undusk has ingenuously linked a central part of Estonian theory – the idea of a subjective umwelt or ‘self-centered world’ – to the specific nature of the Baltic manorial life where the appreciation of culture effortlessly combined with an appreciation of nature. ‘In a certain sense the Umweltlehre, the doctrine of umwelten, is a theoretical generalization springing from the Baltic manorial life’, Undusk observes, reducing Uexküll’s teaching to the simple maxim, ‘My world is my manor!’ (Undusk, 2008: 100).

The step from institutions to individuals is the riskiest and most arbitrary part of the present venture. Who are the persons whose statements constitute Estonian theory? Whose speech qualifies? Whose position is adequate? How to determine it? Clearly these questions can, as yet, be answered only in a groping and haphazard manner. Things are easier, however, with the social status of the persons: in the 19^th century they mainly belong among hereditary nobility or the literate class [Literatenstand]. The latter class began to evolve in Estonia and Livonia in the 18th century, and counted among its numbers bourgeois intellectuals who had attended the university. This earlier hierarchical order was upset only by the advent of independent Estonian statehood in 1918 and emergence of a national class of intellectuals.

The archive of Estonian theory has taken shape through the participation of numerous scholars. Their numbers include those responsible for a cluster of mutually attractive and productive ideas. At the present state of research, it seems best to represent the archive as a kind of web of statements which is densest (most coherent, as to the fundamental positions, and most compact, as to the authors involved) at its centre and more dispersed at the margins. Here we venture to highlight 7 scholars from the dense centre (on whom the following analysis will hinge, for the most part) whose ideas have had a major influence within but also outside of their original discipline and still (or once again) attract an increasing international interest. But, needless to say, the list is not and cannot be closed (besides, both here and in the following we shall limit ourselves only to the deceased). Although a natural scientist by profession, a very significant shaper of Estonian theory was Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1896); several of the ideas first proposed by him can be encountered in the works of later theorists, variously worded and built upon. A somewhat exceptional yet extremely intriguing figure in Estonian theory is the philologist and cultural historian Victor Hehn (1813–90), a native of Tartu. Another German holding a central position in Estonian theory is the long-time professor of philosophy at Tartu University, Gustav Teichmüller (1832–88). A natural scientist exercising a very multifaceted influence on Estonian theory is Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944), who grew up on the manor of Haimre [German: Heimar]. Side by side with him stands the representative of another well-known Baltic German family, ‘the philosopher of Raikküla’ Hermann Keyserling (1880–1946). Johannes Gabriel Granö (1882–1956), invited from Finland in 1919 to become the first professor of geography at Tartu University, engaged most effortlessly in the already distinct tradition of Estonian theory. An even greater creative contribution to the furthering of the local theoretical tradition was made by Juri Lotman (1922–93), founder of the Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics, who began work at Tartu University in the early 1950s.

In the second ring of the archive web, the community of statements is less homogeneous and more dispersed; also, the number of source texts is greater. Among the authors, mention could be made of the first professor of philosophy at Tartu University, Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche (1762–1842); Ludwig Strümpell (1812–99), the long-time professor of theoretical and practical philosophy and pedagogics at the same; the curator of the university, geologist and paleontologist Alexander Keyserling (1815–91), born on Kabile [German: Kabillen] manor, Courland; Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845–1929), who worked in Tartu in 1883–93 as professor of the comparative grammar of Slavonic languages; Estonia’s first indologist, long-term professor of Tartu University Leopold von Schroeder (1851–1920); theologist and church historian Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who was born and studied at Tartu; the first Estonian philosopher of religion, Teichmüller’s pupil Eduard Tennmann (1878–1936); the Austrian Walther Schmied-Kowarzik (1885–1958), who worked at Tartu University as professor of philosophy and psychology; Granö’s pupil Edgar Kant (1902–78), who continued his teacher’s work in Tartu; but also theologist Uku Masing (1909–85) and physicist and philosopher Madis Kõiv (1929–2014). More names could naturally be added to this list, especially from among the pupils of those mentioned above.

The archive of Estonian theory is not clearly delimited and a number of statements easily connectible to the core of the web can be found in its margins. These statements originate with a comparatively large and diverse group of scholars, not all of them necessarily very closely connected to Estonia. Some of the more outstanding of them would be the founder and long-time director of the university library as well as professor of classical philology, rhetoric, aesthetics and the history of both literature and art, Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern (1770–1852); publicist and philosopher of politics and language Carl Gustav Jochmann (1789–1830), native of Pärnu; professor of systematic theology at Tartu University Alexander von Oettingen (1827–1905), born on Visusti [German: Wissust] manor; physiological chemist and a pioneer of neo-vitalism Gustav Bunge (1844–1920); laureate of the Nobel prize for chemistry Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932), who studied and for a short period also taught at the same university; the linguist Jakob Linzbach (1874–1953), born in Kõmmaste village, Risti, and known for his research into artificial languages; the philosopher Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), native of Riga, who studied medicine in Tartu for two terms; the first professor of Tartu University’s chair of Estonian and comparative folklore, Walter Anderson (1885–1962); and one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967), who was born in Tallinn.⁸

Looking at this list it is clear that a remarkable number of scholars, mainly – but not exclusively – in the humanities, who have been linked with Estonia over the last couple of centuries, have contributed to Estonian theory. What is more interesting and more complicated than just listing the names, however, is to try to organize this vast theoretical archive – to identify common sources of influence, spot similar epistemic positions and construct thematic communities of statements.

Estonian theory’s sources of influence

One of the most important factors contributing to the internal unity of Estonian theory is its common sources of influence. The philosophical foundations of Estonian theory are surprisingly distinct without excluding, however, several exceptions and deviations. Unrivalled has been the influence of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and the later elaborators of his philosophy. Kant’s impact is complemented, on the one hand, by the views of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), and on the other by the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832); a lesser role being also played by the other German Romanticists. Unexpected is the relative scarcity, although not complete absence (especially in a mediated form), of traces of the influence of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) in Estonian theory of the relevant period; it is, however, fully possible that further research may lead to a reconsideration of this view.⁹

The important role of Leibniz in the evolution of Estonian theory is relatively unexpected and merits closer attention in the future. Although Leibniz’s influence is multifaceted, his pluralist doctrine of substance in general, and his monadology in particular, seem to have had a major role in shaping local theoretical thinking. Leibniz, it will be recalled, saw the world as divided into the substantial and the phenomenal, and claimed that the phenomenal sprang from simple substances or monads. The monads as fundamental building blocks of the universe are innumerable, and no two of them resemble each other. They are all self-sufficient, autonomously operating, and not subject to external influence. ‘The monads have no windows through which something can enter or leave’, as Leibniz puts it memorably in paragraph 7 of his Monadology (Leibniz, 1989: 214).

Leibniz’s ideas seeped into Estonian theory in the last decades of the 19^th century, primarily via the works of Gustav Teichmüller and Jakob von Uexküll. Teichmüller became acquainted with Leibniz’s views in 1860, while working in Göttingen, and later repeatedly acknowledged Leibniz’s significant impact on the evolution of his own positions – which does not, of course, exclude several alterations (Teichmüller, 1874: 67–9; 1882: 138–40; 1889: 58–60). The metaphysical position of Teichmüller’s later years can well be considered an elaboration of Leibniz’s monadology (cf. Vaska, 1995[1964]: 99, n. 2), with the greatest difference being the provision of monads with ‘windows’ – that is, allowing for their interaction.

Jakob von Uexküll liked to point to Immanuel Kant as his philosophical model, but his umwelten doctrine also owes a lot to Leibniz. Among the first to notice this was his pupil Friedrich Brock (1939), followed later on by Harald Lassen (1939) and others (e.g. Buchanan, 2008: 23; Guidetti, 2013; Brentari, 2015: 167). Yet traces of Leibniz’s monadology can also be found elsewhere in the archive of Estonian theory. The question of the monads’ interaction interested not only Teichmüller, but also Hermann Keyserling who, however, remained unable to decide whether the monads should be conceived of as having or not having ‘windows’ (Keyserling, 1922: 3; 1936: 48). Even more interesting is the fact that in his late period, Juri Lotman turned to Leibniz ‘whose ideas seem to gain new intellectual interest once again’ (Lotman, 1997[1989]: 9). Lotman represents the semiotic universe or semiosphere as consisting of separate structures of meaning production called ‘semiotic monads’: ‘The monads of this kind are both the culture as a whole and any sufficiently complicated text incorporated in it, including separate human personalities, regarded as texts’ (ibid.).

While Leibniz’s influence on Estonian theory remains intermittent, that of Kant is all-encompassing. By way of a broad generalization it might be said that Estonian theory is based on Kantian foundations, especially as concerns epistemological questions – without, nevertheless, implying any blind mimicking of Kant, but rather a creative elaboration of his teaching. Most of the important participants in Estonian theory listed above, particularly those in the first two rings, can be said to have had a closer or looser connection with the Kantian world outlook. A telltale exception is Victor Hehn – one of the few Hegelians in Estonian theory.

Kant’s influence reached Estonian theory through several channels, of which three might be distinguished in the interests of clarity, with the different target groups often valuing different aspects of Kant’s doctrine. Initially Kant’s ideas arrived in Estonia directly via the Keyserlings. Kant established close ties with that Courland family residing in Rautenburg, near Königsberg, at a very early date and socialized with them for nearly 30 years (Kuehn, 2001: 96; Zammito, 2002: 122). Kant educated the two sons of the Keyserling (or Keyserlingk) family; and later the younger son, Albrecht Johann Otto Keyserlingk (1747–1809), attended Kant’s lectures at the University of Königsberg. Albrecht Johann’s son Heinrich Dietrich Wilhelm von Keyserling (1775–1850) entered the university in 1794, barely in time still to be able to benefit from Kant’s lectures, too. Heinrich’s son Alexander Keyserling, who went on to become curator of Tartu University, can also be called a Kantian (Rappe, 2007). In his posthumously published diaries he frequently addresses Kant, giving a fairly good idea of how the philosopher’s influence was passed on in the male line of the family (Keyserling, 1894: 61–2). Kant’s influence is also clearly discernible in the views of Alexander’s grandson Hermann Keyserling – a telling testimony of how the philosopher’s first-person influence endured in the family through 5 generations.¹⁰

It was, however, the reopened Tartu University that became the main stronghold of Kantianism, with one of its first foreign professors, Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche, being a close disciple of Kant’s. Jäsche, the first publisher of Kant’s lectures on logic, held the professorship of philosophy in Tartu for nearly 40 years (1802–1839), and although his views underwent certain alterations, Kant remained his main source of inspiration till the end of his days. But the resonance of Kant’s ideas was broader than a professorship in philosophy; a great part of the progressive professors of the reopened university – the members of the so-called Society of the Church of Ephesus – can be considered Kantians, starting with the first rector, professor of physics Georg Friedrich Parrot (1767–1852). And several of them, including Parrot, may have come to Kantianism only in Tartu (Ruutsoo, 1979: 17).

A separate line of influence that helped Kantian principles to take root in Estonian theory proceeds from the natural scientists associated with Tartu. This is not exactly surprising, since Kant’s ideas can be regarded as one of the foremost influences on German biology in the first half of the 19^th century, with his Critique of Judgement making a particularly significant impact (Lenoir, 1982; Ginsborg, 2006). Karl Ernst von Baer could, as he himself has reminisced, partake of Kant’s philosophy while studying in Würzburg under Ignaz Döllinger (1770–1841) (Baer, 1886[1866]: 184–7), and to the end of his days he insisted that, fundamentally, his views harmonized with those of Kant (Baer, 1876: 231, see also Lenoir, 1988). The biological teaching of Jakob von Uexküll, who had already become acquainted with the works of the Königsberg philosopher in his student years but immersed himself in them while working in Heidelberg, likewise rests on Kantian foundations (Mildenberger, 2007: 72). Uexküll did, in fact, see the expansion of Kant’s teaching to living nature as the main aim of his own scientific work. In the introduction to one of his major works Theoretical Biology, published in 1920, he summarizes the aims of biology in two points: ‘The task of biology consists in expanding in two directions the results of Kant’s investigations: – (1) by considering the part played by our body, and especially by our sense-organs and central nervous system, and (2) by studying the relations of other subjects (animals) to objects’ (Uexküll, 1926[1920]: xv).¹¹

Johannes Gabriel Granö, elected professor of geography at Tartu University in 1919, had decided to base his geographical teaching on a Kantian ground about a decade before that, thus proving a smooth fit in the Kantian framework of Estonian theory (Tiitta, 2011: 101, 212). Another scholar to match the tradition effortlessly was Juri Lotman, who arrived in Tartu after the Second World War and who can also be considered a Kantian, as convincingly demonstrated by his son, Mihhail Lotman:

Although he does not often refer to Kant’s ideas and writings (the most significant references appear in his latest works), Kant was his habitual interlocutor over many years, and in his lectures the name of the Königsberg thinker appeared much more frequently than in written texts. (M. Lotman, 2000: 26)

German rationalism as represented by Leibniz and Kant did not, however, remain the only forces to shape Estonian theory but were supplemented, from the opposite direction, by German (and to a degree, also Russian) Romanticism, especially Goethe and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854). The underpinning notions of Estonian theory reflect the clear and long-term influence of the holistic and organicist natural philosophy of the German Romanticists that acquired great resonance in the German cultural space of the first half of the 19^th century (Richards, 2002). In Tartu, the first to teach the views of the natural philosophers, and Schelling in particular, was Karl Friedrich Burdach (1776–1847), professor of anatomy, physiology and forensics at the university in 1811–14. He recalls in his memoirs: ‘In Tartu, neither philosophy nor natural sciences were as yet in the least influenced by Schelling nor his school; and therefore my attempts at giving a deeper meaning to empiricism met with great resonance among the young men capable of a higher education’ (Burdach, 1848: 226). He also notes the hostility of his colleagues to the new teaching; thus, for instance, the professor of physics, Parrot, apparently did not wish to befriend him, considering him a natural philosopher beyond recall (ibid.: 259). It is quite likely that Baer may have first heard about natural philosophers from Burdach, although according to his own testimony he had become acquainted with their views thanks to Döllinger’s lectures, in Würzburg (Baer, 1886[1866]: 187, 289). And it was not only on Baer that the German natural philosophers, and Goethe in particular, left their mark; the same goes for Jakob von Uexküll, as pointed out already in the early 1940s by his kindred thinker, philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1950: 205).

But the attitudes of Goethe and Schelling shaped Estonian theory not only through natural scientists, but also via humanists – especially Victor Hehn, who can be considered one of the most important and original interpreters of Goethe in the last decades of the 19^th century. For Hehn, Goethe was not just a subject matter but rather the point of departure for his own original theory of culture (Taterka, 2000; Schwidtal, 2002). Having been elected lecturer of the German language at Tartu University in 1846, Hehn eagerly set out to introduce Goethe and his contemporaries to his students, thus definitely contributing to the popularization of Goethe’s ideas in the university town.

Briefly, the above sketch allows us to conclude that Estonian theory took shape primarily in the field of tensions between rationalism and Romanticism,¹² and it is precisely this double influence that Estonian theory’s main epistemic positions or facets have sprung from.

The epistemic facets of Estonian theory

The most fruitful way to discuss Estonian theory seems to be by conceiving of it as a separate local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. We shall make a tentative attempt to describe this epistemic entanglement from 5 different perspectives, without claiming that the 5 facets make up an exhaustive or homogeneous model; rather, we conceive of Estonian theory as a dynamic whole, with discords and contradictions constituting an integral part of the system and now one, now another facet being given precedence according to the various constellations.

Holisticity

Estonian theory is holistic by nature, presuming that the whole precedes the parts, the general precedes the particular – in order to study elementary parts, one must first study complex systems. As pointed out above, the holistic roots of Estonian theory should be looked for first and foremost in German Romanticism, particularly in the work of Goethe and Schelling – where holism was first developed into an independent worldview and scientific method (Bortoft, 1996; Richards, 2002). In view of an important distinction made by Patrick Sériot (2014[1999]: 251), it is best to discuss the holistic nature of Estonian theory in ontological rather than epistemological terms; the associations between the elements are not mere constructs devised by the investigator but exist in reality – the world itself constitutes an integral system. It is probably due to the central holistic attitude of Estonian theory, but also to a favourable environment, that the quest for a common denominator shared by living nature and culture, as well as for transitions from the one to the other, began so early in Estonia, and why students both of nature and culture have contributed equally to the local theory.

The holistic nature of Estonian theory lends itself well to expression by musical metaphors, which indeed have cropped up frequently in the texts of various scholars. An early example is offered by Baer in his speech at the foundation ceremony of the Russian Entomological Society, in October 1860. Deliberating over the internally purposeful nature of life-forms, he concludes: ‘Therefore I believe it is justified to call various life-processes, by drawing a parallel with musical thoughts or themes, creation-thoughts that build up their bodies, on their own. What in music is called harmony or melody, is here type (togetherness of parts) and rhythm (sequence of forms)’ (Baer, 1864: 281). Eighty years later, Uexküll takes up the same line as he looks for a way to escape the limited confines of umwelten in one of his last books, Theory of Meaning: ‘Only when we recognize that everything in nature is created by its meaning, and that all the umwelten are but voices that take part in a universal score, will the way be open to lead us out of the narrow confines of our own umwelt’ (Uexküll, 1982[1940]: 72). But there are more holistic allegories to be found in Estonian theory. Perhaps one of the best known among them was authored by Juri Lotman:

Just as, by sticking together individual steaks, we don’t obtain a calf, but by cutting up a calf, we may obtain steaks, – in summing separate semiotic acts, we don’t obtain a semiotic universe. On the contrary, only the existence of such a universe – the semiosphere – makes the specific sign act real. (Lotman, 2005[1984]: 208 [translation slightly corrected])

Indeed, Lotman’s conception of the semiosphere (in which he generalized the concept of text) can be said to take the holistic line of Estonian theory to its ultimate logical consequences.

The holistic attitude has given rise to several original approaches in Estonian theory. Thus, Johannes Gabriel Granö’s innovative understanding of geography, for example, developed in its broad outlines during his Tartu period (1919–23) and fully recognized for its originality only decades later (O. Granö and Paasi, 1997; O. Granö, 2003), is clearly the product of a holistic way of thinking. In the opening paragraph of his Pure Geography he defines his point of departure: ‘The aim of this work is to demonstrate that the topic of geographical research is the human environment, understood as the whole complex of phenomena and objects that can be perceived by the senses’ (J. G. Granö, 1997[1929]: 1). Granö was the first geographer to encompass in his vision the natural environment – milieu – as a whole, in the way it manifested itself to the scholar’s perception and senses in its full diversity.

Organicisticity

The holistic attitude of Estonian theory is fundamentally organic: the whole is not formed mechanically, but constitutes a living, harmonious and dynamic system informed by some deeper purpose. Again, the roots of this epistemic attitude mainly go back to Kant and Goethe. Yet whereas for Kant, the organicist approach was an epistemological device (Zumbach, 1984: 129; Cohen, 2009: 16), the Romanticists added a metaphysical touch – the world itself became organic (Richards, 2002: 114). Examples of both lines of thought can be found in Estonian theory, although ontological organicism tends to prevail. This approach manifests the above-mentioned tendency to entwine the cultural and the natural: in Estonian theory, the distinction is made not so much along the lines between nature and culture, as along those between the living (organic) and the lifeless (mechanical).

The organicist perspective of Estonian theory has perhaps been best formulated by Hermann Keyserling:

The actual, decisive problem is that spiritual life, forming part of the natural sphere, must everywhere be taken back to its meaning [Sinn]. Then that which heretofore had appeared to the world as two mutually exclusive types, will prove to be one organism. Is this aim practically attainable? – Yes it is, since the world of thought forms as organic a whole as the world of bodily life. Each cell has its meaningful place in an organ, each organ in the organism, while the latter has a place in a broader spatial and temporal context. Thus, each meaningful act in turn points back to a deeper meaning. (Keyserling, 1922: 29)

Keyserling’s way of posing the problem owes much to the works of both Baer and Uexküll, neither of whom ever tired of emphasizing the organic unity and purposefulness of all life. Let us recall Baer’s famous observation, tellingly grounded on Immanuel Kant:

Nearly a century ago Kant taught that in an organism all the parts must be viewed as both ends and means at the same time. We would rather say: goals and means. Now it is announced loudly and confidently: Ends do not exist in nature, there are in it only necessities; and it is not even recognized that precisely these necessities are the means for reaching certain goals. Becoming without a goal is simply unintelligible. (Baer, 1876: 231)

Uexküll represents much the same way of thinking as he proposes his idea of the ‘plan-accordance’ [Planmässigkeit] of organic life (see Hoffmeyer, 2004; Buchanan, 2008: 8–12; Magnus, 2011). In 1935, he writes:

The only thing we can identify is a preposterously rich network of overlapping and fittable-in-one-another subjective umwelten. This network of umwelten is beyond all doubt governed by accordance to a plan that will meet our eye on every step as soon as we have learned to pay attention to biological relations. (Uexküll, 1980[1935]: 377)

Again, a good example of the fruitfulness of the organicist approach is provided by the human geography of Granö’s school of thought, whose crowning achievement was the formulation of the fundamental principles of human ecology (J. G. Granö, 1997[1929]: 175). In his 1923 valedictory lecture in Tartu University, Granö succinctly summarized the starting point of his scientific work (paraphrased here by Edgar Kant):

The surface of the whole world is often composed of complexly structured landscapes. These landscapes are, in a way, organisms that can be studied as entities. They are not similar to animal organisms, but like the latter they can be studied both from a general and a particular point of view. (Kant, 1999[1923]: 218)

In his innovative study of Tartu, tellingly entitled Tartu: The Town as Milieu and Organism, Edgar Kant himself also discussed the university town as a kind of organism with its own particular rhythms and structure (Kant, 1926). This, in turn, can be compared with Uexküll’s politically loaded comparison of state with organism in his Staatsbiologie (1920; cf. Dreschler, 2009: 89–91).

It is intriguing to note that organicist thinking is also deeply characteristic of Juri Lotman’s late period, as Amy Mandelker (1994, 1995) has amply demonstrated. Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere is greatly indebted to biological thinking and metaphors. In the article ‘On Semiosphere’ he writes that ‘all semiotic space may be regarded as a unified mechanism (if not organism)’, and adds: ‘In this case, primacy does not lie in one or another sign, but in the “greater system”, namely the semiosphere’ (J. Lotman, 2005[1984]: 208).

Subjectivity

The world, treated as holistic and organic in Estonian theory, also manifests itself to each observer only in a subjective reality – that is, instead of objective time and space, subjective spacetimes are treated as primary. In Estonian theory it is not the environment that shapes the subject, but vice versa – each subject shapes his own environment. This basically Kantian notion has been happily formulated by Hermann Keyserling: ‘The subject, as recognised already by Kant, is the insuperable precondition of objective cognition, it is only through him that cognition becomes meaningful; from the vantage point of the Spirit, all nature is underpinned by a communion of meaning’ (Keyserling, 1922: 27–8). Jakob Uexküll formulates the same principle even more laconically: ‘The secret of the world is to be sought not behind objects, but behind subjects’ (Uexküll, 1926[1920]: 29).

An understanding of a subjective perception of space and time took shape early on in Estonian theory, and was extended successfully to making sense of all life. Baer was one of the first to demonstrate each organism’s individual and unique, one might even say monadic, way of being. ‘The natural and true scope of our life is our perception and the speed of the response following perception’, he noted in his 1860 talk entitled ‘Which View of Living Nature is the Correct One?’, adding ‘that the inner life of a human or an animal may pass more quickly or more slowly in terms of the same external time, and that this inner life is the basic scale we use to measure time in the observation of nature’ (Baer, 1864: 257–8). It is on this original insight of Baer’s that Uexküll, a few decades later, based his famous doctrine of umwelten, one of the early and important conclusions of which states: ‘In this way, we then conclude that each and every subject lives in a world in which there are only subjective realities and that umwelten themselves represent only subjective realities’ (Uexküll, 2010[1934]: 125–6). Everything the subject perceives forms its perception-world, and everything it exercises influence on becomes its influence-world. The perception-world and influence-world together, Uexküll teaches, form an integral entity – the Umwelt. The absolute, objective world is a mere abstract construct, ‘the objective realities of the surroundings never appear as such in the umwelten’ (ibid.: 125). Every subjective umwelt is qualitatively different from the others, and the number of such umwelten is limitless.

This idea of a subjective perception of space and time, originating with Baer, was further elaborated not only in the biological parts of Estonian theory, but also in the humanistic ones. Gustav Teichmüller centred his philosophical system on the autonomous subject and his unique perception of the world.¹³ In one of his major works, Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, he states: ‘We define the “I” as a relation-basis, given in numerical unity and aware of itself, to all ideal and real being given in consciousness’ (Teichmüller, 1882: 68). From this point of departure, Teichmüller developed a new philosophical approach which he called ‘perspectivism’: we always perceive the world from one particular perspective, and this is what creates the illusion that space and time exist. Only a perspectival order of space and time, owing its existence to our sense-data and not corresponding to the actual order of the world, is given to each subject; space and time are merely ‘perspectival images from a particular vantage point’ (Teichmüller, 1877: 47). It is worth noting that this idea of Teichmüller’s was picked up and developed into his own philosophical platform by Friedrich Nietzsche, Teichmüller’s former colleague at the University of Basel, which is why perspectivism is today associated with Nietzsche rather than with Teichmüller. The research of the last few years has, however, convincingly demonstrated that although in his published works Nietzsche never directly refers to the Tartu philosopher, his notebooks offer clear testimony that he picked up the idea of perspectivism from Teichmüller, whose works he read with great interest in the 1880s (D’Iorio, 1993: 283–94; Orsucci, 1997; Holub, 2002: 126–7; Riccardi, 2009; Small, 2010: 89, 115–16; Small, 2011: 43–56).

The subject’s unique perception of the world also forms the basis for Granö’s human geography, where research focuses on persons’ perceived environment, that is, natural environment is studied in the form that it assumes in each particular person’s field of perception (J. G. Granö, 1997[1929]: 9). And finally, we may include in the same tradition of thought Juri Lotman’s works, which also emphasize the primacy and sovereignty of the subject (M. Lotman, 2002: 34).

Substantiality

The subject-based nature of Estonian theory closely borders on another important fundamental attitude that could be called substantiality or, perhaps, ontological pluralism. According to this attitude, clearly associable with the influence of Leibniz, the world is divided into elementary parts, mutually connected substantial entities that generate meanings. Or in Leibniz’s words in his Discourse on Metaphysics (1989: 42): ‘[E]very substance is like a complete world and like a mirror of God or of the whole universe, which each one expresses in its own way, somewhat as the same city is variously represented depending upon the different positions from which it is viewed.’ These substantial elements or monads can vary from one promoter of Estonian theory to another (‘I’, ‘consciousness’, ‘text’, etc.). As a rule, the substances are not isolated but form organic wholes; substances can influence and establish contact with each other, they are not completely closed.

The way in which substantiality is born of subjectivity is most clearly discernible in Teichmüller’s work. Having placed ‘I’ in the centre of his epistemology, he takes the next step: ‘If we were now required to find a name for the unity of “I”, we could call it substantial unity’ (Teichmüller, 1882: 71; cf. Teichmüller, 1889: 218). From this basis, Teichmüller develops his second original philosophical teaching besides perspectivism – namely, personalism. According to this teaching, we have immediate access only to our inner world; it is only through ourselves, our self-consciousness, that we perceive the external world – being manifests itself only through the ‘I’. Teichmüller’s substantialist philosophy was further developed by Eduard Tennmann, who followed his teacher in emphasizing the substantial character of human subjectivity and formulated the thesis of consciousness as a substance (Tennmann, 1999[1930]: 357).

Cognitive subjectivism is also characteristic of Alexander Keyserling’s thought; in his diary he frequently deliberates on ‘self-contemplating substance’ [die selbstempfindende Substanz] (Keyserling, 1894: 30, 45, etc.). And, as Jaan Undusk points out, ‘from here, the familial tradition of thought might in turn lead to his grandson Hermann, who in his later philosophy fixated on the concept of “substantial mind” (“that which is and creates, rather than interprets”)’ (Undusk, 2004: 144). At the beginning of Creative Cognition, Keyserling writes in the best Leibnizian tradition that ‘every individual is profoundly unique, a true windowless monad in the sense that as concerns understanding, there is no independent external mediation between itself and others’ (Keyserling, 1922: 3).

We noted above that influences of a Leibnizian substantial thinking can be recognized also in the work of Juri Lotman. There, also, the somewhat paradoxical nature of Estonian theory emerges clearly – the same tension between rationalist and Romanticist ways of thinking that upholds both the part and the whole, both substantiality and holisticity. In his article ‘Culture as a Subject and an Object in Itself’, where Lotman introduces the concept of the ‘semiotic monad’, he writes:

The monad, defined in this way, acts as a unity, permanently extending itself within the limits of a certain individual semiotic space and, at the same time, like a decimal numeral obsessed by the idea of becoming a whole, endlessly enters into new combinations. By and large, each monad, irrespective of its relation to any level, is a part and a whole at the same time. (J. Lotman, 1997[1989]: 12)

Spatiality

The final facet of the main epistemic attitudes of Estonian theory that we wish to highlight is the preference of the spatial over the temporal. Estonian theory seems to think predominantly in spatial categories, resulting in an emphasis on the relationship between centre and periphery, internal and external, familiar and foreign, as well as in enhanced attention to environment and landscapes. This attitude may well be informed by Estonia’s geographical position, its location on the crossroads of various ecological, political, cultural and linguistic influences.

One of the earliest great theoreticians of space in Estonian theory is Victor Hehn, who can, in more than one sense, be considered a forefather of contemporary cultural geography and one of the first to interpret culture in spatial terms (See, 1992; Wuthenow, 1992, 2002; Undusk, 2006; Schwidtal, 2011). Hehn studied classical philology at Tartu University, under Morgenstern, improved his knowledge of Hegel’s philosophy in Berlin, and in 1839 started out on the long-dreamt-of trip to Italy, where he accumulated experiences and observations that later on became the basis of his culture-theoretical views and offered material for several books. One of the earliest of these, the little book On the Physiognomy of the Italian Landscape, published in Pärnu, in 1844, presents Hehn’s culture-geographical views in a nutshell. Hehn uses the comparative method; he distinguishes the northern (situated north of the Alps) and the southern lands (mainly Italy). He characterizes the northern landscape as lyrical and musical, the southern as plastic and architectonic (Hehn, 1844: 11); while the former is Romantic by nature, the latter is classical and antique. (It is not surprising that in order to understand the latter, he mainly resorts to Goethe.) The transition of nature to culture, best exemplified by Italy in his view, remains a staple motif in Hehn’s work. In his travel diary we can read: ‘In this country [Italy], nature itself is a plastic and architectonic form, shaped according to the classical principle; the obscure intuitiveness of Romanticism is alien to it. Their cypresses are columns, their pine-trees domes; each pattern, each house, each mountain a crystal’ (Hehn, 1906: 190). His magnum opus, alongside the books devoted to Goethe and Italy, is the 700-page study Cultivated Plants and Domesticated Animals in their Migration from Asia to Europe (1870), in which he analyses the evolution from natural objects to cultural forms of almost 50 plants and 15 animals of European importance, based on a very rich material from classical antiquity. In this long process, Hehn sees the birth of culture in Europe; the cultivation of land (agriculture and husbandry) creates the preconditions for the cultivation of mind.

Hehn’s space-centred approach to culture is later developed by Hermann Keyserling, a leitmotif of whose work is that of culture as a kind of place-consciousness, born from the joint influence of mental initiative and a certain natural environment (Undusk, 2008: 101). In his posthumously published three-volume autobiography, Reise durch die Zeit (1948–63), Keyserling observes that ‘where a human type is soulless and cannot therefore be wed to a specific soil, there no culture can arise’ (Keyserling, 1958: 342). The spatial orientation of Estonian theory seems to have favoured the early and original development of human and cultural geography in Estonia, including the conception of landscape as a cultural category and an emphasis on the mutual influence of human being and environment of a kind that has elsewhere won broader acceptance only in the recent decades. This is very obvious in the works of Granö and his Estonian pupils, the topicality and originality of which have not diminished over decades (see O. Granö, 2003; Buttimer, 2005, 2010).

As in many other aspects, so also, it would seem, concerning the spatiality of Estonian theory an important complement is made by Juri Lotman, whose teaching of cultural semiotics is straightforwardly space-centred, even if in its latest phases the questions of time acquire ever more weight (see Randviir, 2007). Lotman conceptualizes culture primarily in spatial categories, regarding the relations between the internal and external as most important in the dynamics of culture. Semiosphere is for him a separate semiotic space, internally heterogeneous and with enhanced semiotic activity going on in its border areas (J. Lotman, 2005[1984]: 210).

Conclusion

Estonian theory belongs among the phenomena that come to life only when they are studied. The present article was an attempt to conjure up something that as yet does not really exist but may come into being, given the communal will to carry it through. Of course, the picture painted here remained sketchy and fragmentary, with several important aspects glossed over, and many scholars failing to get due attention. But then, it was meant only as an appeal for further research.

We described Estonian theory through the degree of affinity of certain fundamental ideas in the works of scholars linked to Estonia. The entanglement thus formed is like an invisible school of thought, the members of which need not even be aware of their mutual connections, while still holding similar views. After its most eminent representatives, this school might perhaps be called the Baer–Lotman line in Estonian intellectual history.

Although the linking of Estonian theory to a ‘local episteme’ may appear mysterious, in fact it constitutes a rather traditional phenomenon consisting of common sources of influence, immediate personal relations and academic prototypes. All the authors discussed above were interrelated in one way or another, mainly through texts and models, but often also directly. A very good idea of the formation of the local episteme is given by the young professor of geography, Granö, in his letter to a friend, J. K. V. Tuominen, of 20 December 1919, soon after his arrival in Tartu: ‘Walking along the embankments of the River Emajõgi or in the beautiful park on Dome Hill, I vividly envision the faces of the great scientists that have walked in Tartu before me – such as Baer, Ledebour, Helmersen, etc. – scientists whose shoelaces the present generation of professors is not fit to touch’. And, referring to his own theoretical usage of concepts, he adds: ‘“Milieu” thus offers certain advantages to work on, and memories compel’ (Tiitta, 2011: 203–4). Not a single school originating in Estonia is quite exempt from contacts with Estonian theory. Those who have achieved much in a given culture or locus are more tightly bound to each other than they might, perhaps, notice themselves. Taken together, Estonian theory or its core authors has or have already had something significant to say, perhaps to others rather than to ourselves.

To make one final attempt at formulating our vision of Estonian theory during the last two centuries (including both the themes discussed and undiscussed in the article), we might try to compress it into the following 8 theses: (1) Estonian theory embodies in itself both the influence of and tension between rationalism and Romanticism; (2) Estonian theory searches for and proffers explanations of diversity; (3) Estonian theory approaches the particular from the general, and conceives of the whole as the basis for distinguishing the parts; (4) Estonian theory presumes that the subject is the creator of its environment; (5) Estonian theory is characterized by a pluralistic conception of substance; (6) Estonian theory prefers spatiality over temporality; (7) Estonian theory is predominantly given to theorizing from the basis of concrete material; (8) Estonian theory involves much more than that.

Footnotes

Funding

This study was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory) and by the Estonian Research Council grants IUT3-2 and IUT2-44.

Notes

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