Toward a cogenetic cultural psychology

Introduction: The power of the triad

Psychology likes “triangles” and the lure of triadic structures has some more deep primal root in human nature (Zittoun, Gillespie, Cornish, & Psaltis, 2007). But, from the epistemological point of view, there is also the fact that it takes “three to tango” in understanding psychological phenomena, as I have elsewhere tried to argue (Tateo, 2014a). Despite the reluctance of some parts of psychological sciences to “immoral” triangulations that sometimes people call “interdisciplinary”, the dialog between psychology and other disciplines has been always going on with extremely surprising outcomes. The topic of this article actually emerges from one of these fortunate “affaires” between cultural psychology, philosophy, and semiotics, with a more or less peripheral participation of biology, ethics, political sciences, and esthetics.

A group of people working in the area of cultural psychology has in fact started the good habit of organizing what are called “migrating workshops”: one-day long microevents focused on a specific theoretical issue. These events gather expert and early stage scholars from different countries to discuss on a peer relationship peripheral and specific issues of psychological theory that can suddenly become central and productive to the development of the discipline. One of these migrating workshops took place in Autumn 2015 at the Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University in Denmark. The most part of the articles that compose this issue of Culture & Psychology directly originate from that one-day discussion about “Some philosophical links to Cultural Psychology.” ¹ The starting point of the debate is Innis’ (2016) discussion of the relationships between philosophical semiotics and cultural psychology, stressing how both disciplines point toward the overcoming of a binary relationship organism→environment, in favor of a triadic relationship organism→sign→environment. The organism produces signs with their series of interpretants to gain control over the environment, but also the environment itself becomes a signs' configuration with its own interpretants. At the same time a sign is not such in the environment without the organism interpreting it. And Innis’ argumentation is again in a triadic relationship with the commentaries of Brescó (2016), Brinkmann (2016), Carré (2016), De Luca Picione and Freda (2016), Ernø (2016), and Nedegaard (2016) and the reader. They are all needed to produce meaning out of the discussion. Finally, my task by this concluding article is that of establishing a triadic relationship with the other articles, so to act as interpretant and to keep open a productive circle of “infinite semiosis.”

Dyadic relationships never lead to development. Nevertheless, it is hard to get rid of the habit to think in terms of dual relationships. We have several examples in social sciences of the pervasiveness of dyadic models in understanding the relationship between the organism and the environment (Figure 1). It can be the relationship between signifier and signified (de Saussure, 2011) (1.A); any form of bipolar measurement and continuum (1.B); or the causal link between stimulus and response (1.C). OPEN IN VIEWER

Any conceptualization of the relationship between an organism and its environment which is formalized in terms of dualities is not providing the space for change and development, as it is doomed to perform repetitive cycles (Herbst, 1976). In fact, the kind of systems in Figure 1 can only allow substitution of content, not the transformation of the system itself. For instance, in Saussure’s linguistics (2011), the relationship between Signifier and Signified is arbitrary, so the content is replaceable without altering the relationship. By definition, the stimulus/response association is arbitrary as well in order to make possible any form of conditioning. Dyadic structures work also at the level of concept formation in psychology (e.g. the concepts of individualistic/collectivistic societies, nature/nurture, quantitative/qualitative, etc.), with the result of constructing nondevelopmental systems of oppositions that have often blocked further theoretical developments. For instance, Carré (2016) nicely shows how the binary opposition between scholars and activists exerts such a blocking action upon the development of science/society relationships (another binary concept!). It is also relevant to say that this kind of binary logic is not developmental, in the sense that only an external condition can alter the relationship, and no novelty can emerge from within the system. “Processes of social change often move from a given state to its opposite or to its converse. Moving in any of these directions the transformations achieved remain contained within the logic of the given” (Herbst, 1976, p. 29). A binary system is also nonhierarchical (Valsiner, 2014), in the sense that, even if the dyad can have an asymmetric structure (e.g. “normal” can be more valued than “abnormal”), the two polarities are interchangeable (as in the case of moral choices, see Brinkmann, 2016). As I have understood it, Innis’ (2016) point in discussing the semiotic relationship between the individual and its environment is exactly that in order for the relation to be established as meaningful experience, some “third” element must appear. This element, as suggested by both Peirce and Dewey, must be a kind of distinction or discontinuity in a flow (De Luca Picione and Freda, 2016; Innis, 2016).

I think that to make sense of all the contributions to this special issue, we need to make explicit how to understand a central concept. In this case, it is the concept of Peirce’s three fundamental phenomenological modes, which are introduced by Innis (2016) and constitute the background of the arguments discussed. Peirce’s own well-known quote reads:

My view is that there are three modes of being. I hold that we can directly observe them in elements of whatever is at any time before the mind in any way. They are the being of positive qualitative possibility, the being of actual fact, and the being of law that will govern facts in the future.

Let us begin with considering actuality, and try to make out just what it consists in. […] Actuality is something brute. There is no reason in it. I instance putting your shoulder against a door and trying to force it open against an unseen, silent, and unknown resistance. We have a two-sided consciousness of effort and resistance, which seems to me to come tolerably near to a pure sense of actuality. On the whole, I think we have here a mode of being of one thing which consists in how a second object is. I call that Secondness.

Besides this, there are two modes of being that I call Firstness and Thirdness. Firstness is the mode of being which consists in its subject’s being positively such as it is regardless of aught else. That can only be a possibility. For as long as things do not act upon one another there is no sense or meaning in saying that they have any being, unless it be that they are such in themselves that they may perhaps come into relation with others. […] That I call Firstness. We naturally attribute Firstness to outward objects, that is we suppose they have capacities in themselves which may or may not be already actualized, which may or may not ever be actualized, although we can know nothing of such possibilities [except] so far as they are actualized.

Now for Thirdness. Five minutes of our waking life will hardly pass without our making some kind of prediction; and in the majority of cases these predictions are fulfilled in the event. Yet a prediction is essentially of a general nature, and cannot ever be completely fulfilled. To say that a prediction has a decided tendency to be fulfilled, is to say that the future events are in a measure really governed by a law. […] A rule to which future events have a tendency to conform is ipso facto an important thing, an important element in the happening of those events. This mode of being which consists, mind my word if you please, the mode of being which consists in the fact that future facts of Secondness will take on a determinate general character, I call a Thirdness. (Peirce CP 1.23–26, 1903; 1931–1958)

I will start from here, trying to develop further the arguments discussed so far in the various articles and to elaborate a metatheoretical framework in the direction of a triadic cogenetic epistemological approach that I will finally call “method of complementary negation.”

Cogenetic logic and development

David P. G. Herbst (1976) tried to develop a behavioral logic from scratch, looking for the fundamental stem concept on top of which phenomenologies of experiential modes can be built to account for “the relation between our intentions and the conceptual and rational forms in terms of which we perceive and respond to ourselves and the environment” (Herbst, 1976, p. 84). His first step was to identify the primary operation, the genetic basis of logic and behavior. According to him, this primary operation is the production of a distinction in the undistinguished field or flow of events. Herbst’s intuition is that this single primary operation is able to actualize a triadic set of elements [m, n, p] (Figure 2). OPEN IN VIEWER

So, the first axiom of behavioral logic reads: “The primary conceptual unit is given as a triad of distinguishable undefined components, which are definable in terms of one another” (Herbst, 1976, p. 90).

It is intuitive that the only operation needed to create the triad in Figure 2 is the drawing of the distinction “p”. In a previously undistinguished original state, none of the elements was present. Once we draw the circumference “p,” immediately we obtain an element “m”, which is internal to the distinction, and an element “n” which is external. Again, with

the removal of the boundary, a distinction between inside and outside is no longer possible. The same result is obtained if either the inside or the outside is eliminated, for then also the other two components of the triad disappear as well. (Herbst, 1976, p. 89)

How can we play with the possible instances of the primary distinction in order to explore the potentialities of Herbst cogenetic logic? He himself proposes three examples of triads: (a) [inside, outside, boundary], (b) [finite region, infinite region, boundary], and (c) [being, nonbeing, boundary]. These examples clearly show how removing one of the elements of the triad makes the other disappear or become indistinguishable (Figure 3). On the other hand, as Valsiner (1995) notes, there is a logical problem with Herbst’s examples. In fact, the logical negation of the examples is not always correct. While in the “ontological example” the negation of being is nonbeing, in the other examples the negation of the concept is another concept. This leads us back to the problem of the apparently binary systems. In strictly logical terms, indeed, the negation of a concept is the nonconcept, while the features of language lead us to define the negation in terms of the counter-concept, that is the concept that we oppose by habit, or experience. The logical negation of a concept is instead its non-X. The concept “A” is a closed set (whose limits are defined by the distinction), while the negation (“non-A”) is its complement and an open set (Rudolph, 2013). OPEN IN VIEWER

The primary operation of making a distinction immediately evokes an oppositional field of meaning, that is a triadic systemic organization in which the alternatives and their opposites are called into existence at the same time as parts of a whole (Valsiner, 1995). Brescó (2016) and Ernø (2016) provide two good examples of how this process works at the level of social values. In fact, if there is a NATIONAL IDENTITY (Brescó, 2016), then there must exist a non-NATIONAL IDENTITY. This is how the notion of “barbarian” was developed by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. Considering the Greek-speaking civilization (A) as the most advanced form, then it is created a complementary field of non-Greek-speaking civilizations (non-A), characterized by a strange language that sounds like a dog barking (bar-bar). What is circumscribed is A as a closed system, while its complement non-A remains an open system that can include time by time all the different new encounters (Figure 4). ² In the same vein, the concept of DEMOCRACY (Ernø, 2016) immediately evokes what is non-DEMOCRACY or the concept of MORAL evokes what is non-MORAL (Brinkmann, 2016). OPEN IN VIEWER

The crucial point is that the cogenetic relationship between A and non-A produced by the primary operation of distinction establishes a special kind of semantic relationships between the two complementary spaces. First, according to Herbst’s axiom, the closed set, the boundary, and the open set are codefined, as they cannot exist without any of the components of the triadic system. Second, as A is by definition a closed set, its complementary negation, the open set, is an infinite field of possibilities. For instance, in the case of NATIONAL IDENTITY (Brescó, 2016), the open set non-NATIONAL IDENTITY includes an infinite number of potential instances (e.g. quasi-national, not-yet national, antinational, foreigner, enemy, etc.) that create a semantic space of indeterminacy which allows the emergence of new meanings (Valsiner, 1995, 2014). In this sense, complementarity means that, once established, the distinction creates a pair of individual elements [m, n, p]→[(m, n), p] in the triplet (Herbst, 1976). National identity and non-national identity form thus a pair that codefine each other, so that understanding the concept of national identity requires the understanding of this complementary relationship. Is this dynamic system of meanings, in which openness is constrained by the defined nature of the complementary closed set, which guides the collective development of the society toward a more limited range of possible alternatives, maintaining in such a way the balance between production and reproduction of social dynamics. So far, I have discussed the topological aspects of Herbst’s logic and is now time to present the genetic dimension of the theory.

Directionality and time

The fundamental feature of experience is that of existing in time. This temporal dimension is characterized by flowing (Innis, 2016), discontinuity (De Luca Picione and Freda, 2016; Innis, 2016), and irreversibility (Valsiner, 2014). Thus, a behavioral logic must account for process and development, overcoming the constraints of binary systems that do not allow the description of the process. Applying the temporal dimension to Herbst’s triad, we obtain a triadic description of a process: [preceding state, subsequent state, operation] (Herbst, 1976; Valsiner, 2014). From the previous examples we can derive that temporal experience, as we know from James (1886), emerges from a primary distinction that produces:

a certain duration—the specious present—varying in length from a few seconds to probably not more than a minute, and that this duration (with its content perceived as having one part earlier and the other part later) is the original intuition of time. (James, 1886, p. 406)

Thus, non-A is an open system also in the temporal sense, to the extent that something that was before included in the category of non-A can become, after a more or less long period of time, included in the category of A (for instance through assimilation, integration, etc.). In both cases, the relationship A<>non-A (e.g. normal<>non-normal; moral<>non-moral; national<>non-national, inside<>non-inside, decent<>non-decent, etc.), which is at a first glance an oppositional couple, reveals at a closer look to be a complementary one, an inclusive separation (Valsiner, 2014) in which A<>non-A dynamically codefine each other, including a more or less large temporal and symbolic buffer zone that establishes at the same time the rules for separation and the rules for permeable borders between A and non-A (Marsico and Varzi, 2015) (Figure 5). OPEN IN VIEWER

Nedegaard (2016) provides nice examples of this process when she describes the different layers of the semiotic skin and how the persons she interviewed produced different signs that modify the complementarity between what is inside and noninside the skin along different moments in time. The bounded region (A), though remaining a closed set, can dynamically expand or constrict over time in the relationship with the open set (non-A) in the buffer region corresponding to the marginal instances of the person’s integrity. In this sense, the concept of threshold represents a zone rather than a line of demarcation (De Luca Picione and Freda, 2016).

This makes very interesting for cultural psychology all those forms of hybridization and marginality that dwell in-buffer zones, and whose symbolic and material status can develop over time. For instance, all the different categories of immigrants, refugees, nomads, etc. which are dynamically set as A<>non-A in the different conditions over time, probably always dwelling in the buffer zone, but changing as soon as the bounded region is expanding or constricting (dotted circles in Figure 5). Or, in the case of the normative reconstruction of the past (Brescó, 2016), all the counternarratives emerging from those minority or marginal groups such as artistic vanguards, aborigines, slaves, etc. (Scott, 1990).

Meaning emerging from non-A

So far, I have attempted to elaborate a metatheoretical model starting from the concepts discussed in this special issue (Brescó, 2016; Brinkmann, 2016; Carré, 2016; De Luca Picione and Freda, 2016; Ernø, 2016; Innis, 2016; Nedergaard, 2016). Starting from Peirce’s phenomenological modes and Herbst’s cogenetic logic, I have argued that the threshold of sense can be conceptualized as primary distinction, from which an irreducible triadic set emerges in the course of irreversible time. Developmental processes cannot be accounted by any theoretical model which is not including at least three elements: binary systems are not able to describe development (Valsiner, 2014). Thus, a basic triadic unit of analysis is constituted by (a) an operation of primary distinction, which can serve as a operator of segmentation (of the irreversible flow of experience) or an operator of displacement (of the experience never presenting again in exactly the same way); (b) a closed set, which represents the concept, and (c) an open set, which is the complementary open set of infinite future possibilities. All the three elements appear simultaneously in forming an asymmetric whole. If one of the elements is removed, the whole no longer exists. The epistemological consequences of this model are that we can never define a concept by itself. We must be able to stress the conditions under which the triadic set emerges. That is, we must be able to account for the concept, the nonconcept, and the boundary conditions. In other terms, any concept is defined THROUGH the whole.

Apparently, this can be similar to a dialectical approach. But the fundamental difference is the fact that this “triadic set epistemology” is not striving for the overcoming of the contradiction, as long as there is NO contradiction (in the Aristotelian sense) or antithesis (in the Hegelian sense) but inclusive separation and duality of meaning (Valsiner, 2014). There is a codefinition of complementary terms that cannot exist alone outside the whole. The overcoming of the complementary opposition would imply the disappearance of the concept itself. But this is not enough. As I have argued above, the binary systems rely upon false oppositions. When for instance we oppose “individual” to “collective” we are making a wrong operation both from the logical and the phenomenological point of view. We are indeed in the realm of Saussurian semantics, which is based on a system of structural relationships of oppositions, rather than Peircean semantics, based on triadic sets.

Duality of meanings and cogenetic logic

According to Valsiner (2014), meaning systems, that we have defined in terms of triadic sets, never exist alone. What we consider oppositions (e.g. clean<>dirty; public<>private) are actually complex relationships between multiple meaning systems (Valsiner, 2014). When for instance we treat the concept of “inside” as the opposite of “outside” the body (Nedegaard, 2016), we are making a conceptual mistake that is preventing us from understanding the developmental dynamics of the meaning-making process. The infinite semiosis process emerges from a double movement between the A<> non-A complementarity and between different triadic sets (Figure 6). OPEN IN VIEWER

The regulation of the relationships between our body and the environment is a matter of a number of social practices, symbolic regulations, taboos, commercial exploitations, etc. We become aware of this continuous regulatory process when some “problematic situations” (Innis, 2016) arise. Covering/uncovering, penetrating/resisting, and incorporating/expelling are all semiotically regulated activities that put in relationship the inside with the outside of the body (Valsiner, 2014). If we conceptualize the inside/outside relationship in binary terms of organism/environment, we fail to see the dynamics of complex meaning systems at stake (Figure 6). In our formal model, the opposite of the inside is the open set of the non-inside (including of course the outside, but also what is quasi-inside, what can never become inside and what is ought to become inside, for instance in form of food, or what is no longer inside, for instance the newborn after delivery). All these infinite possibilities of meaning can become actualized under specific conditions, becoming either part of the “inside” set (e.g. the food in my stomach, a psychiatric diagnosis, or a piece of underwear), or definitely becoming outside (e.g. the ejecta, a cancer, or the old dress that suddenly becomes tight-fitting and uncomfortable). The interest of both cultural psychology and philosophical semiotics is in the understanding of the conditions and the modalities of the transition between different sets of meaning. For instance, under which conditions something that was previously considered outside (a piece of chocolate, or an insect, depending on culture) becomes progressively quasi-inside (through mastication)→inside (a healthy nutrient or a source of endorphins to sublimate affective want)→quasi-outside (when I feel heavy because of digestion)→outside again (when I go the restroom)? The point is that the new meanings can emerge only through the complementary infinite set of “non-A,” whose indeterminacy is also semiotic potentiality. Nedegaard (2016) presents exactly a sketch of the process of semiotic transition between inside and outside meaning systems, developing the concept of semiotic skin as boundary zone. Though her examples are mainly focused on the outside/inside direction, she suggests how an unexpected or problematic situation triggers the emerging of new meanings in the area of what is at the interface between the “inside/non-inside” and “non-outside/outside” complex of meanings.

Conclusion: A cogenetic epistemology

As a (provisional) concluding remark, I can say that the most interesting point emerging from the dialogue between a semiotic and phenomenological philosophy and cultural psychology is that human beings cannot be merely contemplative, exactly as the forms of organized knowledge production that try to understand human experience. As Brinkmann (2016) and Innis (2016) have in different ways suggested, there cannot be a simply “adaptive” form of human conduct. The inherent normativity and creativity of human action is determined by the fact that we have a “directionality.” We strive toward something, starting from our inevitably self-centered position. But an individual→world relationship that is based on a duality has no potential for development. In a dual system, as I have tried to argue, there is only the possibility of identity maintenance, but not of identity development (Herbst, 1976). What is needed is a triadic system in which one of the elements acts as a transformational operator.

What cultural psychology and phenomenological philosophy, with the contribution of cogenetic logic, can develop is a new form of epistemology based on what I will call the method of complementary negation. ³ For every concept we use, we must be able to account for the whole composed by the triadic set [m, n, p] (“A”+“non-A”+“distinction”). The guiding axiom of the cogenetic approach I have described so far is that the triadic set is always emerging as a whole, and none of the elements of the set can be deleted without making the whole disappear (Herbst, 1976). This implies the postulate that each element is codefined by the others.

Describing a concept (e.g. morality, culture, intelligence, etc.) implies the construction of a system of meaning in which we are able to define (a) the operation of primary distinction (operator of segmentation or operator of displacement), (b) the closed set A, and (c) the complementary open set non-A. From the epistemological point of view is in fact a mistake to establish a relationship of opposition between two concepts in order to understand them. Such a false logical negation is in fact preventing any possibility of understanding and developing one concept through the other (Figure 7). OPEN IN VIEWER

I think that both Brinkmann (2016) and Innis (2016) stress how experience cannot be normative in itself, in the sense that binary logic is not a feature of phenomenological experience. The latter is instead based on apperception of “wholes,” what I have so far described in terms of triadic sets. They emerge from affective distinctions that immediately evoke some special qualities of “A” and a field of infinite possibilities of “non-A.” It is through the tension established between the elements (Valsiner, 2014) that the development of new meaning is made possible. In more concrete terms, if for instance we try to define a concept like “truth” by opposition with “lie,” we enter into a binary and static system, failing to grasp the dynamics of the field of meanings. If instead, we try to define “truth” through the complementary open set of “non-truth” (which includes of course lie, quasi-truth, something not yet truth, simply “I don’t know,” and so on) we must also be able to specify the conditions under which the distinction emerges and develops. This is what I called the method of complementary negation. In so doing, we develop a genetic approach by which we can aim to understand the semiotic dynamics of transition between the new meanings emerging from the field of “non-truth” and can develop under some historical conditions toward what is “truth” or what is “lie,” feeding into another triadic set. From the phenomenological point of view, it is exactly what we can observe in the everyday theater of media. Contrary to the truth-telling language games that Brinkmann (2016) assumes as one of the foundations of moral action, all the complex social activities in the field of communication are commonly based on the inherent tension and ambivalence of the complex systems of meaning that constantly develop new elements in the fuzzy field of quasi-truth, which can feed either into “lie” or “truth.” At the interpersonal level, I wonder whether someone would really be able to maintain social relationships in a world in which only an opposition between “truth” and “lie” would be allowed.