The idea of building a new humanitarian discipline ‒ "narrative semiotics"

Rozin Vadim Markovich Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences  109240, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str.1, kab. 310 rozinvm@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The problem associated with the difficulties of semiotic representation of iconic signs, symbols, diagrams, music, and other works of art is known and periodically discussed.  It is unclear how to localize signs in the corresponding formations, determine their meanings and denotations. There are at least two ways to circumvent these difficulties: the introduction of the concept of "code" and the expansion of the interpretation of the sign by adding a connection with the individual (for example, the concept of "interpreter"). "Roman Jacobson developed the idea that the production and interpretation of texts depends on the existence of codes or conventions for communication. Since the meaning of a sign depends on the code in which it is located, codes provide a structure in which signs make sense... codes are a broad interpretative structure used by both addressees and their addressees to encode and decode messages…Each medium has its own specialized codes, and by making them more explicit, semiotics tries to explain the practices and conventions that have appeared in each form, and to understand how the meaning is conveyed…In “radical reading”, the audience rejects the meanings, values and points of view embedded in the text by its creators. In the "dominant reading", the audience accepts the meanings, values and points of view embedded in the text by its creators" ^[5].

"Peirce distinguishes three types of interpreters: immediate, dynamic and finite, or normal…The immediate interpretant consists in the quality of the impression that the sign is capable of producing…The dynamic interpreter consists in the direct action of the Sign on the Interpreter....a normal interpreter is the only result of Interpretation that every Interpreter is destined to come to if the Sign is sufficiently thought out" ^[21]. "A sign," explains Yu. Melville thought of Pierce, ? there is some A denoting some fact or objectIn for some interpretive thoughtC" ^{[8, p.179]}. "Despite the fact," V. Kanke notes, "that the standard definition of a sign is not erroneous, it nevertheless has undoubted weaknesses. The fact is that it does not take into account the role of the actor, the person interpreting and acting. In addition to the meaning, the sign has meaning, and it is produced by the interpreter" ^{[4, p.10]}.

However, both proposed methods are criticized. For example, N. Love notes that "that the language code is insufficient for the interpretation of the text, where background knowledge and knowledge of the differences in the codes of the addressee and the addressee are needed. Secondly, the transformation of information from one form to another requires the presence of non-verbal forms of thinking, that is, non-linguistic code. Thirdly, the code is incompatible with the language game, and "the use of language consists in the creative endowment of certain phenomena with semiotic significance in order to carry out significant operations on the world ..."" ^{[5; 6]}. If we talk about the concept of an interpreter, it is clear that the idea of the influence of a sign on an individual can be interpreted in a variety of ways, as a result of which this concept becomes extremely subjective.

To overcome these difficulties, I have proposed an expansive interpretation of semiotics itself. I also show that iconic signs, symbols, schemes, works of art as semiotic formations (because they can be viewed differently) "include two different components ? reality and reality… On the one hand, reality is not a problem, but, for example, a problem solution or an aesthetic process. But on the other hand, reality cannot be actualized and function without signification... if the sign is understood broadly, including the individuals who create or use it, and their abilities, for example, the ability to imagine (imagine) what does not exist directly is relevant, but is set by a sign, and the contexts of the sign are different (not only communication, but also problem solving, aesthetic process, etc.), then in this case it is quite possible to accept that reality is a special kind of semiosis. In this case, we can attribute iconic signs, symbols, diagrams, works of art to semiotic formations, but different in type, for example, from individual signs (say, transport), or words of language that are used primarily for communication purposes" ^{[14, pp. 175-176]}.

Reflecting on the proposed interpretation of semiotics, I realized that, firstly, as in the case of Pierce, it is vulnerable in terms of the subjective understanding of individuals, and secondly, it requires the concretization of semiotic discourse. I will solve these tasks in this article. I'll start with a semiotic approach. In retrospect, St. Augustine can be considered his forerunner. "Starting now to research about signs," he writes, "I say the opposite: let no one in them pay attention to what is, but only to what they are signs, i.e. what they mean. For a sign is a thing that affects the senses, in addition to species, forcing something else to come to mind… And we have only one reason to designate, i.e. to give a sign – to take out and transfer into the soul of another that which produces in the soul that which creates a sign" ^{[2, pp. 66-67]}. In this case, "something else" can be understood as a denotation, and "take out and transfer into the soul of another" as an indication of communication. In the twentieth century, during the formation of semiotics, these two points are clearly understood and conceptualized ^{[22, p. 127]}.  

If we are talking about individual signs, for example, words in a dictionary or numbers of a natural series, it is more or less clear how to bring them under the concept of a sign and further determine the denotation or meaning. But here, for example, music is playing, or we are reading a story, or we are considering a subway scheme. Where are the units that can be considered signs, into which fragments should the text be divided? Answering this question, I propose to introduce the concept of "narrative construction", meaning by this a fragment of text in which, paraphrasing Augustine, we do not pay attention to the fact that this is a text, but only to the fact that it is a semiotic construction created by one individual for transmission to another, expressing a certain content that needs to be reconstructed. In other words, the narrative structure is singled out by the researcher, focusing on the fact that the fragment of the text selected by him is integral in a certain respect, expressing a certain content that, in order to understand it, still needs to be reconstructed. From the point of view of semiotic material, the form of narrative construction can be different: "verbal", "written", "graphic", "bodily", "subject", etc.

Naturally, the following question arises: on the basis of what considerations and means can the content of narrative construction be reconstructed? Although the narrative itself is a single unique formation ("individual"), its structure has common features with other narratives. To identify this similarity (structure), three analysis plans (frameworks) and special concepts are needed.

 The most general framework and encompassing whole is the "conscious cultural reality" (abbreviated, "cultural reality"): its examples in modernity are art, science, religion, dreams, play, communication, work in a broad sense (from physical to intellectual and creative) and some other education. Some cultural realities differ from others: types of events, a kind of logic, convention. In relation to culture ? these are certain areas of vital activity, in relation to a person, the form and methods of his life, that is, a person lives by living the events of certain cultural realities, moving from one reality to another ^[15].     

 The second, also a fairly general framework and an encompassing whole (meaning narrative constructions), is "cultural communication" (communication), in which there are different: "communicants" (for example, creating narrative constructions, and joining them, living the events of the realities set by these constructions), "broadcast texts", "realities created and recreated in communication" (they determine the understanding and vision of communicants). In "one-sided communications", the realities of the communicants who create narrative constructions are similar (identical) to the realities of the communicants who live these constructions. In "two-way communications" these realities do not coincide.  

Now an important thesis: cultural reality and communication are two sides of one whole, in fact, we introduce them separately only for didactic purposes, in real life one determines the other.

The third frame represents the structure of the content of narrative constructions. As I show, it consists of two wholes ? a certain reality and signs that allow you to enter this reality, actualize its events ^{[14, p. 160]}. For example, metro circuit events such as entrances to and exits from the metro are indicated by circles and station names, as well as the words "entrances" and "exits"; transfer events from one line to another ? curved arrows and the words "transfers", movement events on certain routes are indicated by colored lines and numbers in circles and etc . For example, the denotations of the curved arrows and the word "transfers" have nothing to do with real or imaginary transfers from one station to another. In other words, although signs are necessary to enter into the reality of the scheme and actualize certain events, they relate to language, not reality. The individual creates reality based on language, but not from language; the creation of reality involves the constitution of a certain (sometimes new) "objectivity". So a person mastering the subway for the first time should not only practically learn how to move from one station to another (from one subway line to another), but also form (constitute) in his mind such an object as "subway transfers".

I will illustrate the interrelation of the planned three plans (cultural reality, communication and the structure of content) on the material of art. To do this, I will use the article "The experience of holistic analysis of art" ^[16]. I am sure that "life in art is not an imitation of real life, as Plato and Aristotle believed, but another form (kind) of real life. And its purpose is not utilitarian… To understand this purpose, it is worth looking at the social environment in which art exists.

This is an environment of communication and leisure, the sphere of the “club” (G.P. Shchedrovitsky), opposed to the sphere of “production”. But I'd rather talk about “utilitarian” and “non-utilitarian" relationships. Our life is functional and deterministic in utilitarian terms (for example, work takes the whole person, he can't think about himself or the environment). In the non-utilitarian plan (rest, doing nothing, spending time together), a person turns to observation, communication with others, reflection on free topics. Art is born in such an environment. A non-utilitarian environment allows for error, experiment, and the possibility of change. However, one medium is not enough, studies show that the second, perhaps the most important, prerequisite for the formation of art is language, a specific semiosis (word, drawing, sculpture, organized sounds, figures, body movements, etc.). The third prerequisite is the reflection of art, no wonder many researchers count the beginning of art from the "Poetics" of Aristotle…

Already in the archaic culture (this is the very first culture based on animistic faith ^[17]), where the souls of animals and people were evoked with the help of rock carvings, connoisseurs of special, attractive drawings of animals and people began to appear. The ritual of evoking souls with the help of drawings or sculpture, or playing a pipe refers to a utilitarian plan (it was a way to persuade souls to help a person), but looking at beautiful images, the desire to evoke just such was formed in a non-utilitarian area, during a period of rest, doing nothing, spending time together. Moreover, if at first such images were created by chance, then soon the “ancient artist” noticed that they could be created on purpose, experimenting with the form, consciously changing it. At the same time, the non-utilitarian form of life did not hinder these experiments, but even seemed to encourage them.

However, it is not necessary to identify such semiotic constructions with works of art. These were just representations (views, images) that peeled off from the working ritual in a non-utilitarian space. Nevertheless, these representations in the non-utilitarian sphere were already perceived by a person as full-fledged events. At the expense of what? First of all, communication and the semiotic mechanism. In order to see a person or an animal in the lines and colors on the rock, a transformation is necessary, a kind of flip of the mortal, living water, namely, the ideas formed on a real object, a person realizes under the pressure of communication on semiotic material (in lines and colors that have some similarity with the object, for example, shapes and colors). Such new ideas, because they now live on semiotic material, begin to be compared with previously existing ones, they have to find a place in the ordinary world, i.e. to identify as a new objectivity. It is clear that both of these moments presuppose the work of consciousness…

It is only in ancient culture that art is formed on the basis of these prerequisites of art, and works of art are formed on the basis of attractive representations. The catalysts here were the emerging ancient personality and the ancient polis, where the non-utilitarian sphere of life (leisure of free citizens) was greatly developed. A personality is a person who is transitioning to independent life activity, therefore forced to build up ideas about the world and about himself in it ^{[19, pp. 50-53]}. Such representations required not just representations, the work of fantasy and fiction, but the construction of events that allow the individual to realize himself, to live fully. The world of such events becomes the world of the artistic reality of works of art, but, of course, it does not become itself, it is created by artists and viewers...

  art would not have taken place without adequate reflection. In “Poetics” Aristotle, with regard to the emerging art, for the first time does the same work that after the Stagirite has to be done with the formation of each new type of reality. First, he identifies this new type of reality (art) himself, establishing its relationship (“imitation”, “possible”) with utilitarian activities…Secondly, he attributes to the events of the reality of art a number of characteristics that allow them to be conceived as a new objectivity and form of existence… Aristotle talked about imitation, but for what purpose? To make a work of art “good,” he replied. Currently, this is an impossible task, what is good for one audience, indifferent or bad for another ... maybe the best definition is the exchange of impressions of life, the story of life, presenting life to others. For what purpose? Sometimes, indeed, with a utilitarian purpose, say, Krylov's fables…

But much more often, when creating an artistic reality, the goal as such, as it is understood in the utilitarian field, is simply absent. The writer simply presents reality and events that make sense in the non–utilitarian sphere: if you want – read, if you don't want – don't read, like it – have fun and join in, if you don't like it – turn away, be indignant, ignore, but most importantly - do everything yourself, your choice, not the writer…     

By the way, intermediaries (philosophers of art, art critics, critics, translators, publishers, journalists) in the non–utilitarian sphere are as free as writers and readers to choose, infect or solve utilitarian tasks" ^{[16, pp. 45-47, 50-51]}. Based on the material of fiction , the main relationships outlined here can be schematically depicted as follows:

In particular, this material shows that in each of these plans (cultural reality, artistic communication, the realities of the writer and reader, etc.), a number of other components can be distinguished. For example, problems and imputations that determine the activity and creativity of the writer and reader, or principles characteristic of different cultural realities.

It is worth pointing out another important distinction, namely the contexts of "becoming", "development" and "functioning". We are talking about becoming when a new whole is formed for the first time; at the same time, we have to assume that it arises as if from nothing, and not in the course of changing and developing the existing whole (at best, we can analyze the prerequisites; but the prerequisites are not the causes, but only the conditions of becoming). Development can be understood as certain changes in an already established whole, for example, its improvement in some structural respect. A special case of development is "evolution", which can be understood as development under the influence of a number of stable factors. Functioning is the life of an established whole, provided that its structure does not change.

The study shows that narrative constructions in these three contexts have different structures and therefore should be analyzed differently. For example, the analysis of two-way artistic communication involves the reconstruction of the life world of the artist and the viewer (writer and reader, composer and listener). The main content of the life world is objectivity. In the course of formation, a new objectivity is formed (created), and the life world of a person, as a rule, changes (see the analysis of cases below). In the case of development, and even more so functioning, the life world remains unchanged, although new objects can be added to the existing objectivity. Evolution reflects a number of changes in the life world, as well as their direction in a certain period of a person's life (as described, for example, by St. Augustine in "Confession" or by G. Hesse in "The Game of Beads").

 In order to make these general concepts and distinctions clearer and more specific (while they are schematic), I will offer an analysis of four cases.   

 Case one (analysis of children's sleep). When the author was about five years old, he had such a dream in kindergarten during the war. "Mom worked day and night at an aircraft factory located far from the factory, and only occasionally snatched a few hours to visit me and my brother. Almost always she brought something delicious: cocoa in a thermos, chocolate or something else. And so I stubbornly began to have a dream with my mother and delicious foods to boot. It is clear how upset I was when I woke up: there was no mom, no cocoa. Finally, in order not to be deceived and not to be upset unnecessarily, I decided to check myself by pinching my ear: if it hurts, I don't sleep, if it doesn't hurt, I sleep. And that same night I had a dream: Mom arrives, I pull my ear, make sure I'm not sleeping, drink cocoa and then... I wake up. Then everything is clear. The power of grief has firmly imprinted this dream in my memory" ^[15].

I will consider this dream a non-narrative construction. Since I did not yet understand how sleep differs from wakefulness (this difference began to take shape after this case; I realized that events in a dream may not take place when I am awake), it is impossible to say in what cultural reality these events took place. The question is, to whom was this construction addressed? I have to say that my unconscious (if I agree with Freud) wanted to say something to my consciousness (I). But it is better to define this type of communication as the communication of one of my Self (the first communicant), who does not yet distinguish between sleep (dreaming) and wakefulness, with my other Self (the second communicant), who is already beginning to guess about such a distinction.   

As I show, dreams play an important role in human life, allowing during biological sleep to realize programs (desires) that were not realized due to certain circumstances during the waking period ^[15]. During sleep, our psyche, operating on past experience, creates events necessary for the implementation of such programs. Judging by the narrative of my childhood dream, at first a "problem situation" crystallized ? "to see my mother more often." Since this was impossible, a corresponding program was formed that could not be implemented. The reaction to it was the first type of dream (I often began to dream of my mother).

As a result, the second problem situation crystallized ? "I need to check whether I'm sleeping or not." In order to realize it, I came up with a kind of dream examination (pulling myself by the ear and following the sensations that arise). A dream with a check is a response to the second problem situation.    

Awareness of both dreams allowed me to understand that the reality of sleep is different from the reality of waking, that is, to begin to separate the corresponding events. At the same time, I had to constitute a new objectivity ? my mother and other events that exist only in a dream. Reflecting on this and other dreams, I realized that some dream characters do not exist outside of sleep, that dream events may differ significantly from ordinary ones, for example, in a dream I can fly, and the sequence of events may be strange (intermittent or illogical).

The presented reconstruction, in my opinion, is an example of an extended semiotic analysis.

The second case (a teenage story told by K. Jung). "One day on a beautiful summer day in 1887, admiring the universe, Jung thought: "The world is beautiful, and the church is beautiful, and God, who created all this, is sitting far away in the blue sky on a golden throne and... Here my thoughts stopped and I felt suffocated. I was numb and remembered only one thing: Not to think now! Something terrible is coming.

(After three hard days and sleepless nights from internal struggle and experiences, Jung still allowed himself to think out the idea he had started and such a seemingly harmless thought. – V.R.).

I gathered all my courage, as if I had suddenly decided to immediately jump into the hellfire, and gave the thought the opportunity to appear. I saw the cathedral in front of me, the blue sky. God sits on his golden throne, high above the world – and from under the throne a piece of feces falls on the sparkling new roof of the cathedral, breaks through it, everything collapses, the walls of the cathedral break into pieces.

That's it! I felt an unspeakable relief. Instead of the expected curse, grace descended on me, and with it an unspeakable bliss that I had never known... I understood many things that I did not understand before, I understood what my father did not understand – the will of God... My father accepted the biblical commandments as a guide, he believed in God, as the Bible prescribed and as his father taught him. But he did not know the living God, who stands, free and omnipotent, stands above the Bible and above the Church, who calls people to become equally free. God, for the sake of fulfilling His Will, can force the father to abandon all his views and beliefs. Testing human courage, God forces us to abandon traditions, no matter how sacred they may be” ^{[23, p. 46, 50]}.  

Before us is a complex scheme and a new vision of reality, which Jung went out for three days. It sets not only a new understanding of God, but also a setting for practical action – a break with the Creator. But let's take a closer look. The first question that arises here is why such an interpretation of thoughts is following the will of God, and not, on the contrary, heresy and denial of God? After all, Jung agreed to the point that God forced him to deny both the church and the sacred religious traditions themselves. The second question, perhaps even more important, is why does Jung actually give such an interpretation to his thoughts? The material of the memoirs makes it possible to answer both questions.

At that time, young Jung was preoccupied with two existential problems. First. Relationship with the father, a hereditary clergyman. According to Jung, the father dogmatically fulfilled his duty: having religious doubts, he did not try to resolve them, and in general was not free in relation to the Christian Faith and God. The second problem is building your own relationship with God, clarifying your attitude to the Church. A little later in the episode under consideration, these problems were resolved by Jung cardinally: he breaks spiritually with both the father and the Church. After the first communion, Jung comes to a decision, which he realizes as follows.

"I no longer found God in this religion. I knew that I would never be able to take part in this ceremony again. The church is a place where I won't go anymore. Everything is dead there, there is no life there. I felt sorry for my father. I realized the tragedy of his profession and life. He was struggling with death, the existence of which he could not admit. A chasm opened up between him and me, it was boundless, and I did not see the possibility of ever overcoming it" ^{[23, p. 64]}.

This is the direction in which Jung evolved. On this path, he needed support, both semantic and personal. But who could support Jung when he breaks with both his father and the Church? Jung's only support is himself, or, as he later said, “his demon.” However, Jung understands this process differently: as an elucidation of the true desire and instruction of God. It is precisely this inadequate awareness of what is happening that determines the peculiarities of Jung's understanding and interpretation of his thoughts. Jung, independently taking the next step in his spiritual development, interprets it as an indication from outside, from God (later – from the unconscious, from archetypes), although in fact he only justifies and justifies this step. The Jungian interpretation of God also indicates the correctness of such an understanding. For Jung, God is his own freedom, and later, his favorite ontology (theory) is the unconscious. Therefore, Jung gladly submits to the demands of God, who commands him to become free, follow his demon, surrender to the unconscious.

So, we have to admit that Jung attributed to God what he himself needed. How? By creating a scheme in which God looked like a real revolutionary. But the premise of this creativity was the work of the psyche, which tried to solve the existential problems facing Jung; as a result, the psyche gives Jung's consciousness a God-fighting fantasy. However, without the subsequent three-day reflection, which allowed inventing the scheme of the Revolutionary God, a new reality would never have arisen. In other words, Jung's existential problems, the fantasy he had, the comprehension of it and the invention of the scheme are moments of a single whole, which can be called "the formation of a new reality." And note that all these processes were accompanied by strong desires, experiences and emotions. Perhaps this is another moment or side of the formation of a new reality" ^{[18, pp. 81-83]}.  

As a narrative construction, let's take Jung's already conscious understanding of what happened to him after three days and nights. In what cultural reality was this awareness realized? Mostly religious (faith in God), but at the same time, it seems, it was, though still only emerging, the reality of knowledge (science). Accordingly, Jung built communication in two ways: he interpreted the narrative that appeared to him as a message from God ("I understood a lot that I did not understand before, I understood what my father did not understand – the will of God"), but also as knowledge obtained with great difficulty in three days. At the same time, Jung resolves two problematic situations. The first is the desire to break with the father and the church and the inability to do so while he feels himself traditionally (in the bosom of the church and family). The natural reaction to this problematic situation is a "waking dream", realized by Jung as a blasphemous fantasy that visited him (this type of mental response is considered in the author's concept of dreaming ^[15]). The second problematic situation is the need to comprehend this fantasy, which contradicts Jung's life world. Her Jung allows: a) by inventing a scheme of a "Revolutionary God" destroying the church, b) by establishing a new objectivity (in Jung's life world, the new God replaces the old one), c) by rethinking himself and his relationship with the father and the church. As a result, Jung's life world changes significantly.

The third case (children's experience of works of art). "Let's recall the famous plot of Chukovsky's fairy tale "The Stolen Sun". A bad crocodile attacked the sun and kidnapped him:

Woe! Woe! Crocodile

Swallowed the sun in the sky!..

The hare persuades the bear to save the sun:

Come on, you're a clubfoot

Scratch the crocodile,

Tear him apart,

Pull the sun out of your mouth…

Which, in the end, is what the bear does:

He was already kneading it

And broke it

"Serve it here

Our sunshine!"

The Crocodile got scared

Screamed, screamed,

And from the mouth of the toothy

The sun has fallen out,

It rolled out into the sky…

Here again, the scheme, by the way, is very similar to the aboriginal one" ^{[14, p. 159]}. "In the language of tupi," writes E. Taylor, "a solar eclipse is expressed by the words: "the jaguar ate the sun." The full meaning of this phrase is still revealed by some tribes by the fact that they shoot burning arrows to drive away a ferocious beast from its prey. On the northern mainland, some savages also believed in a huge sun-eating dog, while others shot arrows into the sky to protect their luminaries from imaginary enemies attacking them. But next to these prevailing concepts, there are also others. Karaites, for example, imagined the eclipsed moon hungry, sick or dying…The Hurons considered the moon to be sick and performed their usual sharivari with shooting and howling dogs to heal her" ^{[20, p. 228]}. 

"But the reality and events are different: children are not experiencing a catastrophe (an eclipse on which their lives depend), but an enticing fairy tale, and they are not chasing the Crocodile away, but a cute bear" ^{[14, p. 159]}.  

In this case, the narrative construction is the poem itself. Cultural reality is art, of course, if the child has already become familiar with the conventionality of his events, feels the difference between ordinary narration or knowledge from artistic construction, has to some extent joined the non-utilitarian environment. Artistic communication is two-way: a children's writer creates a narrative, bearing in mind a certain artistic reality, the reader enters this reality with the help of this narrative and lives its events (it can both approach and diverge from the writer's reality). In order to enter the artistic reality, the child must constitute a new objectivity, for example, accept, not conditionally, but quite realistically, that there are such crocodiles and bears that live in the sky and can eat the sun. The question is, how is this possible?  And how does a believer accept God, and again not conditionally, but really or even superreally? Like, for example, St. Augustine, who tells in the "Confession" about how he feels God: "This light, voice, fragrance, food, the embrace of my inner man, where the light shines in my soul, which is not limited by space, where the voice sounds, which time will not silence, where it spreads a fragrance that will not be blown away by the wind, where the food does not lose its taste when full, where the embrace does not open from satiety. That's what I love, loving my God" ^{[1, p. 132]}. Perhaps this creation is facilitated by the fact that modern children, as a rule, get acquainted with ordinary crocodiles and bears in books or, at best, in a zoo (visually, almost the same communication).

The fourth case (the knowledge of love in Plato's "Feast"). In this dialogue there is such a narrative: "Before," says Aristophanes, "people were of three sexes, and not two, as now, male and female, because there was still a third sex that combined the signs of both; he himself disappeared, and only the name that became abusive remained from him, ? androgynes…Terrifying in their strength and power, they harbored great designs and even encroached on the power of the gods…And so Zeus and the other gods began to confer on what to do with them…Finally, Zeus, having come up with something, says:…I will cut each of them in half, and then, firstly, they will become weaker, and secondly, more useful for us…So, each of us is a half of a person divided into two flounder-like parts, and therefore everyone is always looking for the corresponding half. Men, who represent one of the parts of that previously bisexual being, which was called androgynous, hunt for women, and fornicators mostly belong to this breed, and women of this origin are greedy for men and dissolute. Women, representing the half of the former woman (androgynous female. ? V.P.), they are not very disposed to men, they are more attracted to women, and lesbians belong to this particular breed. But men, who represent the half of the former man, are attracted to everything masculine: already in childhood, being slices of a male being, they love men, and they like to lie and cuddle with men. These are the best of boys and boys, because they are by nature the most courageous…  

 Thus, love is called the thirst for wholeness and the desire for it. Before, I repeat, we were something united, and now, because of our injustice, we are settled by God separately... having reconciled and made friends with this god (Eros. – V.R.), we will meet and find those we love, our half, which few people manage to do now ^{[9, pp. 100-101]}."

The first part of this narrative is a story in the function of a scheme, the second is a definition. The definition suggests that cognition (science) can be indicated as a cultural reality. In modern science, we are talking about knowledge that fixes existing objects (for example, the first nature). "But what would prevent a representative of science studies," asks the philosopher of science E.A. Mamchur, "from recognizing that, ultimately, this application from a genuine scientist has the goal of contributing to the progress of scientific research, the purpose of which is the knowledge of the laws of nature" ^{[7, p. 222]}. But in the time of Plato, science was only taking shape. Plato understands by cognition quite different from what we do. Cognition, according to Plato, has three sides: on the one hand, it is the acquisition of consistent knowledge, on the other ? the recollection of ideas, on the third hand, dialectics, by which Plato understands both in the context of attributing names to things, constructing schemes and definitions, reasoning and even a kind of insight.

"For each of the existing objects," Plato writes in the seventh letter, "there are three stages by which his knowledge must be formed; the fourth stage ? this is knowledge itself, but the fifth should be considered that which is known by itself and is the true being: so, the first is a name, the second is a definition, the third is an image, the fourth is knowledge…All this should be considered as something unified, since it exists not in sounds and not in bodily forms, but in souls ... Only with great difficulty, by mutual verification - by definition of the name, visible images ? by sensations, and besides, if it is done in the form of benevolent research, with the help of harmless questions and answers (communication. ? V.R.), the mind can shine and an understanding of each subject can be born to the extent that it is accessible to a person" ^{[10, pp. 493 -494, 496]}.  

In the Phaedra, realizing the method of obtaining knowledge in the Feast, Plato writes about two types of abilities. "The first is the ability, embracing everything with a common view, to build up to a single idea what is scattered everywhere, so that, by defining everyone, to make the subject of teaching clear. This is what we did just now, speaking about Eros: first we determined what it was, and then, whether it was bad or good, we began to reason; that's why our reasoning came out clear and did not contradict itself" ^{[11, p. 176]}.

By introducing ideas, Plato solves two important tasks formulated by Parmenides: first, he sets entities that allow reasoning without contradictions ("Not allowing," Plato explains, "the idea of each of the existing things to be constantly identical to himself, he (man. ? V.R.) will not find where to direct his thought, and thereby destroy any possibility of reasoning" ^{[12, p. 357]}), secondly, if viewed retrospectively, understands ideas as the "prototype" of the things being studied, that is, it is the recollection of ideas that is genuine knowledge ("episteme"). In the dialogue "Timey" this is clearly visible. "But in every argument," Plato writes, "it is important to choose a beginning consistent with nature. Therefore, regarding the image and the prototype (according to my reconstruction: the first is a scheme, the second is an idea. ? V.R.) it is necessary to accept this distinction: the word about each of them is akin to the subject that it explains. About an immutable, stable and conceivable object, and the word must be immutable and stable; to the extent that it can have irrefutability and indisputability, none of these properties can be absent. But about what only reproduces the original image (that is, about the scheme. ? V.R.) and is only a semblance of a real image, and you can say nothing more than plausible… Therefore, do not be surprised, Socrates, that we, considering in many respects many things, such as gods and the birth of the universe, will not achieve complete accuracy and consistency in our reasoning. On the contrary, we should rejoice if our reasoning turns out to be no less plausible than any other, and moreover remember that both I, the reasoner, and you, my judges, are just people, and therefore we have to be content with a plausible myth in such matters (that is, knowledge obtained from diagrams. ? V.R.), without demanding more" ^{[13, p. 433]}.

But how, one may ask, did Plato recall the ideas? But only with the help of dialectics (this is a method), but also by solving a problematic situation, focusing on the nature of the phenomenon being studied (in this case, love). The problematic situation was as follows: the emerging ancient personality (Socrates and Plato, among others, belonged to it), acting independently, could not love within the framework of traditional religious ideas, according to which love was understood as an external action of the gods-love (that is, man was an object, and the subject of love), and at the same time, she sought to love, acting independently.

Plato understood the nature of love not only as the desire of lovers for each other, but also as an independent choice of the object of love, as well as idealization and a condition of salvation. He sets the latter in two other schemes of love ? love as bearing spiritual fruits and as a genius, an intermediary between the gods and man. ("After all, wisdom," says Plato, through the mouth of the heroine of the "Feast" Diotima, "is one of the most beautiful goods in the world, and Eros is the love of beauty, therefore Eros cannot but be a philosopher, that is, a lover of wisdom <...> But if love, as we have agreed, is the pursuit of eternal possession of the good, then along with the good one cannot but desire immortality. This means that love is the pursuit of immortality" ^{[9, p. 114, 138). Now communication. Actually, Plato's dialogues were created with the aim of convincing opponents in communication. In the "Feast" this is achieved, among other things, by building another scheme ? two Aphrodites ("vulgar" and "heavenly"). The first goddess was designed to block the traditional, religious understanding of love, and the second, on the contrary, to elevate a new understanding of love. "So, Aphrodite's vulgar Eros is truly vulgar and capable of anything; this is just the kind of love that insignificant people love. And such people love, firstly, women no less than boys; secondly, they love their loved ones more for the sake of their body than for the sake of their soul... That's why they are capable of anything ? good and bad in the same degree. The eros of Aphrodite of heaven goes back to the goddess, who, firstly, is involved only in the masculine, but not in the feminine, - no wonder this is love for young men, ? and secondly, is older and alien to criminal audacity. That is why those who are obsessed with such love turn to the male sex, giving preference to what is stronger by nature and endowed with a great mind... Such is the love of the goddess of heaven: heavenly itself, it is very valuable both for the state and for the individual, since it requires great care from the beloved about moral perfection. All other kinds of love belong to another Aphrodite ? vulgar" [9, p. 107, 111]}.

Finally, the new characteristics of love, later called "platonic", are a vivid example of the construction of a new objectivity. In the "Feast" it is only declared, but in the future it is assimilated and begins to be perceived as one of the stones on which the life world of the ancient, medieval and New European personality is based ^[19].

The concept of an extended version of semiotics proposed here (narrative semiotics) of course, it is seriously different from the traditional one: other concepts and research methodology. Nevertheless, I tried to act within the framework of a semiotic approach, and therefore, in my opinion, this concept has every right to be considered semiotic. At the same time, I am ready for serious criticism and correction of weak positions.