Keywords: semiotic; pragmatism; space; embodiment; habit, social practice.

Review article Semiotics of space: Peirce and Lefebvre* PENTTI MÄÄTTÄNEN Abstract Henri Lefebvre discusses the problem of a spatial code for reading, interpreting, and producing the space we live in. He is not content with the linguistic approach where the notion of meaning is defined in terms of language. The semiotic theory of Charles Peirce provides the required elements for this kind of spatial code. Meaning is defined as a habit of action, and this notion of meaning can be applied not only to linguistic expressions but also to things like hats, tables, buildings, and squares. In other words, meaning is defined as use use of objects and instruments, our own organic body included. This wider notion of meaning provides the required semiotics of space. Keywords: semiotic; pragmatism; space; embodiment; habit, social practice. In his book The Production of Space Henri Lefebvre discusses, among other things, the relation between the discourse of space and the actual production of space. The already produced space can be decoded, it can be read, and the question is whether there is a kind of general code of space ( p. 16 17). He is not content with the so-called priority-of-language thesis but looks for a code that is a part of a practical relationship, a part of an interaction between subjects and their space and surroundings (p. 18). My suggestion is that the semiotic theory of Charles Peirce is a suitable theory of meaning for this purpose. This theory, when properly interpreted, helps to see how the formation of spatial meanings and the actual * Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space, Donald Nicholson-Smith (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. Semiotica 166 1/4 (2007), 453 461 0037 1998/07/0166 0453 DOI 10.1515/SEM.2007.067 6 Walter de Gruyter

454 P. Määttänen production of space are intertwined aspects of the social process that Lefebvre calls spatial practice. 1. Peirce on meaning Peirce s semiotic notion of meaning is not based on language, it is more general. There are other meanings than linguistic meanings, and there are other meaningful practices than discursive practices. There are, of course, significant di erences between these meanings, but here we are interested about what is common in them, about what makes it possible to see the continuity between them. This general notion of meaning can be expressed with the semiotic triangle presented in Figure 1. This triangle di ers from the usual ways of describing the triadic character of Peirce s semiotics. It is based on an interpretation and application of Peirce s key ideas and is developed (in Määttänen 1993) for the analysis of concrete interaction of a living organism with its environment. In Figure 1, S stands for sign (or sign-vehicle), O for object, and I for interpretant. There are di erent kinds of interpretants and the chain of interpretation may continue to the indefinite future, but here we are interested in the final interpretant, habit of action, which, on some occasions, ends the chain of interpretation: The deliberately formed, self-analyzing habit self-analyzing because formed by the aid of analysis of the exercises that nourished it is the living definition, the veritable and final logical interpretant (CP 5.491). Habits (final interpretants) exist as Figure 1. The semiotic triangle

Semiotics of space 455 actions that are instances of that habit, and this action is represented by the bottom side of the triangle. The figure illustrates the situation where an object of perception is also an object of action. For example, a banana is ultimately interpreted to be an edible entity by habits of eating. The object of perception is interpreted by activities that are somehow related to it. This is, in e ect, the content of Peirce s pragmatic maxim: Consider what e ects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these e ects is the whole of our conception of the object (CP 5.2). Generally speaking, the perceived world is also an object of action and is, in the final instance, interpreted by our habitual practices in that world. In other words, buildings, squares, places, and so on are ultimately interpreted by di erent kinds of habits and practices that are somehow related to those places, perhaps carried on in these places. 2. Linguistic and non-linguistic meaning The emphasis on action, practical activities, does not entail that linguistic and other symbolic meanings are ignored. On the contrary, the point is that this approach can be applied to language, too. Ludwig Wittgenstein s principle meaning is use is, in e ect, an application of this Peircean way of thinking (Määttänen 2005). The principle meaning is use can be applied to linguistic expressions as well as to instruments like hammers and shoes or to buildings and squares. The outcome is that, when discussing objects of perception like bananas, houses, and so on, we have di erent layers of meaning. Symbolic meanings have an e ect on how we experience the world, but it is not the only level of meaning. Habits of walking, driving cars or bicycles, using di erent kinds of tools and instruments in our daily life are also ways of interpreting and understanding the world around us. In Lefebvre s book, there is a certain tension between linguistic and non-linguistic. On the one hand, he uses Ferdinand de Saussure s terms signifier and signified, and this viewpoint is linguistic. An originally linguistic notion of meaning is applied in other contexts. On the other hand, Lefebvre emphasizes a non-linguistic approach. Representational space, which is one of his key concepts, is characterized as a space that overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects (p. 39). The same tension is manifest when he writes about the alphabet and language of the town in less abstract terms, in terms of façades, entrances, exits, doors, windows, and so on (p. 47). The problem of what, accurately speaking,

456 P. Määttänen the relation between doors and alphabets is, is left open and this parallel is drawn only as a kind of analogy. A door has a meaning like words have meanings. But for what purpose does a door have meaning? This question can be answered with the semiotic triangle. Linguistic meaning is only one case of the principle what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. Generally, meanings exist as ongoing habits and practices that are related to di erent sign-vehicles in di erent contexts. Objects of perception are basically interpreted and understood in terms of habits that are related to them. The habits of exiting and entering a room constitute the basic meaning of a door. As historical and cultural beings, people often attach other meanings to this basic layer of meaning. The door of the presidential palace has political and ideological connotations that are not related to entering and exiting in any direct way, and so on. But these connotations are ultimately derived from ongoing social and political practices that are the mode of existence of these kind of meanings and can be analyzed with the same principle. The outcome of this approach is a multilayered system of meanings which is also the goal of Lefebvre: As to whether there is a spatial code, there are actually several (p. 143). 3. The significance of embodied practices Lefebvre is perfectly aware of the need to overcome the limits of the linguistic point of view. For him a spatial code is not simply a means of reading or interpreting space: rather it is a means of living in that space, of understanding it, and of producing it (pp. 47 48). The problem is how to combine living and producing with the understanding. Understanding is often limited to conceptual thinking, but spatial practice is lived directly before it is conceptualized (p. 34). So there is a gap between practical and conceptual understanding, a gap between the theoretical (epistemological) realm and the practical one (p. 4). Lefebvre points out that signifying processes (a signifying practice) occur in a space which cannot be reduced either to everyday discourse or to a literary language of texts (p. 136). This signifying practice is best analyzed with the semiotic triangle. This analysis enables one to see that there really is no gap between these realms. Both realms of signification, the practical and the linguistic, can be subsumed under the same general definition of meaning. In this approach there is no problem in speaking about non-verbal signifying, and this is done without terms like alphabet, code and so on which are easily associated with linguistics and may thus lead to misinterpretations.

Semiotics of space 457 This kind of emphasis on non-verbal symbols and signs (p. 39) stresses the significance of embodiment, of the fact that we are biological organisms with a living body. In the writings of Peirce, the body is present. He repeatedly discusses the roles of bodily behavior, muscular e ort, and resistance, in experience. This emphasis is also present in Lefebvre: Considered overall, social practice presupposes the use of the body: the use of the hands, members and sensory organs, and the gestures of work as of activity unrelated to work (p. 40). Actually, it is by means of the body that space is perceived, lived and produced (p. 162). His aim is to treat social practice as an extension of the body (p. 249). Lefebvre also maintains, and this relates to the topic non-verbal signifying processes, that long before the analyzing, separating intellect, long before formal knowledge, there was an intelligence of the body ( p. 174). Spatial practice is, then, essentially embodied practice. And this embodied aspect has its own ways of understanding and interpreting. We can also find this in the pragmatist semiotics of Peirce. After all, the basic idea of Peirce s pragmatism was to widen the concept of experience from that of sense-experience. The main problem was to find out of the epistemological significance of action, to bridge the gap between epistemological and practical, to use Lefebvre s expression. Peirce and Lefebvre have a common goal in this. 4. Habits as beliefs The connection between epistemological and practical is, for one thing, based on the notion of meaning, as pointed out above. Another way to establish this connection is to redefine the notion of belief. In Peirce s pragmatism, habits of action are also beliefs: a deliberate, or selfcontrolled habit is precisely a belief (CP 5.480). The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit (CP 5.398, see also 5.377 and 5.417), and this holds for bodily behavior as well. Most of us have the habit of using the door and not the window when exiting a room. This habit is a structured series of acts, and this structure accommodates to the structure of the physical reality. This habit as such is a kind of belief about the structure of the world, it is a belief that if you use the door you can continue walking quite safely but if you use the window something surprising may happen. Habits of this kind just have to accommodate to real and objective conditions of action, to facts that Peirce called hard facts. We can, of course, change these facts. We can build houses, stairways, roads, tunnels and so on, but we cannot make these facts to disappear. As bodily beings we have to live with these facts. Lefebvre notes this too: Space commands bodies,

458 P. Määttänen prescribing or proscribing gestures, routes and distances to be covered (p. 143). The hard facts are only certain kind of boundary conditions of our life. They are so obvious that they are often ignored altogether. Their epistemological significance is, however, a problem. And so is their relation to the social reality. In other words, what is the relationship between physical space and social space? As Lefebvre points out, in a sense the physical space is disappearing. It disappears in the sense that it is transformed into social space, but it remains as a point of departure, as the background of the picture (p. 30). In Peirce s terms, the hard facts are still with us. Social facts are also objective, but in a di erent way than hard facts. Social facts may perhaps be called soft facts. From the Peircean point of view these soft facts exist as habits of social action, and from an individual s viewpoint the social practices and habits are perfectly objective. But there is still a di erence. The objectivity of hard facts is the objectivity of physical bodies, but soft facts (social habits) are not physical bodies. Lefebvre notes the same thing: Space appears as a realm of objectivity, yet it exists in a social sense only for activity for (and by virtue of ) walking or riding on horseback, or traveling by car, boat, train, plane, or some other means (p. 191). Social space is the space of social practice, and social practice is always spatial practice. As cultural and social beings we are still embodied beings which move around in space in our social activities, when we produce and reproduce the social space around us. Lefebvre puts it like this: Social relations, which are concrete abstractions, have no real existence save in and through space. Their underpinning is spatial (404). And there is no other space than the physical space of hard facts transformed into social space of soft facts. As habits of action the soft facts are not only facts but also beliefs. They are sort of beliefs about themselves. As habits of an individual they are beliefs about social reality, but when one acts according to these habits one participates in constituting the social reality and is, thus, among with the others in the process of establishing the social reality of soft facts. Soft facts are real in the sense that individuals have to accommodate their behavior to these facts if they want to get on in a society. 5. Social space and spatial practice But soft facts are not hard facts. In what sense are they real? Lefebvre ask the question as follows. He asks what the mode of existence of one form of social space is, namely absolute space: Is it imagined or is it real? And

Semiotics of space 459 answers: Imaginary? Of course! How could an absolute space have a concrete existence? Yet it must also be deemed real, for how could the religious space of Greece and Rome not possess political reality? ( p. 251). There is a certain kind of continuum between imagination and social reality. An individual s imagination may be pure fantasy, but if the others begin to think in the same way, the fantasy is gradually transformed into soft facts of social reality to which people tend to accommodate their behavior. This transformation takes place with the help of external symbols and signs, and Lefebvre s point is that this transformation is not only a discursive process. It is because of an illusion of transparency that the spoken and written word are taken for (social) practice (p. 28). Actually, there is no mental space as individual Cartesian consciousness. Human mentality is inherently social, and the attempts to reduce the social to the mental is only a quasi-scientific procedure whose scientific status is really nothing but a veil for ideology (p. 106). Social practice is spatial practice of embodied beings that transform the physical space of hard facts when they transform it into social space. The mental is realized in a chain of social activities because, in the temple, in the city, in monuments and palaces, the imaginary is transformed into the real (p. 251). In this sense, then, the social space exists as a real space in virtue of the physical space of hard facts. But yet there is a di erence. Hard facts as buildings, stones, and so on can be perceived, but strictly speaking the social space cannot be perceived. Social relations properly so called i.e., the relations of production are not visible in sensory-sensual (or practico-perceptual) space (p. 211). Peirce refers to exactly the same. To use John Deely s example in characterizing the views of Peirce, you cannot photograph the border between two states. One can perceive certain sign-vehicles, but actually the border exists as mutual expectations of behavior that are carried out by human beings in certain circumstances. Accurately speaking, you cannot perceive social relations, they can only be thought of. And if you cannot perceive them, then we have the question of how they are experienced. Here we obviously need a notion of experience that is wider than that of sense-experience. That is, social reality is experienced by participating in the social habits and practices that constitute the social reality. In Lefebvre s terms, social space is experienced and interpreted by the spatial practice that produces and reproduces that space. But even if social relations cannot strictly speaking be perceived, the space somehow embodies them. The problem is, how and why does it do so ( p. 27). The present semiotic approach gives the following answer. From the viewpoint of the semiotic triangle the representations of space are certain kinds of signs (or sign-vehicles, S) that are used by architects,

460 P. Määttänen planners, and so on. If one restricts to these representations, one forgets that the objects of experience (O) are also meaningful entities and thus certain kind of representations, namely that kind of representations that form the representational space. The meaningful entities of this space houses, roads, windows, and so on are interpreted by habits of action. This explains how the places of social space are very di erent from those of natural space in that they are not simply juxtaposed: they may be intercalated, combined, superimposed they may even sometimes collide (Lefebvre 1991: 88). The places of social space are defined by meanings; that is, by habits of action related to these places. One place in natural space may well have di erent meanings; it may be a place for di erent habits and practices at the same time. When discussing this feature of urban spaces Lefebvre writes: Rather than signs, what one encounters here are directions multifarious and overlapping instructions, and what this space signifies is dos and don ts and this brings us back to power (p. 142). From the present semiotic viewpoint, signs just are instructions when they are interpreted up to the final logical interpretant. Dos and don ts are, of course, related to power, but they belong also to the very nature of signs. This character of signs also explains how it is not quite correct to say that the actions of social practice are acted but not read (p. 222). To act and to read (to interpret) is the same process at the level of final interpretants. The social space is produced and interpreted at the same time; only the viewpoint to this process is di erent. 6. The interconnection between Lefebvre s realms In classical pragmatism, thinking is anticipation of action (e.g., CP 2.148). To think about the social reality, the soft facts, is to anticipate how people would behave in certain situations and contexts. This anticipation is possible because social behavior is habitual and institutionalized and often regulated by laws and agreements. The social habits and practices exist as general entities. They cannot be reduced to single acts. Habits are real generals. Strictly speaking, habits cannot be perceived, they can only be thought of. That s why they are abstract. Habits as abstract and real generals are Peirce s way to avoid nominalism and naive realism where generals are thought to be general objects or substances, sort of general particulars. Habits as abstract but real generals constitute the social reality. Lefebvre s basic concepts for analyzing social reality are representational space, representations of space and spatial practice, and these realms should be interconnected (p. 40). He refers to these realms also as

Semiotics of space 461 the lived, conceived, and perceived realm. The pragmatist notion of experience shows the interconnection between these realms. However, a small but significant change in the characterization of the third realm, spatial practice, is required. Spatial practice is not only perceived. It is experienced, and experience consists of perception and action. The spatial practice proceeds in space, that is, in the representational space the entities of which are meaningful objects, objects that represent. These objects are ultimately interpreted through habits of action that, on the other hand, also constitute the spatial practice. The wider notion of experience entertained in Peirce s pragmatism is required. Also, representations of space are ultimately interpreted by habits of external action and are thus connected to the spatial practice, action, and experience. This is described by the semiotic triangle as a whole. The interconnection between representations of space and representational spaces can be seen when one observes that experience consists of perception and action, that hard and soft facts are tightly intertwined realms of experience ultimately experienced, interpreted, and constituted by spatial practice. Note * The work on this paper has been supported by Emil Aaltonen Foundation. References Määttänen, Pentti (1993). Action and Experience: A Naturalistic Approach to Cognition (¼ Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 64). Helsinki: Suomalainen tiedeakatemia. (2005). Meaning as use: Peirce and Wittgenstein. In Time and History Papers of the 28th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Friedrich Stadler and Michael Stöltzner (eds.), 171 172. Kirchberg am Wechsel: Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Peirce, Charles S. (1931 1966). The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, and A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.] Pentti Määttänen (b. 1952) is a researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki 3pentti.maattanen@helsinki.fi4. His research interests include pragmatism, epistemology, cognitive science, and philosophy of art. His publications include Action and Experience: A Naturalistic Approach to Cognition (1993); Intelligence, agency, and interaction (1997); Aesthetics of movement and everyday experience (2005); and Naturalism: Hard and soft (2006).