K O D I K A S / C O D E 44 (2021) · No. 1 - 3 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits. Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) Abstract: Otto Neurath ’ s pictorial language, ISOTYPE, is used to dive deeper into the relationship between language and image. It reiterates the complete set of axiomatics regarding the pictorial language that Otto Neurath presented. It then also sheds light on the collaborators that were crucial for Neurath with their input to a pictorial language such as the artist Gernd Arntz. The paper then expands the circle of collaborators by crediting the historic predecessors of pictorial languages like Egyptian hieroglyphs, the orbis pictus by Jan Comenius, the Raimundus Lullus, and the general theory of signs by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. All these examples serve the purpose to counter the myth of the well-definedness of the linguistic sign with a seemingly clear, distinct, and fixed meaning, and the myth of the analogisability of text and image. 0. Introduction I have chosen Otto Neurath ’ s pictorial language ISOTYPE as the subject of my reflections because the relationship between language and image can be developed in a particularly clear way in this example and brought to a new kind of solution. In this way, I want to show that the definition of the concept of the image in semiotic categories can help us overcome art science ’ s linguistic forgetfulness and offer semiotic analytics. To carry this out, I have divided my text into four parts: • Part 1 introduces Otto Neurath ’ s conception of a pictorial language; • Part 2 deals with the pictorial and universal language tradition; • Part 3 formulates the semiotic critique of Neurath ’ s approach, • Part 4 marks a new approach to the semiotics of the image. 1.0 Otto Neurath and the conception of his visual language ISOTYPE 1.1 Otto Neurath in Vienna After the collapse of the Munich Soviet republic, Otto Neurath (1882 - 1945) was arrested and sentenced to one and a half years in a fortress for his significant involvement in the socialisation measures of the Soviet government. Through the intervention of his Austrian friends, to whom he had telegraphed a short time before in an exuberance of revolutionary feeling: “ Come on, everybody, socialize! ” he was released from prison early and deported as an undesirable foreigner. Neurath arrived in Vienna in the midst of a politically and economically tense situation. The end of the First World War had ended the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and refugees were streaming into Vienna from all parts of the empire. The result was famine and a significant housing shortage, as the first Austrian republic groaned - as did the German Reich - under the harsh reparation demands of the victorious powers. From a political point of view, Austria ’ s already difficult situation was complicated by the unnaturally bloated capital city of Vienna, where a third of the population lived, being governed by the Social Democrats, while the rest of the country was under bourgeois-conservative administration. Due to his expulsion from Germany, Neurath spared little thought of continuing his university career, which began under Max Weber in Heidelberg. Instead, he devoted himself to communal projects with his typical fervor, pursuing the ambitious goals of transforming economic and social conditions, peaceful unification, the renewal of schooling and education in the sense of the “ scientific worldview ” of the Vienna Circle, and the establishment of unified science (cf. Stadler, 1982: 98). As a direct consequence of Neurath ’ s activities in the Viennese cooperative and settlement system and on his initiative, the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Museum of Society and Economy) (in the following abbreviated as GWM) of the municipality of Vienna was founded in 1924, and Otto Neurath was appointed its director. 1.2 The Vienna Museum of Society and Economy The founding of the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum was entirely in line with socialist cultural policy in the “ red ” Vienna of the 1920s and 1930s, based on the idea that an education that could reach the masses, would familiarize wide circles of the population with fundamental social and economic contexts (cf. Koberstein, 1969: 2) and take emancipatorydemocratic results beyond its own enlightenment. Disillusioned with the possibilities of language, which Neurath believed led to perpetual deceptions and distortions, he found a new, unencumbered medium to convey the enlightenment message. Still, unlike Fritz Mauthner or Ludwig Wittgenstein, who wanted to find a solution to epistemological problems through different language critiques, Neurath held the view that the age of the dominance of language was over once and for all and that the image had to take its place. As Eckhart Gillen stated: The method of picture statistics developed by O. Neurath is the consequent application of (his) positivistic principles of science. Corresponding to the idea of a physical unified language, Neurath strives for an international picture language, which encyclopedically summarizes all sensually perceptible phenomena (physical objects of knowledge) according to plan and independent of language and writing, and claims to be able to convey the fundamental connections of human coexistence in this way (Gillen 1975). Neurath attributed great importance to the image, believing that images were not subject to provide immediate insight and rapid information, being not the systematic deceptions of language. Moreover, the image seemed more suitable than any other means of commu- Image 1 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 137 nication for transcending national or linguistic boundaries. Against the background of this conviction, it can only be described as logical that Neurath and his colleagues endeavoured to design an innovative form of expression and representation for the realization of the GWM ’ s clarification work, which at the beginning of the work was still programmatically called the “ Viennese method of image statistics ” . The GWM, however, served not only to disseminate scientific knowledge, but to provide those tools of thought that could contribute to an improvement of the situation in life, or as Neurath put it: The social museums have precisely man as a social being as their object; here is where the methodology of the visual representation of social contexts is cultivated (Neurath 1927: 130). Until its closure in 1894, the GWM produced a large number of exhibitions that were highly frequented regionally and attracted international attention, which, taken as a whole, led to a highly differentiated visual language. 1.3 The Axiomatics of the Visual Language Nowhere in his extensive work did Otto Neurath present a complete set of axiomatics regarding his pictorial language. Hence, the following remarks are to be understood as an attempt at reconstruction. The axiomatic of Neurath ’ s visual language consists of 1) several general didactic rules of thumb and 2) many rules of formation and transformation. Among the didactic rules of thumb for the development of visual language I recall the one saying that it is better to remember a simple picture than to forget many complicated pictures. In the same category belongs the expression that a good teacher knows how to abstract from the unessential. Neurath precedes the few explicitly formulated rules of formation and transformation with the maxim reminiscent of Wittgenstein; “ What one can show through a picture, one should not say with words ” (Koberstein 1989: 60). As a first rule, Neurath repeatedly emphasized that figurative language must reflect the number of objects to be depicted by the relationally corresponding number of signs, rather than representing a more significant number by a larger sign. The second rule states that pictorial signs, reduced to the essential features of the object to be depicted, should be simple, typical, and characteristic. The third rule is that the same sign should always be used for the same thing, avoiding “ interesting ” variation, and that the same form should be repeated at the same size. Image 2 138 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) Image 3 The fourth rule prescribes that the standardized pictorial signs must be self-evident and bring the depicted object directly to your eyes. In other words, for informative clarity, pictorial signs should be “ speaking ” or “ self-explanatory ” signs. The fifth and last rule is that Image 4 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 139 the aim should not be a representative reproduction of the object. Still, a direct depiction, so that the pictorial sign does not appear as an ornamental appendage of statistical magnitudes, but expresses the objects and their relationships clearly and unambiguously. Suppose these five rules are observed, then, in Neurath the following process takes place: A picture that applies the system ’ s rules well gives all the important facts in the pictorial representation of a statement. At first glance, one sees the most important, at the second the less important, at the third details, and at the fourth nothing more - if one still sees something, the teaching picture is bad (Neurath, 1980: 23). The Viennese picture language needs only two transformation rules, iteration and complexion rules. The iteration rule states that the elementary pictorial signs should be such that they permit both a series of signs that are always the same and an addition of two or more elementary pictorial signs. The complexion rule clarifies the construction of composite, complex signs in such a way that the complex pictorial sign for “ miner ” is generated from the pictorial sign for “ man ” and an occupational prop such as “ hammer and mallet. ” In listing the rules of formation and transformation of Neurath ’ s pictorial language, it should be pointed out, at least in passing, that after an initial restriction to black and white pictorial signs, color was also assigned a systematic function, without, however, ever allowing the functional dominance of form to recede into the background. 1.4 Gerd Arntz, Cologne ‘ Progressives ’ and Viennese visual language Suppose the conception of this is legitimized by the idea and plan of this enterprise that originated exclusively with Neurath. However, his visual language would never have become so expressive and successful if he had not found so many competent and committed collaborators who offered their support in realizing the visual language, as Neurath emphasized time and again. In addition to Marie Reidemeister, later Otto Neurath ’ s wife, who worked in “ transformation ” in the pedagogical department of the GKM, preparing objects and facts that would be depicted, it was above all the employees of the museum ’ s graphic technical department who had a lasting influence on the appearance of the Viennese visual language. Without diminishing the achievements of the other staff members, the role of Gernd Arntz (b. 1900) deserves special mention. After an apprenticeship in the book trade and years of training in Düsseldorf, Gerd Arntz, who was born in Remscheid, came into contact Image 5 140 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) with the socially committed Group of Progressive Artists ” in Cologne, that gathered around Franz Wilhelm Seiwert, Heinrich Hoerle, Hans Schmitz, Augustin Tschinkel, Peter Alma, Otto Freundlich, Stanislaw Kubicki, among others. Characteristic of the works of the Cologne group, in which Seiwert exercised a formative influence, was the development and construction of “ readable ” pictures that were intended to convey insights into social contexts, or as Katrin Sello writes: To learn from the works of the “ progressives ” and to learn with pleasure, one has to ask about the practical artistic task they set themselves: to put the complex social interrelationships, their basic principles, and development into the picture (Sello 1975). Committed to the constructivist program, but without, in contrast to the Russian constructivists, leaving the realm of the representational, the Cologne group was in search of a method that made it possible, not to shorten the political insights gained to the depiction of individual symptoms, but to make the context itself vivid (cf. ibid). A statement by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert may be representative of the program of the Cologne group: I try with this picture form to represent a reality stripped of all sentimentality and coincidence, to make visible its function, legality, relationships, and tensions within the picture frame and its regularity (Politische Konstruktivisten, 1975) Image 7 Image 8 Image 6 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 141 Even if it is correct to emphasize the intellectual and systematic affinity between Gerd Arntz and the Cologne “ Progressives, ” this affinity says little about the independent will for form and expression that Arntz had already brought with him to Cologne and which he not only retained but was able to develop further in an original way in the years that followed. In 1926, Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz met at the “ GESOLEI ” health exhibition in Düsseldorf. By his admission, Neurath immediately recognized that in Gerd Arntz he had found precisely the graphic artist he had been looking for for years. Arntz accepted Neurath ’ s offer to follow him to the GWM; after a year of loose collaboration, Arnzt moved to Vienna and became head of the museum ’ s graphics department, where, together with Otto Neurath and Marie Reidemeister, he set to work to put the concept of the Viennese visual language into practice. 1.5 Realization of the Viennese Visual Language Since it is completely impossible with the required brevity to even begin to present the enormous creative enthusiasm of the GWM staff, I would like instead to demonstrate the realization of the Viennese pictorial language with a selected example. Image 9 The chart illustrates how many working days were lost to strikes and lockouts in Great Britain, France, and the German Reich between 1913 and 1928. Each fist represents 10 million working days lost. If we start reading the chart, we will notice at first glance significant differences between the left and right halves of the chart, as well as different intensities in the different years. A second glance teaches us that one hundred and sixty million working days were lost to strikes in Great Britain in 1926, while there were no statistically relevant losses in France and the German Reich. In contrast, the ratio was reversed in 1927 and 1928, albeit significantly less. Finally, in a third respect, what we have seen will lead us to ask many questions, which might relate, for example, to the disproportionately greater propensity of the British to strike in relation to the French, 142 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) and to the causes of the different failures in the various years in the various countries. The principle, however, should be clear: 1) equal phenomena are represented by equal signs; 2) a set of signs appears corresponding to the set to be depicted; 3) statistically significant deviations show up most conspicuously at the central axis of the chart. 1.6 The Further Fate of the Viennese Visual Language and the GWM Otto Neurath and his Viennese collaborators had only a few years to think through and develop their pictorial language concept. In addition to numerous activities in Austria, there were exhibitions in many European countries, the founding of museums based on the model of the Vienna GWM, among which I would like to mention in particular the MUNDANEUM in The Hague, as well as the commission from the Soviet Union to demonstrate the goals and results of Soviet economic policy to the population at the newly founded Moscow ISOSTAT Institute through the Viennese visual language. At the beginning of the so-called Dollfuss dictatorship in Austria, which brought in various repressive measures against Austrian social democracy as early as 1934, Neurath and some of his collaborators were in Moscow, escaping the threat of arrest. Since the GWM was closed and there was no thought of continuing his work in Austria, Neurath first emigrated to the Netherlands, where he worked at the MUNDANEUM on the consistent development and internationalization of his visual language. The changed linguistic context and the more international orientation also demanded a renaming of the Viennese visual language: At Marie Reidemeister ’ s suggestion and in analogy to C. K. Ogden ’ s BASIC- English (British-American-Scientific-International-Commercial), the new name ISOTYPE was coined; this acronym for International System of Typographic Picture Education also became the program for the further work of the Neurath team. 2.0 The pictorial and universal linguistic tradition Otto Neurath was by no means the first to attempt to design a universally valid and comprehensible language. Even the figurative approach was without models, which Neurath always remembered to emphasize. If the tradition of figurative and universal language is to be examined in more detail, this is done less with the archaeological interest of naming predecessors. Still, primarily with the scientific-historical intention of better understanding its specifics, special achievements, and characteristic weaknesses by contextualizing Neurath ’ s approach, I will further distinguish between two strands of tradition: that of figurative language and that of universal language. I will limit myself to a few striking examples. 2.1 The pictorial language tradition 2.1.1 Egyptian Hieroglyphs When reconstructing the development of the ISOTYPE, Otte Neurath remembered that he got the first ideas for it while looking at Egyptian hieroglyphs in Viennese museums. The Egyptian hieroglyphs developed under different influences from pure idea writing to a pictorial system of concept word signs. Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 143 Image 10 Without going into more detail, some principles can be seen in the following illustration, which we already got to know during the elaboration of the ISOTYPE axioms: Image 11 Egyptian pictographic writing refrains from employing an individual design and concentrates instead on characteristic standard features. Specifications of mass imagery are achieved, as in ISOTYPE, by adding various props; for example, the figure standing between the statue and the train crew is identified as the commander by the sign for “ lead ” that he holds in his hands. The pitcher poured by the person below indicates the time of work, namely the cool hours of the day before sunrise, and so on. 144 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) Image 12 As with ISOTYPE, Egyptian pictorial messages allow us to gain quick information about how many people managed the transport of this statue and how many soldiers the train crew guarded. 2.1.2 Battle illustrations Neurath also inspired the formulation of ISOTYPE from the tradition of battle illustrations. Image 13 Again we find 1) the principle of the so-called quantity pictures, i. e., the series of uniform figures to units. If one knows the divisor applied in each case, the number of soldiers facing each other can be indicated quickly and precisely. 2) Props such as pennants, and specific weapons provide information about the type of weapons owned by individual units, just as the information conveyed by signs also provides information about the mobility of enemy armies and indirectly about the probable chances of victory. Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 145 2.1.3 The orbis pictus by Jan Comenius Among the closest relatives to the Viennese pictorial language is the orbis pictus of the humanist Jan Komensky (1592 - 1670), called Comenius. In a situation quite similar to Neurath ’ s, namely the end of the Thirty Years ’ War and as a member of the persecuted Czech Protestant Brotherhood, Comenius developed a comprehensive program on how to improve the state of society at that time: with a guarantee of peace and international understanding aided by general education, scientific reform, reform of religion in the spirit of tolerance, and by creating a universal language and utilizing administrative reform. To ensure each person attains the highest possible level of education, he conceived his orbis pictus as a visually supported translation manual from scholarly Latin into the vernacular. Image 14 Despite the proximity to Neurath ’ s ISOTYPE, some significant differences can also be observed: 1) Neurath considered ISOTYPE not only as a mediator between the scholarly and the vernacular language, but as a language sui generis and a full-fledged substitute for natural language: 2) Neurath did not use ISOTYPE for the iconic representation of concretes, but for the representation of abstracts; 3) While the orbis pictus tries to account for the diversity and heterogeneity of what is depicted in action pictures, Neurath ’ s ISOTYPE aims at the generalizability and transferability of pictorial information, which explains the diversity of the chosen graphic means. 146 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 2.2 The universal language tradition 2.2.1 Raimundus Lullus Similarly, as in the treatment of the figurative tradition, the discussion on universal linguistic history must be brief; and more so than in the previous part, I must limit myself to a selection of sources. In the life of the Franciscan Raimundus Lullus (1232 - 1818), a native of Palma de Mallorca, three objectives played a special role: 1) to develop an “ art ” that would be suitable for converting unbelievers; 2) the desire to found schools to teach and learn languages for the same purpose, and 3) ‘ the desire to die as a martyr ’ (cf. Lohr 1971: I). In the Ars brevis of 1308, the most widespread writing of Lullus, we find the clearest version of his universal language approach, This universal language tries to reach its goal through the method of ascent from the created world to the contemplation of God, This ascent gets its movement from the fact that the artist, i. e., the user of the Ars, seeks reflections of the divine life in the created world. Image 15 The Ars lulliana - in modern terms - understands itself to bea system. Heuristic, it develops through nine fundamental questions (utrum, quid, de quo, quare, quanta, qualis, quando, ubi, quomodo/ cum quo), which addresses the nine different levels of subject (instrumentativa, elementativa, vegetativa, sensitiva, imaginativa, ratiocinativa, caelestis, angelica, and divina), the nine absolutes (bonitas, magnitudo, aeternitas, potentia, sapientia, voluntas, virtus, veritas, gloria) and the nine relative principles of being (differentia, concordantia, contrarietas, principium, medium, finis, aequalitas, maioritas, minoritas). Each of these Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 147 methodological elements - i. e., the subjects, the absolute and relative principles, and the fundamental questions - is assigned a letter from B to K. By the systematic combination of the different constellations always new questions arise, which altogether in the sense of the deductive Aristotelian syllogistic lead to a complete coverage of all particular conceivable fields of knowledge. 2.2.2 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716), whose enormous work could only with great effort be brought to a summarizing formula, was concerned throughout his life with the draft of a characteristica universalis or general theory of signs. The thought guided Leibniz that if he could determine the basic concepts in every possible existence, every possible truth would be deductible. “ In Philosophia, ” Leibniz wrote in his third letter to Duke Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, have ich ein mittel gefunden, dasjenige was Cartesius und andere per Algebram et Analysin in Arithmetica et Geometrica getan, in allen scientien zuwege zu bringen per Artem Combinatoriam, welche Lullus und P. Kircher zwar excolirt, bey weiten aber in solche deren intima nicht gesehen. Dadurch alle Notiones compositae der ganzen weit in wenig simplices als deren Alphabet reduziert, und aus solches alphabets combination wiederum alle Dinge, samt ihren theroematibus, und was nur von ihnen zu invertieren müglich, ordinata methodo, mit der zeit zu finden, ein weg gebahnet wird (Leibniz 1880: 4). This excerpt from the letter contains in nuce the entire program of Leibniz ’ s universal language. At the center of the characteristica universalis is the assumption that all concepts can be reduced to basic atomic factors; if the analysis has isolated the characteristic atoms or characters sought, the synthesis leads by way of the logical calculus to all possible complex content. Image 16 148 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) If the isolated characters are assigned letters and subjected to syllogistic-oriented combinatorics, necessary consequences and truths result, which depend on the onceassumed characters, but are nevertheless true, since they obey the rules of inference. This also results in the epistemic interest in Leibniz ’ s universal language: By the way, for me, the combinatorial art is specifically that science - or also, as it might be called in general - that characteristic or art of designation which treats the forms or formulas of things in general, that is, of their quality in general, or the relation of the similar and dissimilar in them (Leibniz 1904: 50). 2.2.3 John Wilkins John Wilkins (1614 - 1672) provided in his Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, which was published in 1668, the knowledge of Leibniz ’ s considerations, but familiar also with the universal language designs of J. J. Becher, A. Kircher, G. Dalparnes, et al., with the aim of a comprehensive classification of his reality a systematization of all objects and concepts differentiated into 40 classes that he called “ genera. ” The actual sign language, which Wilkins considered to be universally understandable, readable in any language, short, simple, clear, regular, and easy to learn, arises from the fact that Wilkins assigns universal characters to the 40 “ genera ” corresponding to all concepts in two different notation systems: On the one hand, symbols composed of basic shapes, dots, and dashes, on the other hand, strictly regulated letter combinations reflect the conceptual nature appropriate to an object, which in turn is determined by its respective place value in the system. Summarizing the objectives of all three universal linguistic approaches addressed here, and as a conclusion to this brief overview, I would like to quote a passage from John Wilkins ’ Mercury. The Advantages proposed by this Philosophical Language were facilitating mutual Commerce among the several Nations of the World: the improvement of Natural Knowledge; and the Propagation of Religion (Wilkins 1984: 171). 3.0 The Limits of Visual Language: Semiotic Criticism Before discussing individual criticisms in more detail, I want to clarify that a universal language cannot exist because of practical difficulties and insurmountable theoretical hurdles. The wish to transcend the boundaries of language is indeed as old as the history of mankind. Still, this wish must remain forever unfulfilled, since transcending the boundaries of language would have to be paid for with the loss of the constituent moments of historicity and, above all, of the sociality of language, which is why I can only agree with Wilhelm von Humboldt ’ s assessment, who called the dream of a universal language a “ foolish delusion ” (cf. v. Humboldt 1985: 20). I will take the path of semiotic criticism to critically assess the figurative language approach in general and Neurath ’ s figurative language in particular. From this approach, which is new in the present context, I expect on the one hand deeper insights into the limits and possibilities of pictorial language approaches, and on the other hand suggestions for the formulation of pictorial semiotics, which I will discuss in the final part of my remarks. Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 149 3.1 The Myth of Well-Defined Linguistic Signs We encounter the myth of the well-definedness in large parts of linguistic-linguisticsemiotic literature. With astonishing frivolity, the insinuation is that the linguistic sign - say “ tree ” - possesses a clear, distinct, and fixed meaning. If this meaning should have slipped our minds, we can open a dictionary and read the definition of the keyword “ tree. ” If we take a closer look at what we do when we call something a tree, we have to admit that its signification is not only considerably more complex than assumed, but also fundamentally different. Image 17 As can be seen from the sign model that I advocate following Charles Peirce, it is not “ the ” objects or “ the ” trees that I am talking about, but rather, sign objects. But sign objects owe themselves to a preceding selection or sign process, or, in other words, to a conscious elementarisation of the continuum of experience. However, since there are signs in themselves as little as there are things in themselves, we should always only consider these signs for us. Since we, as social beings, constitute and use signs intentionally, we must continue to take into account the necessary interpretation of our sign objects into account. This does not mean, however, that the sign process must degenerate into autistic introspection, but only that we must say goodbye to the myth of the well-defined stable meaning of the linguistic sign and look for a new theory of meaning, which critical semiotics has long since provided with the logic of vagueness. 3.2 The Myth of the Reconstructibility of Semiosis from Lexicon and Grammar Recently I read the following statement: The victory of images is unstoppable ( … ) One begins to understand that there is a language behind the image, ( … ). Only gradually is the realization gaining ground that this pictorial language is by no means characterized by arbitrariness, but obeys its grammar, which can certainly do justice to the most demanding logic. The mastery of its rules ensures the optimal form of communication. The strictly scientific basis for the grammar of the figurative language is provided by semiotics, the theory of the sign process. As a semiotician, one should be pleased with this high opinion of the theory of signs, but unfortunately, the position represented here needs to be corrected! Even more, it is dangerous, because it assumes that semiotics can be reduced to a syntactic schematism, 150 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) which proceeds according to the following recipe: Take a set of signs, formulate a set of rules, manipulate the signs according to the rules, and the sign process is finished. Now this position is not only represented in the statement just quoted but was also the basis of Neurath ’ s pictorial language, as we have heard before. But what is wrong with this position? Essentially, three objections have to be raised to the cited opinion and thus against Neurath: 1) If, as we have seen before, there are no meaning-stable sign-atoms, it is also impossible to come to meaning-complexions on the way of iteration, which, by the way, early Gestalt theory already had to do. 2) If semiosis is not about the recognition of meaning-fixed signs, but about the theory of the mobility and dynamics of continuous sign constitution, then a strict grammar in the usual understanding of the term is not able to do justice to the principal variability of the sign, which of course does not exclude a rule-fixing formulated according to semiotic criteria. 3) If semiotics is not to be considered a reconstruction of an acommunicative private language, but a theory of signs in use, the self-chosen boundaries of syntactics must be transcended in the direction of a theory of action. This means no more, but also no less, than an orientation towards the results of modern pragmatics, one of whose basic insights in the philosophy of language is that the sign ’ s meaning is to be determined by its respective use. 3.3 The myth of visible, speaking signs One of the most important demands Neurath made on his visual language was that “ speaking ” signs should be created, and clear and simple signs should vividly present the message. This demand remains in play today, for example, when we demand that a traffic sign makes the traffic situation immediately visible to us, or when we expect a pictogram to lead us to a sports facility without linguistic explanation. Apart from a conceptual vagueness and a more than latent anthropomorphism, the myth of the “ speaking ” signs reveals one of the most momentous semiotic errors of thought, because what we see in the traffic sign or pictogram is not the sign at all, but its material substrate, the representamen. No matter how hard we try, we can never see the sign, because the sign is an immaterial relation. If, however, the sign can be accurately described only as an immaterial, mental performance, it is also futile to continue to preserve the myth of the “ speaking ” signs. The destruction of the myth of the “ speaking ” sign entails a farewell to the universal linguistic idea, but not at the same time a farewell to semiotics. Still, it demands a radical change of perspective: If it is not the signs that speak to us, and if it is still indisputable that cognition and communication are indispensably linked to signs, then it follows conclusively, in my opinion, that it is we who make the signs speak. Critical semiotics, which in this point is in line with classical maieutic concepts and agreement with modern hermeneutics, tries to do justice to this process of making signs speak with its theory of the continuous process of interpretation. 3.4 The Myth of the Analogisability of Text and Image I have saved one of the most delicate problems in the present context for the conclusion of this part: the treatment of the myth of the analogisability of text and image. What is meant here will sound more familiar if I explain it by the terms ‘ vivid thinking ’ or ‘ visual intuition ’ . What does this mean? The text-image analogy ultimately boils down to the following Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 151 structuralist argument: 1) The equivalence of text and image is asserted because one believes, especially as an artist, in seeing visual concepts intuitively without resorting to language-dependent thinking. 2) Texts and images are structured and consequently structurable; thus, text and images have a central commonality. 3) If the first two conditions are true, one is entitled, because of the structural relationship of texts and pictures, to transfer the elaborated methods of linguistics to the non-linguistic, i. e., pictures, of analytical interest. Of course, you will have long noticed that this conclusion has feet of clay; at the same time, however, you will grant me that the attitude described here corresponds to a widespread and readily practised practice. Since a more detailed discussion of intuition seems superfluous, I will limit myself to a semiotic critique of the above mentioned position. For many years, the discussion in art history was paralyzed by the linguistic-analytical dogma of the non-substantiability of language, since every attempt to transcend the boundaries of language inevitably brought with it an accusation of irrationalism. However, this fixation could only come about because of a hypostasis of language that violated the axiom of the sign nature of language. Suppose one returns language in a critical semiotic reflection to its indispensable role in cognition and communication. In that case, a new starting position arises, which I would like to describe with the concept of the nonsubstantiability of the sign. In the concluding part of my reflections, I will discuss to what extent a new starting position emerges from the perspective of the non-substantiability of the sign and how this new semiotic approach offers a partial solution to the problem of visual language. 4.0 Prolegomena of Semiotics of the Image Various attempts have been made very early on to remedy the above-mentioned difficulties of the picture-language approach regarding the neo-positivist philosophy of science in general. I would like to address two proposed solutions since they continue to have an impact today. Otto Neurath ’ s friend from the days of the Vienna Circle, the logician, and mathematician Rudolf Carnap, had written a kind of credo of the Viennese neo-positivist theory of science with his book Die logische Syntax der Sprache. His argument, in short, was that a metaphysics-free scientific analysis, freed from superfluous entities, could only be achieved if it was limited to the formal relations in protocol sentences. Carnap, however, soon found himself forced to go beyond his logical syntax in the direction of semantics, to eventually consider pragmatic components as well. However, the gradual expansion and reworking of the original purely syntactic approach could never do justice to the specific semioticity of human action. Only the complete reversal of the approach, which relates to Carnapian syntactic atomism as Wittgenstein ’ s late philosophy relates to the Tractatus, can claim to become adequate to the pragmatics and intentionality of human action. The second attempt at specification explicitly refers to the subject matter of images under discussion from the American semiotician Charles William Morris, another close friend of Neurath. Morris claimed that pictures consisted exclusively, or at least primarily, of iconic signs that were in a relationship of resemblance with the depicted object, thus reproducing 152 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) nothing more than an old, art-scientific motif, not to say prejudice; Morris himself acknowledged that his thesis faltered precariously. The fact that Morris ’ s original approach continues to have an effect today can be seen, for example, in the fact that the iconicity of the image forms a central argument in Umberto Eco ’ s successful Introduction to Semiotics. If, however, no satisfactory solution can be achieved either by reworking the neopositivist approach or by recourse to the old prejudice of the iconicity of images, there is, in my opinion, no other possibility than to think fundamentally anew about the specific character of the image. 4.1 The semiotic connection between the problem of images and the problem of language The discussion has so far shown that developing a semiotics of the image from the perspective of allegedly superior linguistic signs leads us just as astray as the languageforgetting approach, which is guided by the assumption of pictorial intuitions that cannot be justified by anything. The only conceivable alternative between the two extreme positions, either to completely subordinate the image to language or to completely detach it from language, consists in the precise determination of the semiotic connection between image and language problems. In transcendental analytics (KrV A 120 f.) and especially in the chapter on schematism (B 179 - 182) of his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant pointed to the performance of the ‘ productive imagination ’ in the production of epistemic images. Kant states: The first thing that is given to us is appearance. ( … ) But because every appearance contains a variety, consequently different perceptions are scattered in the mind and encountered individually, a connection of them is necessary ( … ). Therefore, there is an active faculty of synthesis of this diversity in us ( … ). The power of imagination is to bring the manifold of perception into a picture (KrV A 120). But if - to argue further in this sense - the general procedure of the imagination consists in “ providing a concept with its image ” (ibid., B 180), then we may define the image as a mediator between thought and language, or, put it differently: only through the mediation of the image does reason become an image. Only through the mediation of the image, is reason brought to language, just as the mediation of the image teaches reason to see. But the image is correctly determined as the mediator between thinking and language. In that case, it is said at the same time that the process of cognition has always already referred to the path of interpretation, since - as we have heard - the multiplicity of sense data led to a specific synthesis that requires explanation. You have surely already noticed that the definition of the concept of the image unites all relevant conceptual moments of the concept of the sign. Gerold Prauss has offered a perceptive analysis that Kant did not discuss anything else under the concept of the “ appearance of appearance ” than what was owed to the same categories in semiotics as a triadic concept of the sign. It follows compellingly that a theory of the image can only be developed as a theory of the sign. Even if it is true that image and sign are subject to the same categories, we must not be content to say that images are signs in the same sense as language. To take a step forward in constructing image semiotics, I propose a different procedure that should give us Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) 153 information about the special sign nature of the image. Seven criteria are necessary to distinguish pictorial and linguistic signs from each other. 1. Natural language I know can only designate its object by considering temporal-modal parameters. In contrast, spoken language is largely free of local fixations. We have to state the opposite finding for the pictorial sign: The image is locally bound and temporally-modally released. (Stations of the Cross, time jumps in the film per subtitle); 2. The second constitutive characteristic of the linguistic sign is to be sought in its linearity. In the sound stream of speech, the only measurable extension of the linguistic sign is its time-dependent, linear dimension, since its elements cannot occur other than successively. The figurative sign has at least one further dimension to simultaneously entirely present what is to be signified. 3. The third distinguishing characteristic of linguistic and pictorial signs I see in the pair of characteristics is “ continuity vs. discontinuity. ” While the linguistic sign is given momentarily in the sound stream of speech and is already gone again with the articulation, the pictorial sign has a significantly higher degree of stability and continuity, because it allows the observer to dwell for an arbitrarily long time. 4. With the principle of so-called double articulation, I would like to continue the development of the criteria catalog for the distinction of linguistic and pictorial signs. This principle (cf. Martinet 1949 and 1963) prompts the distinction of such sign systems, whose signifiers are not combined, from sign systems whose signifiers are significant, i. e., the sign can be analyzed in articulable, non-significant but distinctive features. Thus, while at the linguistic sign, a phonetic level must be distinguished from a phonological level, the pictorial sign does not know this double articulation, since it cannot be analyzed in analogous units of meaning. 5. A fifth criterion of differentiation of linguistic and pictorial signs is the ability to build secondary model-forming systems (cf. Lotman 1973: 22 ff.). The ability to build secondary model-forming systems of myth, religion, cosmology, or law is understood as constructing complex structures based on linguistic signs. Although pictorial signs can certainly have a share in this or that secondary model-forming system, purely pictorial secondary model-forming systems would be unthinkable, since the pictorial interpretation of pictorial signs as the last metalanguage requires a natural language. 6. From the perspective of field-theoretical considerations, we note a sixth, twofold feature of linguistic and pictorial signs. The linguistic sign proves to be deficient compared to the figurative sign, insofar as there is no painting field in the language (cf. Bühler 1934), which even the notorious reference to the existence of isolated onamatopoetics cannot change. In the opposite sense, the figurative sign proves to be deficient in relation to language, as it is not capable of anaphoric pointing. 7. The seventh and last point of differentiation results from the relationship between linguistic and pictorial signs and the realm of value. In the case of linguistic signs, the terms ‘ value ’ and ‘ elementarisation ’ are intimately connected, for thought and speech would be contourless masses if they were not determined by the formation of mutually effective units of meaning. This process of mental and linguistic elementarisation is nothing else than the socially mediated value setting. As we have heard, the pictorial sign 154 Visual Language. Isotype and the Limits.Bildsprache. Isotype und die Grenzen. (1996) is also an intermediate between thought and speech. Still, it chooses its means from a different reservoir: whereas the linguistic sign, from the point of view of value, ensures a social mediation of the synchronic and diachronic axes, the pictorial sign realizes the no less important individual shaping of the same relationship. 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