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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

Maria C.D.P. Lyra

Marina Assis Pinheiro Editors

Cultural
Psychology as
Basic Science
Dialogues with
Jaan Valsiner
SpringerBriefs in Psychology

Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science

Series editors
Giuseppina Marsico, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy;
Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark
Jaan Valsiner, Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University,
Aalborg, Denmark
SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science will be an
extension and topical completion of IPBS: Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science Journal (Springer, chief editor: Jaan Vasiner) expanding some relevant
topics in the form of single (or multiple) authored book. The Series will have a
clearly defined international and interdisciplinary focus hosting works on the
interconnection between Cultural Psychology and other Developmental Sciences
(biology, sociology, anthropology, etc). The Series aims at integrating knowledge
from many fields in a synthesis of general science of Cultural Psychology as a new
science of the human being.
The Series will include books that offer a perspective on the current state of
developmental science, addressing contemporary enactments and reflecting on the-
oretical and empirical directions and providing, also, constructive insights into
future pathways.
Featuring compact volumes of 100 to 115 pages, each Brief in the Series is meant
to provide a clear, visible, and multi-sided recognition of the theoretical efforts of
scholars around the world.
Both solicited and unsolicited proposals are considered for publication in this
series. All proposals will be subject to peer review by external referees.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15388

Maria C. D. P. Lyra • Marina Assis Pinheiro
Editors

Cultural Psychology as Basic

Science
Dialogues with Jaan Valsiner
Editors
Maria C. D. P. Lyra Marina Assis Pinheiro
LabCCom Federal University of Pernambuco
Federal University of Pernambuco Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

ISSN 2192-8363 ISSN 2192-8371 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Psychology
ISSN 2626-6741 ISSN 2626-675X (electronic)
SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science
ISBN 978-3-030-01466-7 ISBN 978-3-030-01467-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01467-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962005

© The Editor(s) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims
in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface of the Series Editors

Cultural Psychology: A New Science of the Human Nature

This book, thoughtfully edited by Maria Lyra and Marina Pinheiro, acknowledges
the fruitful discourse between Jaan Valsiner and several generations of Brazilian
researchers over the last several decades. The backbone of this work is built on three
of Dr. Valsiner’s previous texts, considered to be milestones of the most advanced
reflections in the field of Cultural Psychology of Dynamic Semiosis, and the works
of respondents who commented on and expanded Dr. Valsiner’s thoughts. At the
soul of this volume is a discussion of the special nature of what Cultural Psychology
is, beyond the dialogical formation of these dedicated young scholars commenting
on the three foundational papers.
This effort to define Cultural Psychology ties together all the contributions of the
current volume as well as of its predecessors (Marsico & Valsiner, 2018; Valsiner,
Marsico, Chaudhary, Sato & Dazzani, 2016; Raudsepp, 2017). However, what do
we mean by “basic” here? Has it something to do with the investigation of the ele-
mentary component of psychological phenomena? Not at all!
The human psyche is complex, subjective, and meaningful. It cannot be explained
by causal mechanisms of lower levels of organization (Valsiner, Marsico, Chaudhary,
Sato & Dazzani, 2016). In the pages and chapters to follow, we delve into Cultural
Psychology as a science of human forms of making oneself in one’s environment
and constructing meaning.
As the editors point out in the first chapter:
The core of this perspective – conceived as a science of the universality of culture – is the
semiotic dynamics that is constitutive of selves and cultural environment. The focus is on
the high mental functions that include many human activities that have been neglected by
psychology in present days, like the role of the body, all forms of art, music, rhythms and
cadences, taste and smell, silence, overwhelming information, etc. (2018, p. 1)

v
vi Preface of the Series Editors

The dialogue between Valsiner and the other contributors in this volume has a
focal point: the human as culture maker, constantly striving for the meaning of
experiences that are not yet here but are coming.
According to Valsiner—moving forward from the time-honored semiotic tradi-
tions of Charles Sanders Peirce—the core of the human psyche entails the simple
feature that:
…human beings make signs, use them to organize their lives to guide their move to the
future, and abandon these signs when these are no longer necessary. Signs “stand in” for
something (else than they themselves) in some capacity, and for some purpose. They are
made to do this by the sign-makers—human beings—who act in order to “fit in” with the
constantly changing environment. (2018, p. 518)

Yet, how should we study the person’s feeling, thinking, and doing in our com-
plex, mutable world? How do we keep the complexity of human conduct without
reducing it to its subdimensions? How do we get generalized knowledge from the
most obvious acts of everyday life? The goal of Cultural Psychology as a basic
science is in the search for universal knowledge that goes from systemic analyses
of single case to the generalized contexts of the abstracted features (Nedergaard,
Valsiner & Marsico, 2015; Valsiner, 2016).
This is the theoretical and methodological preoccupation of Dr. Valsiner and his
interlocutors. This book aims to offer a holistic and innovative way of dealing with
the complexity of the human psyche. In this vein, memory and imagination, mun-
dane and aesthetic, and construction and deconstruction are treated as wholes and
become the arenas of semiosis. The dialogue among the authors of this volume
helps to foster this theoretical model even further by also including methodological
stances.
Cultural Psychology as Basic Science: Dialogues with Jaan Valsiner focuses,
then, on the universal nature of context interdependency of psychological knowl-
edge. The reader will be shown how generalized knowledge of psychological phe-
nomena emerges from apparently impossible conditions for abstraction, that of the
irreversibility of time and the context dependency of psyche.

Salvador, Brazil Giuseppina Marsico

References

Nedergaard, J., Valsiner, J., & Marsico, G. (2015). “I am not THAT KIND OF…”: Personal relat-
ing with social borders. In B. Wagoner, N. Chaudhary, & P. Hviid (Eds.). Integrating experi-
ences: Body and mind moving between contexts. Niels Bohr Professorship Lectures In Cultural
Psychology (Vol 2, pp. 245–263). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers.
Marsico, G., & Valsiner, J. (2018). Beyond the mind: Cultural dynamics of the psyche. Charlotte,
NC: Information Age Publishing.
Raudsepp, N. (Ed.). (2017). Jaan Valsiner—Between the self and societies. Tallinn, Estonia:
Tallinn University Press.
Valsiner, J. (2016). The nomothetic function of the idiographic approach: Looking from inside
out. Journal of Person-Oriented Research, 2, 1–2, 5–15. https://doi.org/10.17505/jpor:2016.02
Preface of the Series Editors vii

Valsiner, J. (2018). The human psyche on the border of irreversible time: Forward-­oriented semio-
sis. In G. Marsico & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Beyond the mind: Cultural dynamics of the psyche.
Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Sato, T., & Dazzani, V. (Eds.). (2016). Psychology as a
science of human being: The Yokohama manifesto. Vol 13 in Annals of Theoretical Psychology.
New York: Springer.
Contents

1 From Everyday Experiencing to Abstract Knowledge

Through Approaching Semiotic Dynamics: An Introduction����������������   1
Maria C. D. P. Lyra and Marina Assis Pinheiro

Part I Human Psyche

2 Constructive Semiosis Is the Core of the Human Psyche ���������������������� 11
Jaan Valsiner
3 The Tension A <-> non-A in the Meaning-Making
of a Chemical Element in a Sociogenetic Level �������������������������������������� 19
João Roberto Ratis Tenório da Silva
and Gabriel Fortes Macêdo
4 Between the Psychology of Creative Processes
and the Dynamics of Innovation in Culture: Semiotic
Challenges in the Modeling of Creativity������������������������������������������������ 33
Soraya Liberalquino Melo, Kleber Souza Braga,
and Marina Assis Pinheiro

Part II Sublime as Border

5 Human Psyche Between the Mundane and the Aesthetic:
The Sublime as the Arena for Semiosis���������������������������������������������������� 43
Jaan Valsiner
6 The Sublime in Relational Art: Meaning-­Making Processes
on the Move������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 57
Lia da Rocha Lordelo

ix
x Contents

7 The Sublime and the Empirical Datum in Psychology:

An Exercise of Conceptual Approximation �������������������������������������������� 63
Marina Assis Pinheiro, Graciana Vieira de Azevedo,
and Taciana Feitosa de Melo

Part III Ambivalence as a Norm for Encountering the Sublime

8 Human Psyche As Inherently Ambivalent: Semiosis
of Construction and Destruction�������������������������������������������������������������� 75
Jaan Valsiner
9 Preserved Traces of Destroyed Sign Hierarchy:
From Genetic Parenting to Adoptive Parenting�������������������������������������� 87
Tatiana Valério and Nathaly M. Ferreira-Novaes
10 Sublime Moments in the Light of Developmental Trajectory:
An Exploration of the Unit of Analysis���������������������������������������������������� 101
Maria C. D. P. Lyra and Mariana Bentzen Aguiar
11 Toward an Abstracting Conceptual Enterprise�������������������������������������� 115
Maria C. D. P. Lyra and Marina Assis Pinheiro
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 119
About the Editors

Maria C. D. P. Lyra is Professor of Psychology at the Federal University of

Pernambuco, Brazil. She is interested in the process of human cultural development,
the dynamic features through which human beings face change and stability
throughout their lives. She received her M.A. at Cornell University, USA, and her
Ph.D. at São Paulo University, Brazil. She coordinates a research laboratory—
LabCCom—dedicated to the study of the process of emergence and development of
the subject (self) in and through communication, concentrating on its microgenetic
transformations embedded in sociocultural milieu. Culture and sign dynamics are
particularly relevant to explore diverse themes through reconstructive memory and
imagination highlighting the process of internalization/externalization. She co-­
edited Determinism and Indeterminism in Developmental and Social Science
(Lawrence Welbaum, 1997), Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and
Developmental Sciences (Springer, 2009), Challenges and Strategies for Studying
Human Development in Cultural Contexts (Firera & Liuzzo Publishing, 2009), and
presently Imagining the Past, Constructing the Future with Brady Wagoner and
Alicia Barreiro (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018–2019).

Marina Assis Pinheiro is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Federal

University of Pernambuco (UFPE). She coordinates the research group Psychology
of Creative Processes. She is especially interested in the following subjects: creativ-
ity and imagination, art and psychology, language and subjectivity, and culture and
singularity.

xi
About the Contributors

Mariana Bentzen Aguiar is a master’s student at the Federal University of

Pernambuco (UFPE, Brazil) in Cognitive Psychology with emphasis on Cultural
Psychology. Her research seeks to investigate the meaning construction process of
adolescents that practice (practiced) self-harming. Therefore her interests are mean-
ing construction, life course development, self and mental health.

Kleber Souza Braga is a master’s student in Psychology at the Federal University

of Pernambuco (UFPE, Brazil) and has a major degree in Psychology. His research
interests include contemporary clinic, psychoanalysis, creativity, and linguistics and
subjectivation in a poststructural perspective.

Lia da Rocha Lordelo graduated in Psychology at the Federal University of Bahia

(2004) and has a master’s degree in Teaching, Philosophy, and History of Sciences
and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology (2011) from the same institution. She has teaching
experience in Epistemology and Developmental Psychology, focusing on Cultural-­
Historical Theory. She is now Arts Professor at the Federal University of Recôncavo
of Bahia. Her current research interests stand between culture, psychology, and per-
forming arts.

João Roberto Ratis Tenório da Silva is Professor at the Federal University of

Pernambuco. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, a master’s degree in
Science Teaching, and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology. He has been a Fellow of the
Ph.D. Program for 5 months at the Niels Bohr Center for Cultural Psychology,
Aalborg University, Denmark. He has experience in the area of Chemical Education,
with emphasis on the teaching and learning process and conceptualization. He has
been working mainly on themes involving conceptual profile, elaboration of digital
and analogical games for science teaching, and relations between memory, imagina-
tion, and learning.

xiii
xiv About the Contributors

Graciana Vieira de Azevedo is Professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco,

Education Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology with a dissertation on “Meaning-­
Making on School Transitions to 6th Grade.” Her background in English Language
Teaching and in Linguistics with a master’s thesis on Reading and Writing has pro-
vided positive insights toward Cultural Psychology Theories. In addition to being a
CNPq (Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development)
Researcher in the areas of cognition, psychology, and learning, she has participated
in national and international events both as a speaker and participant. Her expertise
in the area of Evaluation and Assessment has resulted in the various public teaching
examination boards she participated as a member.

Gabriel Fortes Macêdo received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology
from the Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil) with emphasis on Argumentation,
Learning and Instruction, and Cognitive Development. He is currently teaching at
the Faculdade de Tecnologia de Alagoas (FAT-AL) classes on Human-Machine
Interaction and Cognitive Neuroscience. His research includes argumentative dis-
course, dialogic reasoning, reflective-thinking development, and classroom design.

Taciana Feitosa de Melo is a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Psychology, with empha-

sis in Cultural Psychology, at the Federal University of Pernambuco. She received a
master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology and is postgraduate in Neuropsychology.
His research interests include imaginative processes and life course development.
She participates in the Eykasya research laboratory, dedicated to the study of imagi-
native processes with an emphasis on the relation of the subject to the signs.

Nathaly M. Ferreira-Novaes graduated in Psychology at the Federal University of

Pernambuco (UFPE), where she is a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Psychology and has
been dedicated to studies on the semiotic and constructive dynamics of memory in
different situations. She is a Member of the LabCCom—UFPE research labora-
tory—and works as a Hospital Psychologist at the Instituto de Medicina Integral
Professor Fernando Figueira (IMIP). Her current research interests include topics
related to human development, memory, affectivity, musical experiences, psycho-
pathology, and health practices.

Soraya Liberalquino Melo has a master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology at the

Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE, Brazil), an M.B.A in Business and
Technology Management at IPT—Institute of Technological Research of the State
of São Paulo (Brazil)—and a major degree in Secretariat. She is currently a public
servant at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Her research interests include cog-
nition, creativity, and organizational management.

Tatiana Valério is Professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and

Technology of Pernambuco, where she develops research on musical experiences in
the field of cultural psychology. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Psychology,
with emphasis on Cultural Psychology, at the Federal University of Pernambuco.
About the Contributors xv

Her research interests include life course development, musical experiences, adop-
tion, and cultural psychology. She also works and develops research as a volunteer
at a group of study and adoption support.

Jaan Valsiner is a cultural psychologist with a consistently developmental axiom-

atic base that is brought to analyses of any psychological or social phenomena. He
is the Founding Editor (1995) of the Sage journal, Culture & Psychology. From
2013 to 2018, he was the Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at Aalborg
University, Denmark, where he continues his research on cultural psychology, in
combination with collaboration with the University of Luxembourg and Sigmund
Freud Privatuniversität Wien in Austria and in Berlin. He has published and edited
more than 40 books, the most pertinent of which are The Guided Mind (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), Culture in Minds and Societies (New Delhi:
Sage, 2007), An Invitation to Cultural Psychology (London: Sage, 2014), and
Ornamented Lives (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2018). He has
been awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize of 1995 in Germany and the Hans-­
Kilian-­Preis of 2017 for his interdisciplinary work on human development.
Previously while working in the United States, he was a recipient of a Senior
Fulbright Lecturing Award in Brazil, 1995–1997. He has been a Visiting Professor
in Brazil, Japan, Australia, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the United
Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Since 2017 he is a Foreign Member of the Estonian
Academy of Sciences.
Chapter 1
From Everyday Experiencing to Abstract
Knowledge Through Approaching Semiotic
Dynamics: An Introduction

Maria C. D. P. Lyra and Marina Assis Pinheiro

In this introduction, we highlight and discuss some of the fundamental concepts that
compose the theoretical framework of Cultural Psychology as Basic Science which
emerged through dialogues with Jaan Valsiner. We will approach some of the funda-
mental concepts proposed by Valsiner, focusing on the dynamics between human
experiencing and the constructive fundamental role accomplished by the theoretical
background offered by a cultural psychology. The core of this perspective – con-
ceived as a science of the universality of culture – is the semiotic dynamics that is
constitutive of selves and cultural environment. The focus is on the high mental
functions that include many human activities that have been neglected by psychol-
ogy in present days, like the role of the body, all forms of art, music, rhythms and
cadences, taste and smell, silence, overwhelming information, etc. Persons and cul-
tural world emerge and continuously change from the interdependence of a personal
culture and a collective culture through an inclusive separation. Both selves and
culture are dynamic forms of being as processes of becoming.
The locus of special interest is the border between dialogical self and cultural
world, which means that we should focus on self–others and self–world exchanges
and transformations of the semiotic activity happening through time in a continu-
ously moving manner toward the future. Cultural psychology of semiotic dynamics
is a developmental science with which development is guided by affectivity, think-
ing, and acting in the present envisaging the unknown future. In other words, cul-
tural psychology of semiotic dynamics as a basic science is committed to understand
the procedural character of human higher psychological functions relying in the
mediation of signs. This sign activity is also constitutive of selves and culture, both

M. C. D. P. Lyra (*)
LabCCom - Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
M. A. Pinheiro
Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

© The Editor(s) and The Author(s), under exclusive license 1

to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
M. C. D. P. Lyra, M. A. Pinheiro (eds.), Cultural Psychology as Basic Science,
SpringerBriefs in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01467-4_1
2 M. C. D. P. Lyra and M. A. Pinheiro

as processes of becoming. Thus, it comprises the search to apprehend how human

singularity emerges and develops and how cultural world, in which humans are
immersed, develops and changes through these semiotic exchanges. Therefore,
CPSD is in essence a developmental basic science as far as its aim is to capture the
phenomena in the process of changing, in a time that never stops.
The corollary of the above is the uniqueness of empirical datum and the fact that
the scientist’s task is to create abstract models that apprehend these dynamics that
constitute and change selves vis-a-vis others and sociocultural environment. Such a
challenging scientific horizon requires a comprehension of, at least, two interpreta-
tive anchors for recognizing the centrality of human experience in psychology: the
emergence of novelty, as the process of human becoming, and the sublime in the
aesthetic experience, as the openness for human creation. In this chapter, we discuss
these two anchors/axes as a fundamental approach in constructing valuable scien-
tific abstract models based on the holistic and time-determined (in its irreversibility)
human experience.

Emergence of Novelty

The emergence of novelty in human becoming is a guideline for any developmental

psychology. However, the common research activity, most of the time, produces a
kind of suppression of the most fundamental trait of transformation in human condi-
tion, which is the irreversible time. In terms of psychological process, we should
assume that memory is a form of pre-presentation based on the past and imagination
as preparation for adaptation to the future are the two fundamental human psycho-
logical processes that construct the here and now for the person.
The perennial movement of human beings toward future places is an adventure
that aims to shape the uncertainty, the unknown. Such self-creative journey engages
a process in which corporeality, effect, and language cannot be reduced one to
another, at the same time that they are all together in a holistic experience. At this
point, ambivalence and ambiguity are implied, but they cannot be understood as
synonymous or, even, weakly defined expressions. As a prominent affective dimen-
sion of experience, the ambivalence, in a broader conception, can be seen as the
simultaneous coexistence of two opposite feelings/affects addressed toward the
same person or object. In the perspective of CPSD, considering the irreversible
time, ambivalence is thus comprehended as a result from the two systems of infinity
dualities, “past–future” and “inner–outer sociocultural environment,” in which such
oppositional affective vectors activate the semiotic dynamics. Thus, the individual
and culture constantly create selves (constructing and destructing) of one another
that, at the same time, create (constructing and destructing) the cultural world as
processes of becoming, in an affective-driven process. This is one of the fundamen-
tal landmarks of CPSD here exposed in this book. Nevertheless, all this dynamic
view relies on the semiotic processes.
1 From Everyday Experiencing to Abstract Knowledge Through Approaching… 3

Concerning ambiguity, it is well-known in linguistics or, even, philosophy of

language that ambiguity is an inherent trait of the human sign system. Only in arti-
ficial language (e.g., computational language) that ambiguity is inexistent, once the
system is closed in commands where metaphors could not be processed in terms of
binary computational information (Bruner, 1990; Gardner, 1987). According to the
Wittgenstein II (Philosophical Investigations, 1986), it is impossible to eradicate
sign ambiguity; hence it would imply to take the language out of its contextual,
cultural, language-game uses. It is understandable in a metatheoretical base, psy-
chology discipline tends to obliterate its constitutive trait of human semiotic pro-
cess, once the passion for meaning-making is traditionally used to decrease the role
of all non-A field of meanings that participates in the emergence of an A sign. We
will discuss the constant ambiguity inherent to each sign created by each individual
in interacting with the others and immersed in a system of signs that compose the
sociocultural processes that means culture. According to Valsiner (2014), the lan-
guage sign is inherently ambiguous in the cultural reality considering also the mul-
tiplicity of personal constructions that are possible in the relationship between the
self and the other, past and future dualities. Signs are the medium and the constitu-
tive matter of both selves and culture. The coordination of the ambivalent task of
human beings and the ambiguity of sign system are thus two key parameters for
understanding the emergence of novelty. In an anecdotal example of the relationship
between ambiguity and ambivalence in the emergence of novelty in human experi-
ence, we might think that a teenager in a psychotherapy process who used to refer
to her mother’s meals as “a poison” is not a static meaning related to the develop-
ment of anorexia or even, necessarily, a sign concerning the feeling of being intoxi-
cated by the mother’s provision. The emergence of “poison” as a sign must be
understood implying all of its opposite fields of meanings as well as the dynamics
of ambivalent-affective transformation concerning the other and corporeality. The
communicative illusion that the meanings can be “shared” is one of the reasons of
reductionism of the holistic experience in current psychology. This misunderstand-
ing can imply “meaning colonization” from the researcher toward his/her data. In
this sense, data will be only a mirror of the epistemic subject expectations.

Sublime and Aesthetic Experiences

For Valsiner (this book, Chap. 5), the sublime emerges during the aesthetic experi-
ence at the moment that a person lives an affective tension. Such tension – provoked
by the simultaneous coexistence of two opposed value-laden categories – can result
in a new creation regarding the object focused or can return to the mundane every-
day life, understood as a sphere of normativity, repetition, and ordinariness. In other
words, the possibility of creation, getting out from the mundane life, occurs at the
moment that categorical opposition between two value situations is outdated through
a movement that negates this opposition creating subsequently a new solution that
4 M. C. D. P. Lyra and M. A. Pinheiro

negates the antecedent opposition. This metatheoretical proposal is built throughout

a historical–epistemological construction from European philosophy, with its major
thinkers such as Burke and Kant, up to contemporary discussions of CPSD and the
assumption of the irreversible time. The chapter is illustrated in a beautiful patch-
work of analytic examples from arts, music, and ordinary human action in the effort
of shedding light in the centrality of aesthetic experience as a main issue in under-
standing a possible catalytic overlap between the role of ambivalence and ambiguity
in emergence of novelty in human experience. The author claims that sublime is a
border dimension between the mundane and the beautiful where pragmatic interests
and disinterested interest (beauty) are suspended in order to give space to the irrup-
tion of a disquieting experience in which may emerge new signs. Valsiner also high-
lights cultural regulations in aesthetics that orient meaning-making process under
cultural–affective contingencies.
According to Pinheiro and Azevedo and Feitosa (this book, Chap. 7), aesthetic
experience is the creative condition that results from a deep affective jump – a sur-
plus of feeling/excess – that triggers and creates new semiotic constructions
throughout human becoming. In this sense, aesthetics is neither the pleasure of con-
templation nor belonging to the domain of arts. It is a transformation of mundane
through a subjective dynamic that symbolically transforms/transfigures the objects
of the world resulting in an experience that is affective oriented. It is the totality of
this kind of human experience that makes new signs emerge in both personal and
collective culture. According to this perspective, the mundane, the beauty, and the
sublime are all instances of this deep affective and transformative process of aes-
thetic experiencing.
The major distinction between these two conceptualizations of the sublime above
and the aesthetic experience seems to be two distinct views regarding the role of
sublime in aesthetic experience. In the second view, it seems to emerge from an
inner explosion of the subject which forces (drives) are fundamentally internal. For
this reason, this interpretation of aesthetic experience seems to highlight the unique-
ness of the affective-subjective conditions for the creative transfigurations of the
cultural shared reality. This is to be expected, in some sense due to its affiliation in
psychoanalysis. For the other, the one proposed by Valsiner (this book, Chap. 5), the
dynamics emerge from the confrontation of opposed value-laden categories that
have their construction based on the history of the subject immersed in a semiotic–
sociocultural word. Nevertheless, it is just this point that we claim, as an extension
of the dynamics that makes them opposed, that seems to be missing or to be better
stressed and integrated to the theoretical construction of CPSD.
These two abovementioned interpretative anchors/axes for the recognition of the
human experience in psychology nowadays are fully discussed throughout this
book, in which young researchers establish a rich interlocution among Valsiner’s
perspective in human sign activities. As a kaleidoscope of research subjects and
empirical data, these Brazilian authors try to amplify possibilities of modeling, in
abstract terms, the title of this book series: Cultural Psychology as a Basic Science.
The book is organized in three triads of essays, always consisted in a first
Valsiner’s chapter followed by two other chapters aiming to exemplify, from
1 From Everyday Experiencing to Abstract Knowledge Through Approaching… 5

research themes and empirical datum, a critical and empowering reading of the first
one. Each section starts with a chapter written by Jaan Valsiner focusing on (A,
Chap. 2) the nature of psyche as a semiotic constructive process; (B, Chap. 5) the
primacy of affect as semiotic constructive processes, highlighting the role of the
sublime as a border between mundane and aesthetic experience; and (C, Chap. 8)
the ambivalent core of the human mind marked by the constructive and destructive
semiosis.
In Chap. 2, entitled Constructive Semiosis Is the Core of Human Psyche, Valsiner
promotes a semiotic conceptual frame of the dynamic stability of the sign. From the
inherent ambiguity of the sign, the author constructs a theoretical model on how the
uncertainty of the future within irreversible time plays a major role in the open-­
endedness of the human psyche through the unity of pre-constructive imagination
and reconstructive memory processes.
Chapter 3, The Tension A <-> Non-A in the Meaning-Making of a Chemical
Element in a Sociogenetic Level (Tenório and Macedo, in this book), presents an
analysis of the historical development of the basic concept in chemistry regarding
the movement from concrete–experiential toward abstraction. Considering science
as human production, based on meaning-making in the act of understanding of the
world, this essay proposes that the semiotic dynamics that governs human psycho-
logical processes is present in the modes of production of scientific ideas. Throughout
science history focusing on the scientific concept of chemical element, the chapter
discusses how chemistry developed beyond the tension A <-­> non-A and achieved
abstract levels to understanding its object of study.
Chapter 4 is entitled Between the Psychology of Creative Processes and the
Dynamics of Innovation in Culture: Semiotic Challenges in the Modeling of
Creativity, authored by Liberalquino, Braga, and Pinheiro. This ending chapter of
the book’s first section proposes a dialogue between the concept of creativity and
innovation highlighting the hidden cultural roots of these topics as well as their
meaning convergence and differentiation. Considering the challenges of creativity
modeling and its differentiation from the innovation culture, the essay brings a frag-
ment of Liberalquino’s research (2018), which seeks to understand the dynamism of
the creative process in the development of artifacts in an innovation institution.
From this empirical extract, the authors explore the dilemma in situating, and thus
differentiating, the emergence of novelty in between the psychology of creative
process and innovation culture discourse.
Opening the second section of the book, Valsiner presents, as mentioned before,
the very original piece of writing concerning the sublime as the locus of negotiation
of the future and the past in the human constructive semiosis. Entitled Human
Psyche Between the Mundane and the Aesthetic: The Sublime as the Arena for
Semiosis (Chap. 5), the author proposes that the constructive semiosis is a universal
human psychological process which takes place on that border, allowing the mun-
dane to lead to the beautiful and turning the beautiful into mundane.
Lordelo (Chap. 6) explores a theoretical perspective in aesthetics – Nicolas
Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics, which takes into account people’s, artists and
audience, personal and affective relation to works of art. In this essay called The
6 M. C. D. P. Lyra and M. A. Pinheiro

Sublime in Relational Art: Meaning-Making Process on the Move, the author looks
into contemporary Brazilian artist Wagner Schwartz and one particular piece, “La
Bête,” to propose that genuine participation during an artistic work constitutes the
main condition of transit. Participation would be, then, the locus of the sublime.
Pinheiro, Azevedo, and Feitosa (Chap. 7), The Sublime and the Empirical Datum
in Psychology: An Exercise of Conceptual Approximation, discuss the possibility of
bringing together the theorization of the aesthetic experience, in its sublime sphere,
and the universe of data interpretation in empirical research in psychology. The
authors analyze an essay of a student resignifying her school life. In her writing, the
student presents a character attending sixth-grade lessons on her first day at a new
school. The analysis of the essay suggests that the affective excesses played out
through the body in movement, highlighted in relation to the context of the classes,
may constitute a discursive marker, in its inherent ambiguity, of the sublime’s
experience.
The third and last section of the book is dedicated to the semiosis of construction
and destruction. According to Valsiner, in Human Psyche as Inherently Ambivalent:
Semiosis of Construction and Destruction (Chap. 8), cultural artifacts are built not
only through a positively constructive enhancing process but also by destructive
process of psyche. The destructive dimension of semiosis, as interpreted by the lens
of future-oriented human actions, is discussed by the analysis of the role of ruins
(from history of wars up to contemporary fashion) as a complex human sign which
entangles the realm of sublime and its connection with the human infinites inner–
outer and past–future.
Valério and Ferreira, in Preserved Traces of Destroyed Sign Hierarchy: From
Genetic Parenting to Adoptive (Chap. 9), discuss and illustrate the construction–
destruction semiosis of hierarchical semiotic systems, through the rupture experi-
enced by a couple in the attempt to get pregnant. The authors explore the tension
and ambivalence in the coordination of the two infinites (past–future, inner–outer)
that promoted the change in point of view and the subsequent decision: to consider
adoption as a way of becoming parents. This chapter emphasizes preserved traces of
signs destroyed (semiotic ruin) in the emergence of the transition toward the deci-
sion to adopt and the creation of a new sign.
Closing the third and last section of the book, Lyra and Aguiar (Chap. 10) develop
a text in which sublime moments are approached in its dynamics of destruction and
construction of signs and meanings. This assumption is discussed throughout the
life trajectory of an adolescent homosexual girl, highlighting the importance of the
duality construction–destruction in the process of grasping sublime experiences as
openness to the emergence of novelty in the relationship between the self and the
others. Sublime Moments on the Light of Developmental Trajectory: An Exploration
on the Unit Analysis, title of the chapter, also presents the concept of Avenues of
Directive Meaning (ADM) as an interesting metaphor in the role of collective cul-
ture in reconstructive life trajectory.
The concluding chapter aims to foster new challenges intending the construction
of Cultural Psychology as a Basic Science. We have chosen to highlight two stand-
points: (a) the methodological challenges posed by the abstractive process of mean-
1 From Everyday Experiencing to Abstract Knowledge Through Approaching… 7

ing construction and (b) the challenges faced by this abstractive process regarding
memory and imagination.
Along the theoretical–empirical discussions presented among these chapters, we
wish that the reader of this book will envision the powerful centrality of human
experience in constructing abstract knowledge in psychology. This volume is an
attempt to (1) underline the fundamental role of the emergence of novelty in human
becoming, (2) the basic semiotic-processual nature of human psyche dynamics, (3)
the ambiguity of sign activity and the fundamental role of affect in its process of
cognition and abstraction, and also (4) the role of the sublime and aesthetic in every-
day life. Hopefully, this book will be an insightful journey of key aspects of human
condition that are indeed necessary in the reinvention of Cultural Psychology as a
Basic Science.

References

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gardner, H. (1987). The mind’s new science: A history of cognitive revolution. New York: Basic
Books.
Valsiner, J. (2014). Invitation to cultural psychology. London: Sage.
Wittgenstein, L. (1986). Philosophical investigations. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
 Part I
Human Psyche
Chapter 2
Constructive Semiosis Is the Core
of the Human Psyche

Jaan Valsiner

Let us begin at the entrance (Fig. 2.1). This church entrance is remarkable because
it is in the state of being “half-cleaned.” Yet that status is ambiguous—what does
CLEAN mean in this case? Two meaning systems are in opposition and top each
other in this case:
“BEING CLEAN” (THE ONTOLOGICAL STATE): the church façade over the centuries
has gathered dirt that obscures its original shape, which is now being restored—“made
clean”.

“BEING HISTORICAL” (THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE): the church façade has

developed over the centuries and has incorporated the “dirt” as a constitutive part of its
identity. Its removal means vandalism against that identity. The authentic historical “clean”
involves NOT removing the “dirt,” as the latter has become an integral part of the identity
of the church.

The fight of these two perspectives has been often the target of controversies in
the restoration of objects of art.
The ambiguity of the meaning of CLEAN is a good example of the principle of
dynamic stability of signs. Signs do not exist as objects—they are constantly con-
structed to present some other objects; an object A becomes a sign that presents
object B once the sign-maker, the semiotic agent, sets it up to present B to some-
body in some capacity. What that “capacity” is constitutes one of the crucial objects
of investigation of the Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics (CPSD). Sign
construction is teleogenetic—constructing goal orientations in the process of mak-
ing of a sign.

J. Valsiner (*)
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark

© The Editor(s) and The Author(s), under exclusive license 11

to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
M. C. D. P. Lyra, M. A. Pinheiro (eds.), Cultural Psychology as Basic Science,
SpringerBriefs in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01467-4_2
12 J. Valsiner

Fig. 2.1 Cleaning of a church facade

The opposition clean <> non-clean (Fig. 2.2) would be a closed circle where the
goal of CLEAN is reachable, but it cannot be maintained. Furthermore, it is reach-
able only under the conditions that the duality of the sign (the non-A part of the
{A<>non-A} structure) is overlooked. For example, the chemicals we use in the act
of cleaning may be themselves non-­clean—dangerous to our bodies—and we keep
our body involved in the act of cleaning from being contaminated by the chemicals
that “clean” (Fig. 2.3).
Keeping us “safe” from the “cleaning” devices is an example of asymmetric
mutuality in our relations with environments (Fig. 2.4). Most of our relations with
the world are of such kind—symmetry is a rare case of temporary overcoming of
asymmetries.
The CPSD operates under the axiomatic acceptance of the open-systemic nature
of human psychological functioning. This involves (a) constant relating with envi-
ronment (b) in irreversible time and (c) with the centrality of feed-FORWARD pro-
cesses (Fig. 2.5).
2 Constructive Semiosis Is the Core of the Human Psyche 13

Fig. 2.2 The eternal cycle

of CLEANING
non-“CLEAN”

emerging new
“CLEAN”
meaning

emerging new
meaning
“DIRTY”

non-“DIRTY”

Fig. 2.3 A simple act of

cleaning—protecting skin
by gloves
14 J. Valsiner

Fig. 2.4 Two forms of mutualities

WILLFUL (goals-oriented)
ACT to alter current ENVIRONMENT

Person T1
ENVIRONMENT

FEED-FORWARD to the changing PERSON

From the structure of ALTERED ENVIRONMENT

Person T2

Fig. 2.5 The open-systemic nature of the human psyche

The open-systemic frame sets a very clear scenario up for human semiosis—it is
necessarily always forward-oriented—even when it utilizes materials borrowed
from the past (memory). The uses of memory are pre-constructive1 for the future—

1
What is usually called “reconstructive memory” in the Bartlett-Wagoner perspective is actually
pre-constructive within the CPSD framework. In classical psychology it is parallel to the act of
apperception.
2 Constructive Semiosis Is the Core of the Human Psyche 15

Hyper-
PRESENT generalized
MOMENT anticipatory
sign

CATALYTIC
SUPPORT

THE ACT
PAST FUTURE
IRREVERSIBLE TIME

Fig. 2.6 Dual function of sign

memory feeds into the making of signs. Thus, each emerging sign (S) is dual in its
function (Fig. 2.6).
Figure 2.6 schematizes the central notion of the CPSD—the double function of
any sign that emerges—made by semiotic agent anew or borrowed from available
repertoire, in the forward movement of semiosis in irreversible time. The sign first
of all provides meaning to the act in the here-and-now setting (THE ACT in Fig. 2.6).
Thus, the act of “I am rinsing my hands in the water, holding a piece of soap”
becomes to be presented “I am CLEANING my hands” (without any evidence
about the water being uncontaminated or the piece of soap not made of cancer-­
causing chemicals).
The second function of a sign is its forward-oriented hyper-generalized function
as a field-like catalytic device—meant for meaning construction in some unknown
future moment. That specific moment is unknown before the future has turned into
a present. Yet all sign mediation in the present is oriented toward that future antici-
pated moment. We make our lives meaningful for our living forward—into the
unknown future. The social practice of cleaning our bodies as regulated by signs
here and now is in the service of generalizing the value of “being clean” and extrap-
olating it beyond the immediate bodily functions (Fig. 2.7).
Figure 2.7 demonstrates how the meaning construction process can transcend
itself and lead to hyper-generalized sign fields that can operate in the future. A dedi-
cation to keeping one’s body cleaned can lead to viewing oneself as a clean, pure
person or—on the other end—a dirty, disgusting one.
The hyper-generalization process is likely to lead to qualitative synthesis of
meaning—through the process of double negation (Fig. 2.8). This form of think-
ing—originating in dialectical philosophies of the turn of the eighteenth to nine-
teenth centuries—involves a meta-negation superimposed on the regular (classical
logical) negation (if A = A, then it is not true that A = non-A).
Fig. 2.7 Going beyond the “clean” as a given—here and now

Fig. 2.8 The structure of double negation

2 Constructive Semiosis Is the Core of the Human Psyche 17

The second negation eliminates the first one, leading to a new, synthetic form.
For example, start from the first negation:

A is the case, therefore not B. “This is a man; this is not a woman.”

B is the case, therefore not A. “This is a woman; this is not a man.”
A PERSON is EITHER a man or a woman, but not both.

This is the result of the first (classical logical) negation. It is perfectly logical (in
the classical sense), yet it misses the point of the function of making the distinction
of A and B (men and women). It is the second negation that negates the first:
If A is the case and therefore B is not, both A and B exist, and A relates with B.
If B is the case and therefore A is not, both B and A exist, and B relates with A.
The existence of a man implies that a woman exists and vice versa
And a synthetic “jump”:
Each of us is (simultaneously) a man and a woman, and in other terms

we are all androgynous (uniting male and female aspects) even if we belong to different
classes of men and women.

The second negation is not reversal (denial) of the truthfulness of the first but an
operation that provides unity of the previous mutually excluded opposites, with
some possibility to “jump” to greater generalization. It is the second negation that
opens the door for any generalization (beyond categorization—that is the end result
of first negation).

Conclusion: Constructive Semiosis as Culture

Culture is a meta-level concept that unites all different disciplines and subdisci-
plines that investigate specifically human phenomena of persons, communities,
societies, and the human species as a whole. In that meta-concept role, culture has
no existence. It has also no agency—statements like “culture CAUSES X” or “X is
due to CULTURE” are void of explanatory power. Human beings have agency and
construct new artifacts—loosely also classified under the label “culture.”
I treat “culture” as a classifying term that links my perspective of CPSD with
other directions within cultural psychology. Yet CPSD differs from all others by (a)
locating the semiosis within irreversible time (semiosis is forward-oriented; human
beings live into the future); (b) semiosis is dynamic and hierarchical (signs regulate
other signs, forming temporary hierarchies, and organize the ongoing experience),
and (c) memory and imagination are similar presentational processes, one oriented
toward the past, the other toward the future. Cultural psychology is a basic science
about higher human psychological functions that are mediated by signs.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 The basic Bessemer process is of great value to England and to
the continent of Europe by enabling manufacturers to use their
native ores, which are usually too high in phosphorus for the acid
process, so that before this invention nearly all of the ores for making
Bessemer steel were imported from Sweden, Spain, and Africa.
The basic process has found little development in the United
States, because the great abundance of pure ore keeps the acid
process the cheaper, except in one or two special localities. Where
the basic process is profitable in the United States, it is worked
successfully.
At about the time that Bessemer made his invention William
Siemens, afterward Sir William, invented the well-known
regenerative gas-furnace. A Frenchman named Martin utilized this
furnace to melt steel in bulk in the hearth of the furnace, developing
what was known for some years as Siemens-Martin steel, or open-
hearth steel; the latter name has prevailed, and open-hearth steel is
the fourth of the general kinds of steel mentioned in the beginning of
this chapter.
At first open-hearth steel was made upon a specially prepared
sand bottom, by first melting a bath of cast iron and then adding
wrought iron to the bath until by the additions of wrought iron and the
action of the flame the carbon and silicon of the cast iron were
reduced until the whole became a mass of molten steel. Sometimes
iron ore is used instead of wrought iron as the reducing agent; this is
called the pig and ore process. Now in general practice wrought iron,
steel scrap, and iron ore are used, sometimes alone and sometimes
together, as economy or special requirements make it convenient.
It was found as in the Bessemer, so in the open-hearth, the
sulphur and the phosphorus of the charge remained in the steel,
making it necessary to see that in the charge there was no more of
these elements than the steel would bear.
This is known now as the acid open-hearth process.
After the success of the basic Bessemer process was assured
the same principle was tried in the open-hearth; a basic bottom of
dolomite or of magnesite was substituted for the acid sand bottom,
and care was taken to secure a basic slag in the bath.
Success was greater than in the Bessemer; phosphorus was
eliminated and a better article in every way was made by this
process, now used extensively over the whole civilized world.
This is the basic open-hearth process.
Neither the basic Bessemer process nor the basic open-hearth
removed sulphur, so that this element must still be kept low in the
original charge, until some way shall be found for its sure and
economical elimination.
The four general divisions, then, are:
Converted or Cemented Steel.
Crucible-cast Steel.

Acid
Bessemer Cast Steel.
Basic

Acid
Open-hearth Cast Steel.
Basic
Little or nothing more will be said of the first kind, as it has been
so thoroughly superseded by the cast steels. After a statement of the
most patent applications and uses of the different cast steels the
discussions which follow will apply to all, because practically they are
all governed by the same general laws.
 II.
APPLICATIONS AND USES OF THE
DIFFERENT KINDS OF STEEL.

Where exact uniformity of composition is not a necessity, and

where welding is required, cemented or converted steel may be
preferred to cast steel, because the converted bar retains the
occluded layers of slag which give to wrought iron its peculiar
welding properties, and for this reason blister- or shear-steel may be
welded more easily and surely than cast steel. For tires, composite
dies, and many compound articles this steel will do very well, and it
may be worked with good results by almost any smith of ordinary
skill; however, owing to the more uniform structure and the greater
durability of the cast steels, they have, even for these purposes,
almost entirely displaced the more easily worked, but less durable,
cemented steels.

CRUCIBLE-CAST STEEL.
For all purposes crucible-steel has proved to be superior to all
others; it is well known to all experienced and observing workers in
steel that, given an equal composition, crucible is stronger and more
reliable in every way than any of the other kinds of steel.
This may read like a mere dictum, and it might be asked properly,
What are the proofs?
The proofs are wanting for two reasons: first, because crucible-
steel is so expensive that except for gun parts, armor, and such uses
where expense could be ignored, crucible-steel never came into
extensive use for structural purposes; second, that while thousands
upon thousands of tests of the cheaper steels are recorded and
available to engineers very few of such tests have been made on
crucible-steel, simply because it has not been used for structural
purposes.
On the other hand, intelligent makers of crucible-steel have for
self-preservation made careful study of the relative properties of the
different steels in order that they might know what to expect from the
cheaper processes. In this way they have surrendered boiler-steel,
spring-steel, machinery-steel, battering-tool steel, cheap die-steel,
and many smaller applications; not because they could not produce
a better article, but because the cheaper steels met the requirements
of consumers satisfactorily, and therefore they could not be expected
to pay a higher price for an article whose superiority was not a
necessity in their requirements.
Still this stated superiority is proven best by the fact that many
careful consumers who have special reasons for studying durability
as against first cost adhere to the higher priced crucible-steel for
such uses as, for instance, parts of mining- and quarrying-drills,
high-speed spindles, in cotton-mills, and in expensive lathes and
machines of that kind.
This sort of testimony should be more conclusive than that of
interested steel-makers, because these men pay their own money
for the higher priced material, and because men who are most
careful of the quality of their produce and of their reputation are the
most clear-headed and most sensible men of their class; they have
the best business and the greatest success. Such men are not fools;
they may be depended upon to try everything of promise with the
greatest care, and to use only that thing which pays them best. In
fact such men do use the cheaper steels freely wherever they can do
so safely.
A good car-spring, carriage-spring, or wagon-spring is made from
Bessemer or open-hearth steel, a spring that will wear out the car or
carriage; it would be stupid then to buy more expensive steel for
such purposes, for even if crucible-steel would wear out two cars or
two wagons the owner never expects to take the springs out of an
old wagon to put them under a new one.
 On the other hand, the watch-spring maker or the clock-spring
maker will find a great advantage in using the very best crucible-
steel that can be made.
A sledge, a maul, or a hammer can be made of such excellent
quality from properly selected Bessemer or open-hearth steel that it
would be foolish for makers of such tools to continue to buy crucible-
steel, even though they knew it to be superior, for lower first cost in
such cases outweighs superiority that cannot be shown for a number
of years.
Locomotive-boilers, crank-pins, slide-rods, connecting-rods, and
springs can be made of such good quality of Bessemer or open-
hearth steel that, like the “one-horse shay,” the whole machine will
wear out at the same time practically, and that a good long time;
there would be no reason in this case for using crucible-steel for one
or more of these parts, although twenty-five years ago it was by
means of crucible-steel that engineers learned to use steel for these
purposes.
A good cam for an ordinary machine, such as a shear or punch,
may be made of Bessemer or open-hearth steel where greater
strength and endurance are required than can be had in cast iron; on
the other hand, makers of cams for delicately adjusted high-speed
machines where intricacy and accuracy are necessary will touch
nothing but the very best crucible-steel of fine-tool quality for their
work. It is of no use to suggest the greater cheapness of the other
steels; they have tried them thoroughly, and they know that in their
case the highest priced is the cheapest.
This superiority of crucible-steel has been doubted, because the
claim appeared to rest solely upon the statements of steel-makers,
and not to have any scientific basis; there is, however, a scientific
basis for the fact. Given three samples of steel of say the following
composition:
Open-
Crucible.
hearth. Bessemer.
Carbon 1.00 1.00 1.00
 Open-
Crucible.
hearth. Bessemer.
Silicon .10 .10 .10
Phosphorus .05 .05 .05
Sulphur .02 .02 .02
Copper, arsenic,
traces
etc.
Why should there be any difference in the strength of the three?
In mere tensile strength in an untempered bar the difference might
not be very great, although all experienced persons would expect the
crucible to show the highest; but it is not necessary to make the
claim, because we have not enough tests of crucible-steel to enable
us to establish a mean, and one or two tests are insufficient to
establish a rule in any case.
There have been made, however, hundreds of tests of hardened
and tempered samples by the most expert persons, with one
invariable result: the crucible-steel is incomparably finer and stronger
than the others, and the open-hearth is almost invariably stronger
and finer than the Bessemer.
Unfortunately for the argument these tests cannot be recorded so
as to be intelligible to the non-expert, because we cannot tabulate
the result of the touch of the expert hand or the observation of the
experienced eye.
For a time it was popular to call these differences mysteries, and
so let them pass; this, however, was not satisfactory, and the
question was studied carefully for the physical reasons which must
exist.
Much thought led to the conclusion that the reason lay with the
three elements oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen; they are known to
exist in greater or less quantity in all iron and steel.
It is known that the presence of oxygen beyond certain small
limits produces red-shortness and general weakness; it is probably a
much more hurtful element than phosphorus or sulphur, but no
quantitative method for its determination has been worked out; there
is an effort now being made to develop a simple and expeditious
oxygen determination, and it is to be hoped that it will be successful.
In the crucible no more oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen can get
into the steel than is contained in the material charged and in the
atmosphere of the crucible, or than may penetrate the walls of the
crucible during melting. In the open hearth the process is an
oxidizing one, and besides the charge is swept continuously by hot
flames containing all of these elements.
In the Bessemer process the conditions are worse still, as these
elements are all blown through the whole mass of the steel.
We know the effect of oxygen and how to eliminate it practically.
Percy gives the effects of nitrogen as causing hardness and
extreme brittleness, and giving to iron or steel a brassy lustre. Such
a brassy lustre may be seen frequently in open-hearth or Bessemer
steel, and occasionally in crucible-steel. When seen in crucible-steel
it is known to be due to the fact that the cap of the crucible became
displaced, exposing the contents to the direct action of the flame. Of
the effect of hydrogen we know less; there is no reason apparent
why it may not be as potent as the others.
Ammonia in sufficient quantity to be detected by the nose has
often been observed in open-hearth and Bessemer steel.
To settle the nitrogen question Prof. John W. Langley developed
some years ago a very delicate and accurate process for the
determination of nitrogen even in minute quantities; the process was
tedious and expensive, so that it was not adapted for daily use; it
involved the careful elimination of nitrogen from all of the reagents to
be used, requiring several days’ work, in each case to prepare for
only a few nitrogen determinations.
By this process it was found, in every one of many trials, that
crucible-steel contained the least amount of nitrogen, open-hearth
steel the next greater quantity, and Bessemer steel the greatest
amount. He found no exceptions to this. For many years great efforts
had been made both in Europe and in the United States to make by
the Bessemer or the open-hearth process a cheap melting-product
to be used in the crucible instead of the expensive irons which so far
have proved to be necessary to give the best results.
There appeared to be no difficulty in making a material as pure
chemically, or purer, than the most famous irons in the world, and
this material was urged upon the crucible-steel makers. Careful tests
of such material failed to produce the required article; in fact it was
demonstrated over and over again that an inferior wrought iron
would produce a stronger steel than this very pure steel melting-
material, and crucible-steel makers were compelled to adhere to the
more costly irons to produce their finer grades.
Prof. Langley determined the nitrogen in a given quantity of open-
hearth and Bessemer steel; this same material was then melted in a
crucible, and it was found that the resulting ingots contained nearly
as much nitrogen as the original charge. The quantity was reduced
slightly; still this steel contained more nitrogen than any other sample
of crucible-steel that he had tested. The physical test of this trial
steel showed the usual weakness of the Bessemer or open-hearth
steel, as compared to crucible-steel.
The next step was to try to get rid of nitrogen by the use of some
affinity, as oxygen is removed by manganese. Boron and titanium
seemed to be the most feasible elements; boron appeared to offer
less chance of success, and titanium was selected. A ferro-titanium
containing six per cent of titanium was imported from Europe at
some expense. As the most careful and exacting analyses of this
material failed to reveal a trace of titanium, it was not used.
After many futile efforts Langley succeeded, by means of electric
heat, in reducing rutile and producing a small quantity of an alloy of
iron and titanium. A trial of this alloy, although not conclusive, led to
the belief that such an alloy could be used successfully to eliminate
nitrogen; but as its cost, about two dollars a pound, was prohibitory
of any commercial use, the subject was not pursued farther.
Although we know these elements only as gases, there is no
reason to suppose that their atoms may not be as potent, when
added to steel, as atoms of carbon, silicon, phosphorus, or any other
substance.
Such are the facts for crucible-steel as far as they are known; it is
vastly more expensive than any other kind of steel, yet for the
present it holds its own unique and valuable place in the arts.
For all tools requiring a fine edge for cutting purposes, such as
lathe-tools, drills, taps, reamers, milling-cutters, axes, razors, pocket-
knives, needles, graving-tools, etc.; for fine dies where sharp outline
and great endurance are required; for fine springs and fine
machinery parts and fine files and saws, and for a hundred similar
uses, crucible-cast steel still stands pre-eminent, and must remain
so until some genius shall remove from the cheaper steels the
elements that unfit them for these purposes.
As stated before, crucible-steel is divided into fifteen or more
different tempers, ranging in carbon from .50 to 1.50. Each of these
tempers has its specific uses, and a few will be pointed out in a
general way.
.50 to .60 carbon is best adapted for hot work and
for battering-tools.
.60 to .70 carbon for hot work, battering-tools, and
tools of dull edge.
.70 to .80 carbon for battering-tools, cold-sets, and
some forms of reamers and taps.
.80 to .90 carbon for cold-sets, hand-chisels, drills,
taps, reamers, and dies.
.90 to 1.00 carbon for chisels, drills, dies, axes,
knives, and many similar purposes.
1.00 to 1.10 carbon for axes, hatchets, knives,
large lathe-tools, and many kinds of dies and drills if
care be used in tempering them.
1.10 to 1.50 carbon for lathe-tools, graving-tools,
scribers, scrapers, little drills, and many similar
purposes.
 The best all-around tool-steel is found between .90 and 1.10
carbon; steel that can be adapted safely and successfully to more
uses than any other temper.
At somewhere from .90 to 1.00 carbon, iron appears to be
saturated with carbon, giving the highest efficiency in tools and the
highest results in the testing-machine except for compressive
strains. More will be said upon this point in treating of the carbon-
line.
Much more could be said about the uses for the different tempers
of steel; it would be easy to write out in great detail the exact carbon
which experience has shown to be best adapted to any one of
hundreds of different uses, but it would only be confusing and
misleading to a great many people.
It is within the experience of every steel-maker that men are just
as variable as steel, and the successful steel-maker must familiarize
himself with the personal equations of his patrons. One man on the
sunny side of a street may be making an excellent kind of tool from a
certain grade and temper of steel, and be perfectly happy and
prosperous in its use. His competitor on the shady side of the street
may fail in trying to use the same steel for the same purpose and
condemn it utterly.
The know it all agent will condemn the latter man with an
intimation that his ears are too long, and so lose his trade. The
tactful agent will supply him with steel a temper higher or a temper
lower, until he hits upon the right one, and so will retain both men on
his list; and both men will turn out equally good products.
Few men know their own personal equations, and the best way
for a steel-user to do is to tell the steel-maker what he wants to
accomplish, and put upon him the responsibility of selecting the best
temper.
It costs no more to make and to provide one temper than
another; therefore the one inducement of the steel-maker is to give
his patron that which is best adapted to his use. This plan puts all of
the responsibility upon the steel-maker, just where it ought to be,
because he should know more about the adaptability of his steel
than any other person.

BESSEMER STEEL.
Bessemer steel is probably the cheapest of all grades of steel;
that is to say, it can be made so rapidly, so continuously, and in such
enormous quantities that a greater output per dollar invested can be
made than by either of the other processes. Again, the work is
controlled and operated by machinery to a much greater extent than
in the other processes; therefore the cost of labor per ton of product
both for skilled and unskilled labor is less than in the crucible or the
open-hearth method.
This being the case, it might be inferred that the result would be
the eventual driving out of all other steels by this, the cheapest. This
would be the inevitable result if Bessemer steel were as well adapted
to all purposes as either of the other kinds of steel; there are
limitations which prevent this.
The source of heat in the Bessemer process is in the combustion
of the elements of the charge, there is no extraneous source of heat;
therefore, if the heat be too cold, there is no way to remedy it unless
it be by the addition of ferro-silicon and more blowing; if it be too hot,
it may be allowed to stand a few minutes to cool. Still in either case
the remedy is somewhat doubtful. This limitation must not be taken
as being fatal to good work, for in skilful hands such cases are rare,
and the product is generally fully up to the standard of good work.
As there is no known sure way of stopping the blow at a given
point in the operation to produce a steel of required carbon, it is
usual to blow clear down, that is, to burn out all of the carbon
practically and then to re-carbonize by the addition of spiegel-eisen
or ferro-manganese. It is necessary, also, to add the manganese in
one of these forms to remove the oxygen introduced during the blow;
this must be done quickly, and all accomplished before the metal
becomes too cold for pouring into ingots.
 So little time for reactions is available that it is doubtful if the
material is ever quite as homogeneous as it can be made by either
of the other processes.
Notwithstanding these limitations, which are not mentioned to
throw doubt upon the process, but merely to inform readers fully so
as to enable them to judge rightly as to what may be expected,
enormous quantities of good, reliable Bessemer steel are made to
meet many requirements.
For good, serviceable, cheap rails Bessemer steel stands pre-
eminent, and if it found no other use it would be difficult to
overestimate the benefit to the world of this one great success.
Bessemer steel is used largely for a great number of purposes,
Bessemer billets being now as regular an article of commerce as pig
iron.
For wire for all ordinary purposes; for skelp to be worked into
butt-welded and lap-welded tubing; for wire nails, shafting,
machinery-steel, tank-plates, and for many other uses, Bessemer
steel has absorbed the markets almost entirely.
For common cutlery, files, shovels, picks, battering-tools, and
many such uses it contests the market with open-hearth steel; and
while many engineers now specify that their structural shapes,
plates, beams, angles, etc., must be of open-hearth steel, there are
many eminent engineers who see no need for this discrimination,
they being satisfied that if their requirements are met the process by
which they are met is a matter of indifference.

OPEN-HEARTH STEEL.
As in the Bessemer process, so in the open-hearth, carbon and
silicon are burned out, phosphorus is removed on the basic hearth,
and the sulphur of the charge remains in the steel. During the
operation oxygen and nitrogen are absorbed by the steel, although
not quite so largely as in the Bessemer process, so that practically
the chemical limitations are the same in each.
 The open-hearth reductions are much slower than in the
Bessemer, each heat requiring from five to eight hours for its
completion; the furnace must be operated by a skilled man of good
judgment, so that more time and more skilled labor per ton of
product are required than in the Bessemer, and the making of an
equal quality as cheaply in the open hearth is problematical. The
open hearth has extraneous sources of heat at the command and
under the control of the operator, and there need be no cold heats,
and no too hot heats.
The time for reactions is much longer, and for this reason they
ought to be more complete, and they are so in good hands; yet it is a
fact that, as the operation is a quiet one compared to the Bessemer,
and not nearly so powerful and energetic, a careless or unskilful
operator may produce in the open hearth an uneven result that is
quite as bad as anything that can be brought out of a Bessemer
converter. The process that eliminates the human factor has not yet
been invented.
For fine boiler-plates, armor-plates, and gun parts open-hearth
steel has won its place as completely as has the crucible for fine-tool
steel or the Bessemer for rails.
For all intermediate products there is a continued race and keen
competition, so that it is impossible to draw any hard and fast line
between the products of the three processes where they approach
each other; the only clear distinctions are at the other extremes.
Owing to the power to hold and manipulate a heat in the open-
hearth it is safe to say that it is superior to the Bessemer in the
manufacture of steel castings; and owing to its much greater
cheapness it is difficult for the crucible to compete with it at all in this
branch of manufacture.
In conclusion of this chapter it is safe to say that in good hands
these processes are all good, and each has its own special function
to perform.
 III.
ALLOY STEELS AND THEIR USES.

In addition to the four general kinds of steel treated of in the last

chapter there are a number of steels in the market which contain
other metals, and which may be termed properly alloy steels, to
distinguish them from carbon steel, or the regular steels of world-
wide use which depend upon the quantity of carbon present for their
properties. The most generally known of the alloy steels is the so-
called Self-hardening steel.
Self-hardening steel is so called because when it is heated to the
right temperature,—about a medium orange color,—and is then
allowed to cool in the air, it becomes very hard. This steel is so easily
strained that it is impossible, as a rule, to quench it in water without
cracking it. It may be quenched in a blast of air without cracking, and
so be made much harder than if it be allowed to cool more slowly in
a quiet atmosphere. If it be quenched in oil or water, it will become
excessively hard, much harder than when quenched in air, and it will
almost invariably be cracked, or if it be not cracked it will be so
excessively brittle as to be of little use.
Self-hardened steel is so hard in what may be called its natural
condition, that is, in ordinary bars, that it cannot be machined, drilled,
planed, or turned in a lathe.
By keeping it in an annealing-furnace at about bright orange heat
for about twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and then covering it with hot
sand or ashes in the furnace, and allowing about the same time for it
to cool, it may be annealed pretty thoroughly so that it may be
machined readily.
When annealed in this way and formed into cutters of irregular
shape, or dies, it has been found so far not to be economical or well
adapted to such work, so that up to the present time annealing is
more of a scientific than a useful fact.
Self-hardened steel has the useful property of retaining its
hardness when heated almost to redness; therefore it may be used
as a lathe or similar cutter upon hard work, such as cutting cast iron
and other metals, at a much higher speed than is possible with
ordinary steel, which would be softened by the heat generated by the
high speed. This property makes self-hardened steel very useful and
economical for many purposes.
Self-hardened steel is an alloy of iron, carbon, tungsten, and
manganese, and some brands contain chromium in addition to
these, and it is claimed, and probably truly, that the chromium
improves the quality of the steel.
It was supposed for a long time that tungsten was the hardener
that gave to self-hardened steel its peculiar properties. By means of
an open hearth, steel was produced containing about 3% tungsten
and little carbon and manganese. This steel worked like any mild
steel, except that it was hot-short and difficult to forge. It was not
hard and had no hardening properties; that is, it did not harden in the
ordinary sense when quenched in water. The addition of carbon to
this steel, keeping the manganese low, produced a steel very difficult
to work, which would harden like ordinary steel when quenched, and
which had no self-hardening properties whatever. The addition of
2½% to 3% of manganese to this steel produced self-hardening steel
having the usual properties.
Manganese, then, is the metal that gives the self-hardening
property, and this might have been anticipated by considering the
properties of Hadfield’s manganese steel, which, when it contains
above 7% manganese, cannot be annealed so that it can be
machined or drawn into wire. From this it might be inferred that
tungsten is not a necessary constituent of self-hardened steel; that it
performs an important function will be shown presently. Tests of the
iron-tungsten alloy low in carbon gave only a small increase in
strength above ordinary low cast steel containing little carbon; it was
difficult and troublesome to work, and more expensive than the
common steels, so that its production presented no advantages.
When carbonized, it was fine-grained and could be made
exceedingly hard; it was brittle, and compared to very ordinary cast
steel comparatively worthless.
In self-hardened steel tungsten is the mordant that holds the
carbon in solution and enables the steel to retain its hardness at
comparatively high temperatures. That it does hold the carbon in
solution may be proved in a moment by a beautiful test, first
observed by Prof. John W. Langley.
When a piece of carbon steel is pressed against a rapidly running
emery wheel, there is given off a shower of brilliant sparks which
flash out in innumerable white, tiny stars of great beauty; it is
accepted that this brilliancy is due to the explosive combustion of
particles of carbon.
When a steel containing as much as three per cent of tungsten is
pressed against the wheel, the entire absence of these brilliant
flashes is at once noticeable, and if there be an occasional little flash
it only serves to emphasize the absence of the myriads.
Instead there is an emission of a comparatively small number of
dull particles, and there is clinging to the wheel closely a heavy band
of a deep, rich red color. This red streak is distinctive of the presence
of tungsten.
By testing various pieces it was soon observed that different
quantities of tungsten gave different sizes of red streaks; as tungsten
decreased the width of the band diminished and the number and
brilliancy of carbon sparks increased. As little as .10 tungsten will
show a fine red line amidst a brilliant display of sparks, and it soon
became possible to determine so closely by the streak the quantity
of tungsten present that the ordinary analyses for tungsten became
unnecessary, except in occasional important cases where analysis
was used merely to confirm the testimony of the wheel.
Self-hardening steel, then, is a steel which, owing to the
presence of manganese and tungsten, hardens when quenched in
quiet air, and which retains its hardness almost up to a red heat.
 It may be forged between the temperatures from orange to bright
orange; it cannot be worked safely outside of this range. The more
quickly it is quenched the harder it will be; and it may be annealed so
that it can be machined readily. Therefore it is not self-hardening; it
simply has all of the properties of carbon steel modified profoundly
by tungsten and manganese. If a piece of this steel will not harden
sufficiently by cooling in the air quietly, that difficulty may be
remedied by cooling it in an air-blast; if quenching in an air-blast will
not give sufficient hardness, the steel had better be rejected, for
quenching in oil or water means almost certain destruction.
As stated before, the range of temperature in which self-
hardened steel can be forged safely is much smaller than for a high-
carbon steel; it is harder at this heat than carbon steel and not so
plastic, so that it requires more care and more heats in working it to
tool-shapes.
This steel is so sensitive that it often occurs in redressing it that it
will crumble at a heat that was all right in the first working. This
difficulty may be remedied by first cutting off the shattered part with a
sharp tool,—it must be cut hot,—then heating the piece up to nearly
a lemon color, heating it through without soaking it in the fire, and
then allowing it to cool slowly in a warm, dry place. After this
treatment the steel may be heated and worked as at first. This
treatment does not anneal the steel soft, because the heat is not
continued long enough, and the cooling is not sufficiently slow; it
does relieve the strains in the steel, so that it is plastic and
malleable.
This treatment is good in any high steel which has become
refractory from previous working.
Self-hardened steel is not as strong in the hardened condition as
good high-carbon steel; it has not been used successfully for cutting
chilled cast iron, for instance. If made hard enough to cut a chill, it is
so brittle that the cutting-edge will crumble instead of cutting; if the
temper be let down enough to stop the crumbling, the steel will be
softer than the chill, and the edge will curl up instead of cutting.
 Owing to the retention of hardness at a higher temperature than
carbon steel will bear this steel is capable of doing a great amount of
work at high speed, so that for much lathe-work it is cheap at almost
any price.
Owing to its brittle, friable nature its use is limited to the simpler
forms of tools, and to a narrower range of work than is possible with
carbon steel.

CHROME STEEL.
An alloy of chromium with carbon steel has been before the
public for many years, and greater claims have been made for it than
experience seems to justify. Chrome steel is fine-grained and very
hard in the hardened state, and it will do a large amount of work at
the first dressing; upon redressing it deteriorates much more rapidly
than carbon steel and becomes inferior; it is believed that this is due
to a rapid oxidation of the chromium.
It is claimed for it that it will endure much higher heats without
injury than carbon steels of the same temper. Intending purchasers
will do well to satisfy themselves upon these points before investing
too heavily.

SILICON STEEL.
Steel containing two to three per cent of silicon was put upon the
markets, and great claims were made for it.
It is exceedingly fine-grained and hardens very hard; it is brittle,
much more liable to crack in hardening than ordinary steel, and it is
not nearly so strong as carbon steel.
It is made cheaply enough as far as melting goes, but it may not
be melted dead, and therefore sound, because long-continued high
heat will destroy it; therefore the ingots are more honeycombed than
well-melted carbon steel ingots. The steel will not bear what is
known as a welding-heat in steel-working; it is hot-short; for this
reason the bars are more seamy than is usual in carbon steel.
Added to this the hot-shortness makes it so difficult to work that the
labor cost is high. Altogether, then, silicon steel is expensive, and it
presents no extra good qualities in compensation.

MANGANESE STEEL.
The glassy hardness, brittleness, and friability of ferro-
manganese and of spiegel-eisen are well known; these are products
of the blast-furnace, and the manganese ranges all the way from say
10% up to 80%.
Steel containing from 1% to 3% of manganese is about as brittle
and almost as unworkable as spiegel-eisen, and a fair deduction
would be that manganese above very small limits will not form any
useful alloy with iron. Many a general law of nature has been based
upon much more meagre data and has been announced with a great
flourish of trumpets; such discoveries are usually heard of no more
after the first blare has died away.
R. A. Hadfield, of Sheffield, England, is an inquirer who wants to
know, and who is willing to travel the whole road in order to find out.
Hadfield discovered that an alloy of iron and manganese containing
from 7% to 20% of manganese was a compound possessing many
remarkable properties. This alloy is now known as manganese steel.
Manganese steel is both hard and tough to a degree not found in
any other metal or alloy.
It is so hard and strong that it cannot be machined with the best
of tools made of the finest steel. Castings made of it may be battered
into all sorts of shapes as completely as if they were made of the
mildest dead-soft steel; still they are too hard to be machined.
The ordinary hardening process toughens this steel instead of
hardening it to brittleness.
This steel is non-magnetic, and this property alone would give it
exceedingly great value if the steel could only be worked into the
required shapes.
 Up to this time all attempts to anneal this steel have failed, and
this persistent hardness is the best proof that manganese is the real
hardener in self-hardened steel. So far carbon and manganese have
not been separated in this steel or in any other. Persistent attempts
have been made to produce manganese steel low in carbon, but all
have been failures, because any operation that burned out the
carbon took the manganese with it. The hope was that a non-
magnetic alloy might be produced that would be soft enough to work.
This may yet be accomplished, and if it should be another great step
in the arts will have been taken.
Hard, tough, strong, non-magnetic—what great things may not
come out of this when it has been worked out finally?
Since this was written carbonless manganese has been
produced which is claimed to contain 98% + of manganese and no
carbon, but at present it is sold at $1 per pound. If it can be produced
more cheaply, it may lead to a workable non-magnetic alloy of iron
and manganese which may prove to be of great value to electricians
and to watchmakers.
The uses of manganese steel are large and growing, and it must
be regarded as having an established and a prominent place.
It has been stated that in self-hardened steel and in manganese
steel manganese is the hardener; it should be borne in mind that
carbon is always present, that it is the one great hardener, but its
hardening property in the absence of manganese depends directly
upon rapidity of cooling. By rapid cooling steel containing carbon is
made harder than glass, and by slow cooling it may be made softer
and more ductile than ordinary wrought iron.
Self-hardened steel may be annealed so that it can be machined,
but it is by no means as soft and ductile as well-annealed carbon
steel. Manganese steel has not been annealed at all; it cannot be
annealed by any of the well-known annealing processes; some new
way of doing it must be discovered. Therefore it is proper to say that
the peculiar hardening properties of these two steels are due to
manganese.
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