CHAPTER FIVE
The Systemic Basis of Burke's Theory of Symbolic Action
5.0 Introduction
The previous two chapters have distilled out the systems ideas in Burke and concluded that Burke's theory of symbolic action is plausible, systematic and systemic. This chapter will continue to argue that despite the fact that Burke was sometimes dismissed as an idiosyncratic "Yankee crank," in truth he was a precocious systems theorist. General Systems Theory will provide an empirical basis for many of the ideas for which Burke was dismissed as a mystic: transcendence, teleology and emergent properties. The ultimate aim of the present chapter is to show that Kenneth Burke has a plausible systemic theory of symbolic action which, mutatis mutandis, may provide the foundation for a kind of unified field theory for rhetoric.
The present chapter will argue for the systemic nature of Burkean theory and for the plausibility of that theory by showing that it has many affinities with the General Systems Theory delineated in Chapter Two. Furthermore, we will observe important parallels in Burke's and Bertalanffy's careers and works. These parallels are not accidental; since both had similar goals (i.e., understanding systems), they drew on common influences, and developed similar concepts. Not coincidentally, both had the same enemies, and both were subject to the same attacks and employed similar counterattacks; even their acceptance parallels, coming late to both.
But more telling than their parallels is their convergence: both privileged language. As we noted in the introductory chapter, Bertalanffy points out that independent creation is an important source of verification in the human sciences. When two thinkers from two so very different fields as biology and rhetoric come to the same conclusion, that consensus is not to be lightly dismissed.
Though Burke and Bertalanffy have striking commonality, there are differences. Burke has a top-down, intuitive approach, and he is strongest on language and culture; however, Bertalanffy is more empirical and more bottom-up, using his observations of material systems to inform his later and more speculative theories of mind and language. Happily, the two thinkers' different emphases make them complementary. For example, the greater precision of Bertalanffy and his followers on structure and development is very useful for refining the more intuitive account of Burke. Furthermore, the isomorphisms of General Systems Theory make us feel on surer ground with Burke's ideas.37
After we have established the common ground between Burke and General Systems Theory, Burke's systemic theory of symbolic action can be clarified by General Systems Theory. General Systems Theory is particularly helpful on how systems evolve, and to lesser degree on structure. The chapter will then assess the strengths and weaknesses of Burke's theory of symbolic action. This assessment will provide the basis for an extension of the theory which will be essayed in the concluding chapter.
5.1 Burke-Bertalanffy Affinities
Burke and Bertalanffy were born within a few years of each other at the turn of the century. Both had artistic and philosophical tendencies. Though Burke worked in America and Bertalanffy in Europe, both inhabited and reacted against the same mechanistic epistemological milieu--the beginning of the breakdown (despite furious salvage attempts) of nineteenth century mechanism. Partly because they were both heretical by their choice of a systemic approach, both were somewhat itinerant in their scholarly careers, and for both recognition came relatively late (in the 1960's, when mechanism was losing its grasp on the biological and human sciences). Being branded a heretic was in some respects more of a problem for Burke, since Bertalanffy could provide empirical support for his assertions in a way that was not open to Burke. Nonetheless, Bertalanffy felt obliged to shelve some of his more audacious systems ideas until after the Second World War, when the climate was much more receptive.
5.1.1 Common Influences
Because Burke read French and German, had interdisciplinary interests and worked as a reviewer, he drew on a wide array of materials for his project. Bertalanffy also read widely, and General Systems Theory is by its very nature interdisciplinary in that it compares systems from many fields. (For example, Bertalanffy began with biology and extended his theory into psychology and philosophy.) Moreover, both Burke and Bertalanffy were reacting against their episteme and were working on similar kinds of problems. So it is not remarkable that Burke and Bertalanffy were influenced by many of the same thinkers. For example, Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution is a book that is cited frequently by both, though Bertalanffy was more critical of it than Burke. Other influences that both men share are Aristotle, Alfred North Whitehead, Gestalt psychology, Jean Piaget and Oswald Spengler.38
While there is no evidence that either Burke or Bertalanffy read the other, there may have been some indirect influence through the biologist J. Henry Woodger, who (it may be recalled) was Bertalanffy's translator. In Permanence and Change Burke cites Woodger's Biological Principles, which incorporated many of Bertalanffy's ideas. Not entirely coincidentally, many General Systems Theory ideas are articulated in Permanence and Change: one can only explain a partial event with reference to the total event (i.e., one must view the system as a whole), and one should examine interrelationships as well. Burke also devotes a great deal of space to arguing for an organic model which accounts for the teleological. In fact, so important are the systems ideas Burke is importing from biology that he calls this text a "metabiology," rather than a metaphysic (230-62).
Though we have no evidence of direct influence of Burke on Bertalanffy, we know that many of Burke's ideas on symbolism were paralleled by Ernst Cassirer and Suzanne Langer. In Cassirer and Langer, Bertalanffy finds someone dealing with symbol systems with the sophistication and emphasis they deserve (1981 43). While Bertalanffy is apparently unaware of Burke, later General Systems theorists who are concerned with language are not; James McFarland notes the similarity of Burke's Dramatistic model to General Systems Theory:
Burke feels that the social or interpersonal dramas do not occur in a vacuum, [consequently] they must be studied in the context of their social setting as an organic event rather than as a static event. The concern is not with observing any two segments, such as the relationship between act and scene, but the function of the act itself. Burke centers his attention on the interrelationships of the communication rather than on any one aspect such as speaker, message or receiver. All this is in the spirit of systems analysis. (179-80)
5.1.2 Consensus on Symbolism
Though Burke and Bertalanffy start in very different fields with different assumptions, methodologies and problems, they come to startlingly similar conclusions about the importance and nature of symbolic action: it is symbolism that makes us human. Symbol systems influence human thought and perception. Human reality transcends biology. Consequently, human behavior and the evolution of living systems cannot be accounted for by a mechanistic approach, but rather require a pluralistic, interdisciplinary methodology. Each of these conclusions will be considered in turn.
Symbolism makes us human. Without a doubt, the most astonishing congruence of thinking of Burke and Bertalanffy is the privileging of language. Of course, the assertion was not unprecedented (e.g., Aristotle, Coleridge, Shelley, and in some types of structuralism), but it was still rare in the 1930's when Burke propounded it, and even rarer for a scientist in the 1950's when Bertalanffy did. Burke was frequently criticized for paying too much attention to mere words and thereby neglecting the "real" world by resorting to "verbal trickery" in order to solve real-world problems (though no one was clearer about the difference between words and things and their respective capabilities than Burke).
Bertalanffy, however, granted very nearly the same status to language as Burke did. As we noted in Chapter Two, there are really two significant breaks in Bertalanffy's hierarchy: the first between open and closed systems (essentially life and non-life), and the second between humans and animals (the main difference being a capacity for symbolism). According to Bertalanffy, because of symbolism human beings are not merely reactive, like plants and lower animals, but active (or even proactive, in that human beings can anticipate and shape the future). Unlike simple organisms, human beings do not respond to a stimulus but to a model in the brain into which the stimulus is integrated.
Symbol systems structure thought and perception.The model mentioned just above is a system of categories predicated on the ability to use symbols. Language allows for the evolution of this system of categories, which in turn creates this model of the world. Hence both Burke and Bertalanffy subscribe to the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis that language categories structure thinking to a degree, i.e., language leads us to divide reality in accordance with the categories encoded in our language (Bertalanffy 1968 222-3). Both draw on Kant's work on categories. Following Kant and Cassirer, Bertalanffy concludes that each language builds up a system of categories, some rooted in biology, others learned as part of the culture. These categories are relative, and thus can be altered to reflect changing conditions and needs (1981 82).
Burke is also very interested in categories, particularly since they allow human beings to evaluate a situation and then advocate a given interpretation. Burke deals with the importance of the concept of categorization in all his works: in Permanence and Change he notes that all organisms discriminate for the purposes of evaluation, though only humans do this based on verbal categories (5-6). In A Rhetoric of Motives Burke states that even though the mind can only see in terms of categories (1969b 190), to see a situation in terms of a given category means not seeing it in another, so a given perspective leads to blindness and trained incapacity as well as insight.
Plentiful corroboration of Burke's and Bertalanffy's ideas on classification is available. Following Lévi-Strauss, Prof. Worsley asserts that "in classifying, man organizes his experiences, and locates the classified raw material of his experience within a framework of meaning" (Schwartz 28). In fact, perception, understanding and action (physical as well as symbolic) all depend on being able to recognize a collection of stimuli as a category of thing.39 Bertalanffy asserts that perception is altered by these "spectacles of symbolism," which Burke calls a "terministic screen." Bertalanffy recognized that the perception which grounds empirical study is an interaction between knower and known; thus the world is a theoretical construct. Observation is therefore problematic, not purely objective (1972 37). Consequently, Bertalanffy is skeptical of scientific claims to objectivity (as is Burke, for similar reasons). This skepticism forms part of the basis for his objection to the hegemony of the scientistic paradigm, which will be examined below.
Human reality differs from the merely biological. Bertalanffy shares Burke's objection to human systems being treated in terms of chemistry. He disputed this reductive approach because "except for the immediate satisfaction of biological needs, man lives in a world not of things but of symbols" (1968 215). This statement seems like a paraphrase of Ernst Cassirer: "No longer in a purely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe" (1945). Nearly identical passages could be found in Burke as well. In fact, the idea is so crucial in Burke that it appears in the second clause of his definition of human beings: ". . . separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making [i.e., language]" (1966 16).
Bertalanffy provides strong theoretical as well as empirical evidence to show that symbolism enables a kind of "quantum jump" to a new level.40 He shows many examples of higher level systems with greater complexity producing emergent properties that are not possible in lower level systems. Human values are one of the emergent properties that come about from humans with symbol systems to store and manipulate information. Bertalanffy holds that humans are more than animals or robots because symbolization gives humans the capacity to strive for the "realization of values" (1968 217).
Burke, of course, was also quite adamant about the importance of values in human behavior. Burke emphasized that human behavior cannot be accurately described by ignoring language, since language leads to values, which affect motives and subsequent action. As Burke puts it somewhat colloquially: "ideology [i.e., a system of values and thus evaluation] makes our bodies hop in peculiar ways," which is to say that being a member of a cultural system leads to actions that may or may not be in the best interests of an individual person and often will not even be congruent with biological needs (1966 6). Because mechanistic theories such as Behaviorism could not account for ethical behavior, Burke and Bertalanffy felt they needed to be supplemented or discarded. This brings us to our next point.
Human behavior cannot be accounted for by a mechanistic approach. Because Burke and Bertalanffy were opposed to the hegemony of the scientistic approach, it is not remarkable that they both attacked Behaviorism, as it was the psychological subspecies, and it was applied in the domain to which the mechanistic approach was least appropriate. What is more remarkable, however, is the similarity of the attacks: both objected to computers, animals or infants being used as models for human behavior. Furthermore, both Burke and Bertalanffy felt that the Behaviorist stimulus-response model was inadequate because human beings are clearly active, not merely reactive.41 As a kind of empirical support for his opposition, Bertalanffy pointed out that according to Behaviorism the stress of World War Two should have produced more neurosis and psychosis, though exactly the opposite was true (except in the extreme cases of battle fatigue; the neurosis seemed to come with post-war affluence) (1968 207).
Mechanism cannot account for development or evolution. One of the most troubling shortcomings of the mechanical metaphor is its failure to account for growth or evolution of a system. This deficit is felt keenly by both Burke and Bertalanffy because they are interested in the development and evolution of systems. Burke's interest in systemic change presumably stems from his interest in epistemological crisis. Consequently, he wanted to know how a system decays and how it can be rejuvenated. Similarly, Bertalanffy was interested in the life cycle of cells (later he became involved in pathological growth and cancer research). So both Burke and Bertalanffy had systems problems on their hands, yet many systems terms and concepts essential to such problems, e.g., telos, transcendence and wholeness, were dismissed by mainstream science as mystical.
Bertalanffy was able to demonstrate that these properties were not mystical but systemic. His biological studies led him to assert that in higher level systems the import of energy led to the ability to increase complexity. Such systems do not maintain homeostasis or equilibrium, as the mechanistic model stated, but rather increase disequilibrium with increased complexity. Furthermore, Bertalanffy held that sometimes increased complexity crosses a threshold which creates a new level of complexity with attendant emergent properties not seen at lower levels. For example, a culture has attributes not found in families, just as a cell has properties not found in a virus. Increased complexity in a system is invariably accompanied by increased hierarchy and specialization.
Burke's account of how a single human being (as well as a culture) develops has strong systems theory affinities: biological unity is disrupted by birth, which leads to the replication of language by the infant (literally "no language") in order to overcome the biological separateness. Language also leads to more complex social groups, which in turn cause a division of labor (specialization) and so hierarchy. This separation must also be continually overcome through the use of language (resulting in what Aristotle called kairos and General Systems Theory would call a steady-state). These ideas will be developed below.
Even though hierarchy is an acceptable scientific term, it becomes suspect and mystical when one speaks of moving from one level to the next level, which implies transcendence and teleology. Hierarchy and transcendence are extremely important concepts in Burke's philosophy, important enough to include in his definition of human: human beings are goaded by a sense of hierarchy or a sense of order (1966 16). Order and hierarchy would appear to be conservative forces, but this is not invariably true, at least in human systems: we know from General Systems Theory that in any system there is flexibility and stability. Hierarchy actually contributes to both. Social stability can be maintained by force from the top, or when people all through the hierarchy compensate for their lowly position by identifying with those at the top. Moreover, if anyone can rise in the hierarchy, there is change (flexibility) but also stability (in that the system itself remains unaltered).
But the hierarchical nature of all systems leads to a kind of instability as well--an impulse to develop and even transcend a given level of organization. In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke holds that language is a motive force that allows human beings to transcend nature, and in fact all classes in the hierarchy are striving for perfection of their kind, which leads to transcendence of that level (192). As we noted in the last chapter, in the Rhetoric of Religion, transcendence is an important term, but even there it is not exclusively a theological term. Transcendence is simply making the quantum jump to the next higher level, and thereby acquiring the emergent properties of that level.
Burke and Bertalanffy both asked the question, What causes a system to become more complex? Bertalanffy's basic answer to the question is that the import of free energy allows living systems to evade the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Burke and Bertalanffy respond in a similar way to the particular question of why human society becomes increasingly complex: language leads to values, which in turn lead to very sophisticated kinds of reasoning and action.
Despite its suspect status, teleology is an important concept permeating Bertalanffy's work. He felt that the scientific method puts too much emphasis on causes, rather than ends, and that Aristotelian telos was replaced by a search for causal mathematical laws beginning in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century (1972 22). The vitalists at the turn of this century tried to smuggle telos back in, but making it a mystical entity was not much help, according to Bertalanffy, and it was dismissed as supernatural or a pseudo-problem. Bertalanffy tries to reassert teleological ideas in biology, and though he might be a bit uneasy about Burke's seeing language as a motive force, he agrees with Burke that purpose in human beings is grounded in symbols. Bertalanffy states that even though animals have goals, it is only human beings who have true purpose, since their symbol systems allow them to strive to realize values (1968 217).
Mechanistic/scientistic methods are too limited. Despite the fact that they were both lifelong opponents of mechanistic reductionism, both Burke and Bertalanffy are remarkably tolerant in terms of methodology. For both Burke and Bertalanffy, even intuitive models are fine; the only test of a model is its utility. Both advocate following a model to see how far it will go (Davidson 196). What both objected to, however, was the monopoly of the scientistic perspective which sought to reduce all phenomena to a level of simplicity which could be accounted for by classical physics (the "clockwork" level). On this point Bertalanffy liked to quote his friend Aldous Huxley: the world is like a Neapolitan cake; one can't reduce strawberry to chocolate, or biology to chemistry. All one can do is look for similarities between levels or systems (1975 16). Hence both Burke and Bertalanffy advocated a pluralistic, interdisciplinary approach.
Bertalanffy called his broad interdisciplinary approach "perspectivism," which sought to avoid the errors of both absolutism and relativism (1981 83). (Similarly, Burke's organic model sought to avoid those of both materialism and idealism.) As we have seen, Burke is also interdisciplinary, drawing on anthropology, economics, politics, literary criticism, biology, history, psychology, and sociology. It is not surprising, then, that there are some methodological parallels (or perhaps convergences). One similarity is an interest in function: both Burke and Bertalanffy tended to ask not, What is it made up of (i.e., its smallest constituent), but rather, What does it do? The stated methodology of General Systems Theory is to look at the overall function and the interrelations of a system. General Systems Theory seeks to find similar functioning, isomorphism, between systems.
Burke too is analyzing systems, sometimes in passing as an analogue (e.g., the Poetry Exchange), other times in depth. His stated goal is to chart the symbol system and the transformations made possible by that system (1984a 232). Burke's models show his interest in dynamic systems: market, drama, game, organism.42 In describing the behavior of these systems, Burke tries to account for context, which is precisely the sort of multi-variable problem addressed by General Systems Theory. Also like General Systems Theory, Burke attempts to deal with interrelations (cf. the Pentad and its ratios). Burke even occasionally employs the concepts and terminology found in General Systems Theory, such as "superentity."
5.1.3 Differences Between Burke and Bertalanffy
The agreement between Burke and Bertalanffy on the nature of symbol systems is quite remarkable, even taking into account the similarity of temperament, influences and programs. In fact, the only real difference is a rather minor one: language acquires a motive force in Burke (which is the sort of vitalist association that Bertalanffy tries hard to avoid), but there is no doubt that teleology and hierarchy are fundamental to Bertalanffy's systemic theory of development and evolution, as we saw in Chapter Two. And there is no doubt that Bertalanffy grants very nearly as central a place as Burke to language.43
Though apparently unaware of Burke, Bertalanffy wholeheartedly embraces Cassirer's work on symbol, so there is little reason to think that he would have had any violent disagreement with Burke. All three subscribed to the idea that language was central to human life, that symbols structure perception and thus world view, that thinking is essentially categorical, that language distinguishes humans from animals, and leads to the creation of culture. Burke and Cassirer would also agree that the purpose of culture, including art and science, is the interpretation and transformation of experience through symbolic means.
So the differences between Burke and General Systems Theory are more like differences in emphasis than disagreements. We can thus use the two in a dialectic which surpasses either one in isolation: General Systems Theory is more empirical and better on development, while Burke is more speculative and deals with language and culture as systems more than General Systems Theory does. Consequently the next section will present Burke's theory of symbolic action and his conception of the system that gives rise to it. Burke's theory will then be clarified and supplemented by General Systems Theory.
5.2 Burke's Systemic Theory of Symbolic Action
In Attitudes Toward History Burke suggests that the purpose of symbolic action is the creation (or recreation) of an identity that fits into a culture (263-4). (This assertion is seconded by anthropologist James Fernandez, who was influenced by Burke.) Hence symbolic action involves the creation of an integrated world view (or recreation of a culture) and finding a place in that system. Such an accomplishment allows one to "feel at home," to size up situations, and to avoid epistemological crisis (Note that these assertions easily translate into General Systems Theory concepts: wholeness, replication, steady-state, etc. Cf. J. Miller.).
At its most basic, then, symbolic action is any strategy for encompassing a situation. Burke asserts that language is a symbol system, the function of which is the evaluation not so much of entities (i.e., the classification of objects in themselves, as in the scientistic view) as of the situations in which entities occur. Thus for Burke a name (symbol) is a means of adjustment to a situation. To name a situation in a given way leads to a corresponding attitude and action.44 But naming is never wholly unproblematic since it is never disinterested, but reflects the desires of the competing groups or individuals. Therefore, there will always be disagreement on how to name a given situation (and thus act towards it, since different names suggest different models).
The system of evaluation (i.e., quality space) is composed of symbols, arranged in a hierarchical network. Each symbol stands for a pattern of experience (1968 149). According to Burke, these symbols become associated with one another to form clusters or equations. Since the purpose of the system as a whole is evaluative, terms tend to be polar (essentially good/bad) and arrange themselves accordingly in the network. The hierarchical nature of the network has a good theoretical support from General Systems Theory since all complex systems are by their very nature hierarchical (as we shall see presently). Burke holds that this system grows through analogical extension, and can make progressively finer distinctions.
Each infant recreates this hierarchical network through interaction with the tribe. As a person matures, and the replication of the system becomes more and more complete, the system becomes relatively stable. However, there must always be a degree of flexibility so that the model can account for novel situations. Therefore, as with all systems, the quality space has the ability to transform constituents. Transformation is possible because naming of complex phenomena is never certain; the system has a number of concepts that can account for the same phenomena. The paradox of substance, examined in Chapter Four, is Burke's concept for how this slippage or flexibility occurs in quality space.
Quality space must strike a balance, as General Systems Theory demonstrates that all systems must, between stability and change. Too much change, on the one hand, and the system loses its sense of coherence, and with it its ability to make the world meaningful. On the other hand, with too little change, the system becomes reified and thus vulnerable to epistemological crisis (Burke is much more precise about the dynamic of epistemological crisis than is General Systems Theory).
As Thomas Kuhn shows in his well-known account of paradigm shift, occasionally enough anomalous phenomena can trigger a reorganization of the system. Such an epistemological crisis can occur in an individual or to a group as a whole. Burke states that these crises arise when the system becomes too rigid to adapt to a changing environment; in that event, it will lose its predictive power and come to be seen as unreliable (1984a 32-4). At that point it will be modified, radically altered, or abandoned. Often in an epistemological crisis, individuals and groups will turn to what Burke calls a medicine man, or shaman. A shaman is a kind of bricoleur who is exceptionally adept at manipulating the quality space. The medicine man can create a narrative or metaphor which will reorient the system and thus make the world meaningful again.
5.2.1 The Strengths of Burkean Theory
Burke provides us with a strong foundation for a complete systemic theory of symbolic action. We can be assured of this because General Systems Theory has a parallel concept for virtually all of the components of Burke's theory, offers no contradiction to that theory, and provides support where Burke is tentative or speculative. As we have seen, General Systems Theory privileges language, confirms the fundamental distinction between human symbolic action and subhuman biological or mechanical motion. General Systems Theory rescues several of Burke's basic concepts from mysticism: telos, transcendence, values etc. Moreover, General Systems Theory seconds Burke's assertion that we must be concerned with the interrelations and function of components (including the most fundamental one, the interaction between organism and environment). In addition, General Systems Theory suggests that Burke's ideas on classification, transformation, and the structural nature of systems are correct.
Despite the clear strengths of Burkean theory and the many parallels to General Systems Theory, as we have noted, the later can be useful in refining and extending Burke's ideas about systems. General Systems Theory can be particularly useful in refining and supplementing Burke on development and structure. General Systems Theory and its descendent, Self-Organizing Theory (SOT), can enhance Burke's account of system evolution (or anamorphosis) a great deal.
The study of self-organizing systems can be seen as a branch of Chaos Theory and of General Systems Theory that is particularly concerned with how complex systems evolve.45 This new and very promising outgrowth of the General Systems Theory movement examines the emergence and growth of molecular, biological and social systems (based on the work of Heinz von Foerster, Ilya Prigogine, Herman Haken and Manfred Eigen). According to one of its foremost proponents, Vilmos Csànyi, Self-Organizing Theory (SOT) is related to Catastrophe Theory in that both are trying to account for how systems can make the "quantum jump" to the next level of complexity. (In particular, catastrophe theory provides the mathematics for describing such behavior.) Csànyi calls crossing these complexity thresholds "symmetry breaks" (111-12). In theory, these jumps take place when fluctuations are reinforced until they become strong enough to drive a system over an instability threshold to a new structure. This can only occur in an open system far from equilibrium.
Self-Organizing Theory has been bolstered by the discovery of self-organizing (also called "dissipative") structures in chemical reactions. These "prebiotic" complex chemical compounds occupy the border between life and non-life. Though not a cell, they take in energy, and can form membranes and templates. Computer simulations of one such compound, the Chemoton system, show that it is highly stable, that it can grow and even reproduce (Csànyi 57). Such research can provide models to help refine Burke's intuitive ideas about how cultural, linguistic and mental systems grow.46 This is our next task.
5.3 Mental Systems
SOT offers insight into how mental systems may have evolved. Csànyi holds that cognition is fundamentally a matter of association and dissociation. This ability is grounded in the very basic neural functions of sensitation and habituation, respectively. In sensitation, stimuli that routinely happen together become linked, so that one automatically elicits the other (e.g., a bell alone will get response gotten earlier by bell and shock). Similarly, dissociation is a more sophisticated version of habituation: a stimulus repeated too frequently will lose its ability to get a response. Csànyi holds that over time sensitation and habituation causes continual and irreversible organization of neurons (115). Permanent patterned clusters of neurons develop in response to repeated stimuli which are then used to recognize a signal pattern of stimuli--the beginning of learning and memory. Learning causes the structure to develop, leading in turn to increased capacity to store information, and more complex representations of the world, and correspondingly more complex behaviors.
The function of the brain, then, is to construct concepts for recognition. Dynamic organization of these concepts leads to predictive models. As with any complex system, the goal of a mental system is a steady-state. In order to survive, an organism must be able to perceive and adjust to changes in the environment, requiring a dynamic model of that environment. According to Csànyi, cognition is essentially the ability to construct models (116-7). The more complex the model, the more predictive ability it has. The most complex models include a model of the organism itself (which allows for self-awareness and ultimately self-consciousness). A model is not a picture, but a hierarchically ordered abstract organization of information (121).
As any system grows, it begins a division of labor. Burke clearly shows that this is true in the social realm. SOT, however, provides an account for how hierarchies in systems in general come into being: progressive segregation makes a system more heterogeneous. As the number of components increases, one part may become a trigger mechanism for another part; in this way a leading part assumes a higher position in the developing hierarchy (183). Thus the system becomes more hierarchical as it becomes more complex. Increasing complexity does not appear to be a smooth curve; it is rather more like punctuated equilibrium: a system will maintain a steady-state for a comparatively long period and then a symmetry break will occur. That is, disequilibrium becomes reinforced until the system reorganizes at a higher level of complexity, with resulting emergent properties. In human beings emergent properties include: language, self-consciousness, values, dreams, play creativity and symbolic action.
Not only is Csànyi more precise than Burke on development, but on the nature of the components of mental systems as well. He theorizes that concepts are associated replicative structures (125). Concepts are replications (perhaps isomorphic) of parts of the environment. These concepts are not static (137), can be combined to solve new problems, and can be further replicated and transferred to other parts of the brain. Csànyi does, however, agree with Burke that these concepts are arranged in a hierarchy. Also like Burke, he feels that the sum of the concepts is a model, which he calls cognitive space. Csànyi further hypothesizes that the structures of cognitive space can be transformed according to certain rules. (These intriguing but intuitive ideas will be dealt with in more detail in the concluding chapter.)
5.4 Culture as System
We noted above that a mind forms a model of the world. Burke holds that our concepts that make up this model have two sources: biological make-up and experience, and social experience. Through social interaction (mostly linguistic) we replicate the supermodel of a culture. This supermodel grows and is transmitted (mostly through language) to successive generations. Csànyi holds that a culture is learned environment within which a group operates. It is a structure which constantly composes and decomposes as a result of energy flowing through it (160). That is, models that are useful are reinforced and developed (and enshrined, as Burke would point out, in proverbs), while those that are not so useful wither. This organic model has been found useful in describing linguistic system evolution as well.
5.4 Language as System
Granting that a mind and culture are systems, it is even easier to see a language as a system as well. Chaos Theory's discovering system in ostensibly random processes and Self-Organizing Theory's showing how very complex behavior can grow out of simple systems fortify Burke's assertion that language and its operation is systematic and thus describable. In fact, a number of systems theorists have noted parallels between language and biological development. In retrospect, it would be odd if there were no parallels, since language presumably evolved through the same process as any other system and does inhabit a biological entity. Language apparently developed in the same sort of bootstrap operation found in prebiotic cellular automata (such as the Chemeton system referred to above) and in starting up a new computer system: in the case of language, more names make more concepts and behaviors possible, which lead to more names, etc.
Evidence that language is a system can also be found in Bertalanffy's observation that spelling anachronisms resemble vestigial organs, and that natural selection operates in language and culture as well (1975a 49). In semantics, for example, if two words have the same meanings, one will either drop out or take on a different meaning or connotation. Similar systemic behavior has long been noted in phonology: a shift in one part of the sound system causes all the others to shift as well (e.g., the Great Vowel Shift).
So though language is a non-material system (at least until it is written) it has many similarities to living systems, and definitely has all the attributes of Bertalanffy's "soft" definition of system: it maintains itself over long periods, has a structure of interrelated heterogeneous parts, maintains its identity in a changing environment, and grows or decays.47
5.6 Quality Space
Granting that language, culture and mind are all systems, a systems approach demands that we consider how the three interrelate. Burke makes some suggestions in various places, but never deals with the question explicitly. Neither does Bertalanffy, though General Systems Theory shows that as systems become more complex, with increasingly complex interrelations, they can form subsystems and supersystems. General Systems Theory also asserts that language, mind and culture are all systems. Consequently, it is safe to argue (as the rest of the dissertation will) that mind, language and culture can all be seen as subsystems of a super-system: quality space (analogous perhaps to Csànyi's cognitive space). Though Burke did not explicitly propose the existence of a supersystem, an anthropologist who was influenced by Burke did, James Fernandez. According to Fernandez, quality space is best imagined as a three-dimensional hierarchical space made up of associated concepts (39-41). In totality, these concepts constitute a supermodel of the world. Language is a system of labels for these concepts; language allows for the acquisition, dissemination and collective refinement (self-correction) of the supermodel. The quality space model constitutes an important part of the conceptual foundation for a systemic theory of symbolic action, since what Burke lacked was a workable cognitive model.
5.7 Limitations of Burke's Theory of Symbolic Action
Even fortified by General Systems Theory and SOT, Burke's theory of symbolic action has some deficiencies, not the least of which is the lack of a precise definition of symbolic action. As we noted in the introductory chapter, even though the study of symbolic action is Burke's life work, he never defines the term with precision. According to William Rueckert, Burke uses the term in three senses (1963 59). The first sense more or less equates symbolic action with any use of language. In the second sense, Burke uses the term almost exactly as Freud does, to mean symptomatic (e.g., someone having trouble deciding whether or not to marry might manifest this in a hesitancy to cross a street). In this sense symbolic action is "symbolic autobiography: acts symbolizing the essential self" (1963 59). The third way Burke uses the term refers to the purgative-redemptive: since human beings live within a system of values, there must be a way of discharging the guilt of deviations from that system.48
With the addition of the concept of quality space, we are now in a position to state more precisely what symbolic action is: the operation or manipulation of the quality space. Burke says as much in a 1977 interview: "By symbolic action in general I mean the use of any conventional symbol system" (Woodcock 709). This statement seems far too general to be of any use until we reflect on how much of human activity is devoted to communicating our interpretation of what is going on in the world.
5.8 Conclusion
Fortified by parallels and supplementation by General Systems Theory, we can be fairly confident about the Burkean theory of symbolic action as far as it goes. However, we still have some problems: What precisely is symbolic action? How does one manipulate quality space? What are the components of quality space and how do they interact? We have noted that Burke is seriously hampered by the lack of an adequate cognitive model. Such a model could not come into being until the mechanistic paradigm was overturned. This has only recently happened. The demise of mechanism began when it was found that it could not even account for physical phenomena such as sub-atomic particles. Later Chaos Theory showed that it did not even work for simple mechanical systems. Currently questions about classical science's ideas about categorization are raising doubts about the validity of its idea of cognition being the mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols. As the usefulness of the mechanical model is exhausted in cognitive science and AI, a shift becomes possible that yields Connectionism and neural networks, which along with schema theory may provide answers to the questions posed above. This is the task of the final chapter.
Go to Ch 6: The Metaphorical Basis of Symbolic Action