lang@psy.unibe.ch (Alfred Lang)

Alfred Lang (lang@psy.unibe.ch)
Sun, 8 Oct 1995 12:23:20 +0000

Alfred Lang, born 1935, is Professor of Psychology at the University of
Bern, Switzerland. His teaching is in General Psychology (Perception,
Motivation, Action) and in Environmental and Cultural Psychology (Emphasis
on Dwelling, Urban Condition, Peson in Culture, Theory), formerly also in
Personality and Early Child Development. I have broad interests in
contributing to an empirical science of the Human Condition that embraces
both the biotic and the cultural character of that species.

My dominating concern pertains to constructing a general and unitary
conceptual framework called Semiotic Ecology which is to conceive biotic,
individual and socio-cultural evolutions on the basis of the same
conceptual tools. Semiotic Ecology interprets the idea of the Ecological
Function Circle or Psychological-Environmental Field (von Uexkuell, Lewin)
in terms of a Peircean semiotic as progressive structure formation in all
kinds of ecological systems. My semiotic attempts to supplant the
interpretative stance of most semiotics by the generative, structure
formating, acutalizing, and modifying potential of semiosis in that it can
afford the evolutionally fundamental operations of branching (or variation
production) and merging (or selectiv evaluation) in the process of bringing
forth new structures. It claims to be fully un-dualistic in that it does
not need to presuppose any subject-object or matter-mind and related
oppositions. Semiotic Ecology, in particular, serves as a base to propose a
non-Cartesian Cultural Psychology which focusses on the evolutive
dialogical or reciprocal evolutive formation of persons and culture in
communities of various ranges.

On the empirical side, I am especially interested in in the role of
artifacts of all kinds; so these ideas are put on probe in a project to
understand the Dwelling Activity or People with their Things in their
Rooms. I also find it suitable to contribute to anchoring presentday
cultural psychology in a heritage from times before scientific psychology
started building its one-sided dead-end. Of a list of some four dozens of
culture-inclusive thinkers on and researchers of the human condition from
the mid 18th to the mid 20th century I have found, to my own astinishment,
J.G. Herder (1744-1804) to be the most complete cultural psychologist so
far. In May 1996, I am organizing, for the Gesellschaft fuer
Kulturpsychologie, a symposium on Pioneers of Cultural Psychological
Thought.

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Alfred Lang Internet: lang@psy.unibe.ch
Psychology, Univ. of Bern, Unitobler, Muesmattstr. 45, CH-3000 Bern 9
Office: Tel (+41 +31) 631 40 11 Fax 631 82 12
Home (preferably): Hostalen 106, CH-3037 Herrenschwanden
Switzerland Tel+Fax (+41 +31) 302 53 42
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