Biosemiotics, politics and Th.A. Sebeok’s move from linguistics to semiotics

This paper will focus on the political implications for the language sciences of Sebeok’s move from linguistics to a global semiotic perspective, a move that ultimately resulted in biosemiotics. The paper will seek to make more explicit the political bearing of a biosemiotic perspective in the language sciences and the human sciences in general. In particular, it will discuss the definition of language inherent in Sebeok’s project and the fundamental re-drawing of the grounds of linguistic debate heralded by Sebeok’s embrace of the concept of modelling. Thus far, the political co-ordinates of the biosemiotic project have not really been made explicit. This paper will therefore seek to outline 1. how biosemiotics enables us to reconfigure our understanding of the role of language in culture; 2. how exaptation is central to the evolution of language and communication, rather than adaptation; 3. how communication is the key issue in biosphere, rather than language, not just because communication includes language but because the language sciences often refer to language as if it were mere “chatter”, “tropes” and “figures of speech”; 4. how biosemiotics, despite its seeming “neutrality” arising from its transdisciplinarity, is thoroughly political; 5. how the failure to see the implications of the move from linguistics to semiotics arises from the fact that biosemiotics is devoid of old style politics, which is based on representation (devoid of experience) and “construction of [everything] in discourse” (which is grounded in linguistics, not communication study). In contrast to the post-“linguistic turn” idea that the world is “constructed in discourse”, we will argue that biosemiotics entails a reconfiguration of the polis and, in particular, offers the chance to completely reconceptualise ideology

Biosemiotics, politics and Th.A. Sebeok’s move from linguistics to semiotics

This paper will focus on the political implications for the language sciences of Sebeok’s move from linguistics to a global semiotic perspective, a move that ultimately resulted in biosemiotics. The paper will seek to make more explicit the political bearing of a biosemiotic perspective in the language sciences and the human sciences in general. In particular, it will discuss the definition of language inherent in Sebeok’s project and the fundamental re-drawing of the grounds of linguistic debate heralded by Sebeok’s embrace of the concept of modelling. Thus far, the political co-ordinates of the biosemiotic project have not really been made explicit. This paper will therefore seek to outline 1. how biosemiotics enables us to reconfigure our understanding of the role of language in culture; 2. how exaptation is central to the evolution of language and communication, rather than adaptation; 3. how communication is the key issue in biosphere, rather than language, not just because communication includes language but because the language sciences often refer to language as if it were mere “chatter”, “tropes” and “figures of speech”; 4. how biosemiotics, despite its seeming “neutrality” arising from its transdisciplinarity, is thoroughly political; 5. how the failure to see the implications of the move from linguistics to semiotics arises from the fact that biosemiotics is devoid of old style politics, which is based on representation (devoid of experience) and “construction of [everything] in discourse” (which is grounded in linguistics, not communication study). In contrast to the post-“linguistic turn” idea that the world is “constructed in discourse”, we will argue that biosemiotics entails a reconfiguration of the polis and, in particular, offers the chance to completely reconceptualise ideology

Explaining the Qualitative Dimension of Consciousness: Prescission Instead of Reification: Dialogue

This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability to prescind qualities from occurrences

Gatherings in biosemiotics

http://www.ester.ee/record=b2860486*es

Communication between animals and humans: language, understanding and matters of attitude in human-animal interaction

[Abstract] Sandra Grötsch, University of Oulu, Finland Conversation strategies between animals and humans. Language,understanding and matters of attitude in human-animal interaction. Literature and especially fantasy literature provides us with numerous examples of conversation types between animals and humans. This presentation is going to look at texts from among others J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling in order to analyse communication between human and non-human participants. In this presentation the difference between animals and non-humans possessing human language to those that do not is examined. Rhetoric as well as silence in animal communication and their meanings will also be taken into consideration. Interesting questions raise about the definition of language, its use and communication between different species. What does it mean to possess language? How does human attitude change towards animals that are able to communicate? How do different languages influence the strategies for conversation and the role of the speakers? Literature provides a window into the struggle humans go through when trying to understand animals or fantastic creatures especially in such cases where a common language is missing. The desire to converse with animals and understand them can be found also in the reality outside of texts where engaged scientific examinations try to shed light on the languages and communication realm of animals. The literary instances used in this presentation will show the tradition from myths transported into modern texts to let non-humans express themselves in various ways connected to communication and the relationships humans build with their bestial opposite number

The biosemiotic imagination in the Victorian frames of mind : Newman, Eliot and Welby

This thesis traces the development of thought in the philosophical and other writings of three nineteenth-century thinkers, whose work exemplifies that century’s attempts to think beyond the divisions of culture from nature and to reconcile empirical science with metaphysical truth. Drawing on nineteenth-century debates on the origin of language and evolutionary theory, the thesis argues that the ideas of John Henry Newman, George Eliot and Lady Victoria Welby were cultural precursors to the biosemiotic thought of the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, specifically in the way in which these three thinkers sought to find a ‘common grammar’ between natural and human practices. While only Lady Welby communicated with the scientist, logician and father of modern semiotics, Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), all three contributed to the cultural sensibility that informed subsequent work in biology/ethology (Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944), zoosemiotics (Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001), and the development of biosemiotics (Thomas A. Sebeok and Jesper Hoffmeyer (1943-present), Kalevi Kull (1952-present) among others. Each of these nineteenth-century writer’s intellectual development show strong parallels with the interdisciplinary endeavour of biosemiotics. The latter’s observation that biology is semiotics, its postulation of the continuity between the natural and cultural world through semiosis and evolutionary semiotic scaffolding its emphasis on the coordination of organic life processes on all levels, from simple cells to human beings, via semiotic interactions that depend on interpretation, communication and learning, and its consequent refusal of Cartesian divide, all find distinct resonances with these earlier thinkers. The thesis thus argues that Newman, Eliot and Welby all gave articulation to what the thesis identifies as the growth of a ‘biosemiotic imagination.’ It argues that Newman, Eliot and Lady Welby envisaged a unity, or a holistic understanding, of life based on a European developmental tradition of biology, philosophy and language which was familiar to Charles Darwin himself. This evolutionary ontology called forth a new epistemology grounded in a mode of unconscious creative inference (biosemiotic imagination) akin to Charles S. Peirce’s concept of abduction. Abduction is the logical operation which introduces a new idea and, as such, is the only source of adaptive and creative growth. For Peirce, it is closely tied to the growth of knowledge via the evolutionary action of sign relations. The thesis shows how these thinkers conceptualised their own version of what I suggest can be understood as this biosemiotic imagination and the implications this has for understanding creativity in nature and culture. For John Henry Newman, it was a common source of inspiration in religion and science. For George Eliot, it lay at the basis of any creative process, natural and cultural, between which it forged a link. Similarly to Eliot, Lady Victoria Welby saw abduction as a signifying process that subtends creativity both in nature and culture

Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics

Если все знания рождаются в процессе семиозиса, то в семиотический инструментарий следует добавить дополнительные понятия. Вместе с тем, семиотические понятия должны быть определены через другие семиотические понятия. Мы рассматриваем возможность определения понятий когнитивных процессов и явлений с помощью семиотических терминов. В частности, мы концентрируемся на понятиях, имеющих отношение к теории познания, таких как обучение, знание, доступность (affordance), подпорка (scaffolding), ресурсы, компетенция, память и некоторые другие. Даем их предварительные определения с семиотической точки зрения, что позволяет также показать их взаимо связанность. Переосмысление этих терминов помогает избежать как физикализма, так и психологизма, демонстрируя эпистемологические характе- ристики взаимоотношения организмов и среды через семиотическое понимание при способленности. Также мы вкратце обсудим значение наших введенных заново определений в качестве вклада в семиотическую теорию познания, которая имеет отношение как к гуманитарным наукам, так и к наукам о жизни, не забывая при этом об их значимости для образования и психологии, а также для социальных семиотических исследований и исследований в области мультимодальности.If all knowing comes from semiosis, more concepts should be added to the semiotic toolbox. However, semiotic concepts must be defined via other semiotic concepts. We observe an opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in semiotics by defining concepts of cognitive processes and phenomena via semiotic terms. In particular, we focus on concepts of relevance for theory of knowledge, such as learning, knowing, affordance, scaffolding, resources, competence, memory, and a few others. For these, we provide preliminary definitions from a semiotic perspective, which also explicates their interrelatedness. Redefining these terms this way helps to avoid both physicalism and psychologism, showcasing the epistemological dimensions of environmental situatedness through the semiotic understanding of organisms’ fittedness with their environments. Following our review and presentation of each concept, we briefly discuss the significance of our embedded redefinitions in contributing to a semiotic theory of knowing that has relevance to both the humanities and the life sciences, while not forgetting their relevance to education and psychology, but also social semiotic and multimodality studies. &nbsp

Eco\u27s Echoes: Fictional Theory and Detective Practice in The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco\u27s The Name of the Rose is a serio-comic pastiche of the detective story set in the middle ages, which uses history as a distant mirror to comment, from a Western Marxist perspective, on contemporary political issues. Structurally, however, The Name of the Rose is a fictional enactment of many of the semiotician\u27s recent critical and philosophical ideas. ( 1) Eco\u27s discussion of abductive reasoning in C. S. Peirce and Aristotle appears in a detective not only more fallible than Sherlock Holmes but more aware of what his powers consist of and why they work and fail. (2) Eco\u27s explanation of what he calls the iterative scheme in popular fiction—ways of handling time that allow for indefinite sequelae—appears negatively here, where time and time\u27s passage are given their full durational weight. (3) Eco\u27s discussion of closed and open texts, and of a third category of which the chairman is probably Tristram Shandy, which evades both modes of reading and forces one into consciousness of the reading process itself, is enacted in The Name of the Rose, in a traditionally closed genre (the mystery) which is first opened but finally given an ending that deconstructs the mystery novel by forcing the reader into the third, Shandean, mode