Biosemiotics最新文献

The article investigates basic relations between aesthetics and communication based on studies of and discussions about what has been termed “animal beauty”. The concepts beauty, aesthetics, and communication are problematised, starting from utterances’ structured form, which is seen both as the physical basis for as well as one of five key aspects in animal utterances (form, content, act, time, and space). The relational, and thus social semiotic, communicational role of this aspect is searched in different studies leading to two major claims: Firstly, that five corresponding constitutional traits or aspects, aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, temporality, and spatiality collectively form a basis for animals’ evaluation of the subjective value of utterances. The importance of each of them varies depending on what kind of communication (life-genre) they are associated with. Secondly, that aesthetics should be comprehended on four integrated levels, from micro to macro, sign, utterance, life-genre, and life-world. These four levels plus five aspects or components in utterances make up a systemic, social semiotic communicational framework which in turn is applied for inspections of studies studying “beauty”. Methodological challenges applying them are briefly discussed. An overall conclusion is that research on the evolutionary role of animal beauty should treat the aesthetics of utterances as part of the hermeneutic circle, simultaneously as categorial and relational, in other words as a constitutive part of a whole, a semiotic, species-specific socio-communicational system.

This paper aims to understand how and why tree diagrams are of central importance to microbiome scientists in their practices of meaning making. The interfaces that scientists use are, in fact, topological structures that organize the genetic data generated by sequencing technology. They establish relationships among microbes and also between microbes and the conditions of the ecological niche they help construct. The tree structure is a powerful topos of knowledge organization in Western culture. However, biomolecular research has revealed the existence of horizontal gene exchange among microbes and other merging forms; these cast doubt on the tree as a valid representational metaphor for the tangle of the microbial world and help to overcome neo-Darwinism. This essay analyzes the software and interfaces used by microbiome scientists as tools for organizing knowledge that shape how we see human-microbe relationships, while escaping a representational function. While trees have long been considered representative forms of visualization of an evolutionary paradigm, we emphasize the non-illustrative and heuristic power of these interfaces, which, although steeped in centuries of reflection and debate on evolutionary theories, respond more to a diagrammatic logic: tools for discovering the new from genetic “black matter” and for exploring new forms of relationships between microbes and humans.

This case study on the work of interspecies musician David Rothenberg explores how engaging with the songs and rhythms of other species continues to challenge his musical practice and aesthetic. Technology, science and art come together in an artistic and research practice, which is grounded in the belief that technologies can bring us closer to nature. The article outlines how Umwelt theory, enactive music cognition, biosemiotics and the phenomenology of human-technology relations are engaged in the perception and creation of musical experiences. It also looks at how interdisciplinary research practices that traverse zoomusicology, the visual and performing arts, and data visualisation contribute to interspecies music theory and practice. The article concludes by presenting four interspecies auditory dispositives as a guide to how knowledge, tools and practice are entangled in concrete examples from Rothenberg’s musical collaborations with nightingales, humpback whales, periodical cicadas and pond life.

This text explores Search and Rescue (SAR) dog work, examining the interplay of Umwelt, semiosis, and behavior in both dogs and humans. Drawing on Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, the discussion unfolds across two semiotic levels: endosemiosis, involving the constitution of species-specific Umwelten through non-mimetic processes, and exosemiosis, reflecting semiotic interactions within the established Umwelt. Emphasizing the Kantian influence on Uexküll, the text parallels the concept of transcendental schematism with monogram drafting, illustrating how organisms constitute their Umwelten. The exploration extends to Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the monogram in Kant and the Umwelt in Uexküll, framing behavior as melodic and underscoring the reciprocal influence between an organism and its Umwelt. Shifting focus to SAR dog teams, the essay elucidates the melodic teamwork between human handlers and dogs. It discerns the convergence of distinct search tones—human-driven rescue tones and dog-driven reward tones—harmonizing in a dynamic inter-species melody. The melodic metaphor, inspired by Merleau-Ponty, illuminates the shared behavioral space where humans and dogs contribute tonalities to the melody of SAR searches. The exploration underscores the handler’s role in facilitating this melodic collaboration, requiring interpretation deeply immersed in the movements of the dog, and a balance between guidance and trust in the dog’s autonomy during the search.

Jakob von Uexküll developed his core ideas on Umwelt, inner world, counter world, and the functional circle over 100 years ago. While they influenced the early ethologists and phenomenologists, the full import of his ideas were either not recognized or were ignored for various reasons. In the case of ethology, proponents such as Nikolaas Tinbergen were under the sway of behaviorism and the denial that the experiential worlds of animals could be studied objectively with the tools of science. The role of salient sensory cues in serving as signs in the performance of instinctive behaviors and conditioning was accepted, and it is now evident that such studies actually provide a window to the ‘private experiences’ of other species. In this somewhat autobiographical paper I discuss how the early writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, prior to reading von Uexküll, compared to his views and those of contemporary ethologists and comparative psychologists. I conclude that all phenomenology is actually heterophenomenology, and that phenomenologists need to have more personal experience studying animal behavior and incorporate a critical anthropomorphism in resolving discrepancies and contradictions concerning the mental lives of species. This paper begins an attempt to use Umwelt theory and the functional circle as an effective scaffolding for integrating the behavioral sciences, including philosophy, across species. Interacting functional circles and Umwelten are essential for understanding social behavior. Interspecific animal play is introduced as a challenging and important topic for biosemioticians and phenomenologists to explore.

This introduction to the special issue “Umwelt Theory and Phenomenology” is composed of a brief theoretical introduction to phenomenology seen as a key attitude of philosophical research, an investigation of the possibilities offered by a combined application of phenomenology and biosemiotics, and an overview of the articles that are included in the special issue. The theoretical introduction stresses the possibility of distinguishing, within phenomenology, between approaches centred on the object (in other terms, the phenomenon), and subject-centred approaches which have emerged in the wake of Kantian transcendental idealism. The connection with biosemiotics is explored for both kinds of approaches, showing how Uexküll, and many other scholars after him, have used phenomenological tools and perspectives in the study of biological meaning and meaning-making processes. For each article in the collection, the overview of the articles indicates one or two points that we believe are of the greatest interest for the reader.

Starting from Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of meaning, the article explores the semiotic functions of the spider’s web, examining in depth its material characteristics and relationship to communication. This study reinterprets the biologist’s concepts, highlighting the vibration of webs as a mode of interspecific communication. By inquiring into the physical composition of spider webs, the research proposes artistic performances that seek to extend material vibration by exploring subjective experience. Thus, a performance-based biosemiotic and materialist approach is proposed to recreate the umwelt of the spider, bridging the human and arachnid realms through minimalist constructions by focusing on vibrational communication processes. In conclusion, the intricate interplay between material manifestations and subjective interpretations in the spider’s ecological niche will be outlined.

This paper explores the relationship between the problem of dis/harmony in Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory and the inclusion of experiences of disability, disease, or trauma, in said theory. It starts with discussions of dis/harmony and dis/ability in Uexküllian studies, from Uexüll’s very own work on Umwelt theory to the contemporary commentaries and studies of said theory. It first articulates how Uexküll’s focus on harmony provided poor conditions to account for dis/ability, while commenting on points where Uexküll offered direct engagement with or openness to situations of dis/harmony and dis/ability. It then forays into post-Uexküllian research on dis/ease and pathology and suggests that the work of Weizsäcker, Kurt Goldstein and Georges Canguilhem might constitute a useful step aside to allow Umwelt theory better to account for these situations. From then on, the article shows how contemporary investigations into the mutability of Umwelten in the context of the ecological crisis allows for the development of a phenomenology of Umwelt crises and trauma. Finally, the ethological dimension of Umwelt theory is taken up as a way to formulate a philosophy of intra-specific ethological diversity and ethological divergence, and the example of autism is read into the theoretical framework of Umwelt thinking.

Attention is viewed here as a complex of semiotic processes that leads to animals’ choices and behavioral decisions. Besides the focusing role of attention, many other processes, such as prioritizing and binding perceptions to coherent reality, have historically been considered to be parts of attention. Semiotic tools can help to understand relations between perception and meaning-making and, therefore, to solve questions of attention’s active or passive nature. Are animals actively shaping it, or is it something that happens to them? This article attempts to synthesize different theories of attention from the cognitive sciences and Uexküllian semiotics into a model that shows how meaning-making can be the basis for future attention. For this several different theories of attention belonging to different disciplines have been revisited and synthezised. Here, it is claimed that although it seems that something in the environment can capture attention without animals’ active participation, attention is actually an active process that depends on meaning-making and interpretation. Attention is also viewed in the context of search behavior and connected with Jakob von Uexküll’s terms of ‘search image’ and ‘search tone’, to which a a new term ‘search schema’ was added. Additionally, it is suggested that some animals can use qualisigns as category markers for attendance. The process of prioritizing attention depends on the construction of sense organs, which makes it species-specific and also from the individual experiences, meanings, and habits of the organism. Jakob von Uexküll imagined Umwelt as a “soap bubble” containing everything an animal can perceive. Attention limits perception in the current moment even more, being metaphorically speaking, a smaller dynamic bubble inside a big Umwelt bubble.

Phenomenology, particularly as developed by Merleau-Ponty, primarily concerns how human beings perceive and act towards the world they encounter, their lifeworld. Umwelt theory, by contrast, primarily concerns the animal lifeworld, which is also the concern of Biosemiotics. Exploring the overlap between the two disciplines requires a fuller understanding of how human perception has evolved to become so very different from that of animals. This article will try to provide that and show how that may help to address the ecological crisis surrounding us. Human beings now develop and live in in a world where most of what they encounter are cultural artefacts. In fact, as Simondon suggests, human beings and technological objects are co-evolving. This has brought about radical changes in the way we relate to the natural world. But these are not necessarily changes for the better. Indeed, McGilchrist claims that the last thousand years or so of cultural evolution has profoundly impaired how human beings attend to the world. This paper will suggest that this impairment has contributed to the ecological crisis we now face, and that to help meet it both Biosemiotics and Umwelt theory should take more account of the revival of interest in panpsychism as seen in the work of Goff and others.