Abstract
Giorgio Prodi poses a fundamental philosophical problem: how was the emergence of immaterial meaning possible within the world of material things? In order to answer this question, Prodi develops an original relational ontology. The world is made of relations between things, not of things. The world is relation; semiosis is relation: it follows that the world itself is semiosis. This chapter will expose Prodi’s natural history of meaning.
In our view, it is not symbolic language which “explains” the machinery of the cell, but it is this machinery that must explain (through a suitable complexity) the nature of a symbolic language.
(Prodi 2010: 334)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The empirical question is highly controversial, and a much hangs on just how stringent the criteria to define a behaviour as a “lie” are taken to be (see, e.g. Gómez and Martín-Andrade 2002).
- 3.
Prodi here is probably thinking about Wilson’s (1978) sociobiology. His La storia naturale della logica was published only 4 years later: “to think that human behaviour can be deduced from animal behaviour, as believed by much of experimental psychology and sociobiology, is conceptually erroneous. The animal model is certainly useful, but inadequate. The human psyche was built in a very peculiar manner, precisely thanks to its intimate mingling and merging with logico-discursive functions” (Prodi 1987: 61).
BibliographyIn ItalianOther Works Cited
Alač, M., & Violi, P. (Eds.). (2004). In the beginning: Origins of semiosis, Semiotic and Cognitive Studies 12. Bologna: Brepols.
Barbieri, M. (1985). La teoria semantica dell’evoluzione. (Thom, René, preface.) (Saggi, Scienze.) Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Barbieri, M. (2000). I codici organici: La nascita della biologia semantica. (Capire la vita 1.) Ancona: peQuod editore.
Barbieri, M. (2001). The organic codes: The birth of semantic biology. (Capire la vita 2.) Ancona: peQuod editore.
Bardini, T. (2017). Relational ontology, Simondon, and the hope for a third culture inside biosemiotics. Biosemiotics, 10(1), 131–137.
Cimatti, F. (2000b). The circular semiosis of Giorgio Prodi. Sign Systems Studies, 28, 351–379.
Cobley, P. (2016). Cultural Implications of Biosemiotics, Biosemiotics 15. Dordrecht: Springer.
Eco, U. (1988b). Una sfida al mito delle due culture. In: Saecularia nona, 2. [In English, Eco 1994.]
Eco, U. (1999 [1997]). Kant and the platypus: Essays on language and cognition. (A. McEwen, Trans.). San Diego: A Harvest Book, Harcourt.
Florkin, M. (1974). Concepts of molecular biosemiotics and of molecular evolution. Comprehensive Biochemistry, 29A, 1–124.
Gianfranco, M., & Mangano, D. (Eds.). (2018). Semiotics of animals in culture: Zoosemiotics 2.0, Biosemiotics 17. Cham: Springer.
Kull, K. (2015). Semiosis stems from logical incompatibility in organic nature: Why biophysics does not see meaning, while biosemiotics does. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 119(3), 616–621.
Lehman, N., Bernhard, T., Larson, B. C., Robinson, A., & Southgate, C. (2014). Empirical demonstration of environmental sensing in catalytic RNA: evolution of interpretive behavior at the origins of life. BioMed Central Evolutionary Biology, 14, 248.
Petrilli, S., & Ponzio, A. (2005). Semiotics unbounded: Interpretive routes through the open network of signs. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Prodi, G. (1983). Linguistica e biologia. In C. Segre (Ed.), Intorno alla linguistica (pp. 172–202). Milano: Feltrinelli (Discussione su “Linguistica e biologia”, 308–319).
Prodi, G. (1988d). La cultura come ermeneutica naturale. Intersezioni, Rivista di storia delle idee (Bologna: Società Editrice Il Mulino) 8(1): 23–48. [English translation in Prodi 1989b]
Prodi, G. (1988e). La biologia come semiotica naturale. In M. Herzfeld & L. Melazzo (Eds.), Semiotic theory and practice: Proceedings of the third international congress of the IASS Palermo, 1984 (Vol. 2, pp. 929–951). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Prodi, G. (1989b). Culture as natural hermeneutics. In W. A. Koch (Ed.), The nature of culture. Proceedings of the international and interdisciplinary symposium, October 7—11, 1986 in Bochum, Bochum Publications in Evolutionary Cultural Semiotics; BPX 12 (pp. 215–239). Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. Norbert Brockmeyer [Translation of Prodi 1988d].
Sebeok, T. A. (1997b). Foreword. In R. Capozzi (Ed.), Reading Eco: An anthology (pp. xi–xvi). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sebeok, T. A. (1998). The Estonian connection. Sign Systems Studies, 26, 20–41.
Sharov, A., & Vehkavaara, T. (2015). Protosemiosis: Agency with reduced representation capacity. Biosemiotics, 8(1), 103–123.
Prodi, G. (1979). Orizzonti della genetica. Milano: Espresso Strumenti.
Prodi, G. (1988c). La cultura come ermeneutica naturale. Intersezioni, VIII, 23–48.
Prodi, G. (2010b). Signs and codes in immunology. In D. Favareau (Ed.), Essential readings in biosemiotics: Anthology and commentary (pp. 323–336). Berlin: Springer (originariamente apparso in: Sercar E ed. The semiotics of cellular communication in the immune system, NATO ASI Series H, Cell Biology. Heidelberg).
Barbieri, M. (2014). From biosemiotics to code biology. Biological Theory, 9(2), 239–249.
Benveniste, E. (1971). Problems in general linguistics. Miami: Miami University Press.
Buchanan, B. (2008). Onto-Ethologies. The animal environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze. New York: Suny Press.
Darwin, C. (2009). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness explained. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Fouts, R. (1997). Next of kin. New York: A Living Planet Press Book.
Galef, B. (1988). Imitation in animals: History, definition, and interpretation of data from the psychological laboratory. In T. Zentall & B. Galef (Eds.), Social learning: Psychological and biological perspectives (pp. 3–28). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cimatti, F. (2018). From Complementarity to Semiosis. In: A Biosemiotic Ontology . Biosemiotics, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97903-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97903-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97902-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97903-8
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)