Abstract
Because of the reduction of his theory to The Origin of Species (1859) and its slogan “descent with modification by means of natural selection”, Darwin’s contribution to the study of language is largely overlooked. However, in later works, such as The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), Darwin develops his theory of language and of signs in general. These considerations are contained within Darwin’s ethology, which is different from the theory of instinct of The Origin based on natural selection. Respecting the idea of continuity between non-human animals and human beings, the Darwinian animal appears as a hermeneutical subject that constructs its own world and behaves accordingly by taking into account both its structure and the surrounding conditions. Moreover, the Darwinian animal is able to emit both voluntary and involuntary signs that can be recognised as such by the animal or an observer (human or non-human). The Expression of the Emotions is dedicated to the study of sign emission, which has to be understood in the context of Darwinian ethology. In this article, I argue that both Darwinian ethology and biosemiotics (represented by the theory of the expression of the emotions) correspond to Saussure’s definition of historical sciences. Darwin’s ethology and biosemiotics are composed of contingent facts that have to be studied historically.
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- 1.
- 2.
Darwin 1859, p. 488.
- 3.
Ibid., pp. 134–139, 207–244.
- 4.
Winter’s definition of biosemiotics will be applied in this article: “By biosemiotics I mean not only a theory that reads biological systems in semiotic terms but also one that shows how such systems function at all levels through signaling and thus through producing nonlinguistic biological signs” (Winter 2009, p. 130).
- 5.
While I will adopt Winter’s definition of biosemiotics, I will focus on Darwinian ethology and on its compatibility with Saussure’s epistemology of the science of language, which constitutes an extension of Winter’s work.
- 6.
- 7.
Darwin does not give a definition of instinct, which he seems to reduce to an innate tendency to accomplish more or less complex actions in accordance with the external circumstances.
- 8.
The entries in the M and N notebooks are numerous, the evolution of Darwin ’s thought on instinct is also particularly well illustrated in his 1842 Sketch, his 1844 Essay and his 1856–1858 Natural Selection. Cf. Darwin, quoted in Barrett et al. 1987 [2008, pp. 517–596]; Darwin, quoted in F. Darwin 1909, pp. 17–21, 112–132; Darwin, quoted in Stauffer 1975, pp. 466–527. I have treated this issue elsewhere, cf. Thomas 2013.
- 9.
Richards 1987, pp. 142–152.
- 10.
Darwin 1859, p. 242.
- 11.
Cf., e.g., Ghiselin 1969 [2003, pp. 187–213].
- 12.
The “provisional hypothesis of pangenesis” is Darwin ’s theory of heredity developed in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868). This complex and fascinating theory states that each part of an organism emits gemmules that are transmitted through reproduction. Changes in the organism lead to similar changes in the gemmules and to the possibility of the inheritance of new traits. However, complex rules preclude a systematic heredity of new characters. It has to be noted that the hypothesis of pangenesis can be considered as a theory of reproduction compatible with the heredity of habits. Cf. Darwin 1868, vol. II, pp. 357–432; Ghiselin 1969 [2003, pp. 181–186]; Ruse 1979 [1999, pp. 212–213]; Hodge 1985, pp. 227–237; Endersby 2009, pp. 82–86.
- 13.
The extensive use of the heredity of habits renders The Expression strangely un-Darwinian for readers that consider The Origin as a summary of Darwin ’s thought (cf. Radick 2010).
- 14.
Morgan 1895, p. 53.
- 15.
- 16.
Cf. Tort 2010, pp. 63–152.
- 17.
- 18.
Darwin 1874, pp. 61–62.
- 19.
Burkhardt 1985, pp. 349–350.
- 20.
- 21.
The adjective useless, although prone to be criticised, is here chosen on purpose as opposed to useful, i.e. to advantageous behaviour and structures in the context of the struggle for existence.
- 22.
Darwin 1874, p. 75.
- 23.
These terms are used as they have been established by Durant (1985).
- 24.
Darwin 1874, p. 402. In more modern terms, the epigenetic level, represented by the heredity of habits, is the source of the evolution of behaviour. This explanation of the evolution of behaviour is opposed to the theory of instinct defended in The Origin, which would correspond to a genetic account of behaviour.
- 25.
Ibid., pp. 420–421.
- 26.
Wallace 1889, pp. 268–300.
- 27.
- 28.
Baldwin 1896.
- 29.
Wallace argues that coloration is always under the realm of natural selection. According to him, conspicuous females having the habits of hatching unprotected are eliminated while less conspicuous females are selected. Darwin reverses this process by stating that when females become conspicuous, they alter their habits of nidification. While it could be possible that such new habits are the results of the selection of a spontaneous variation, Darwin’s anthropomorphic zoology suggests that such behaviour is the product of intelligence and can become instinctive by the heredity of habits. It has to be noted that this alteration of the hatching habits echoes the acquisition of instinctive fear in Natural Selection, which is certainly the best example of the use of the heredity of intelligent habits in Darwin’s manuscripts (cf. Darwin, quoted in Stauffer 1975, pp. 495–496; Darwin 1874, pp. 452–453; Wallace 1871, pp. 249–263 and 1889, pp. 277–281).
- 30.
Dominique Lestel considers that ethology is mainly realist-Cartesian: “Contemporary ethology emphasizes an approach to the animal which could be characterized as realistic and Cartesian. It combines fundamental description of the world with stipulation of the legitimate ways of studying it. It supposes that there is a world which is separated from the subject, and that we can provide a genuine description of the animal by investigating the causal and mechanical procedures determining animal behaviour. The possibility of observations without observers, and the description of an animal as a machine, therefore fundamentally define this approach” (Lestel 2011, pp. 83–84).
- 31.
Cf. ibid., pp. 84, 89.
- 32.
This approach corresponds to bi-constructivism, which is Lestel’s alternative to the realist-Cartesian paradigm (ibid., pp. 83–102).
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
Darwin 1890, pp. 10–11.
- 36.
Although numerous scholars have noted this particularity of The Expression (cf., e.g., Browne 1985; Burkhardt 1985; Richards 1987 and more recently Radick 2010), others, such as Michel T. Ghiselin (cf. Ghiselin 1969 [2003]), have completely distorted Darwin ’s text by introducing natural selection within The Expression. Only four occurrences of natural selection appear in The Expression and none of them considers natural selection as an essential explanation of expressive movements (Darwin 1890, pp. 44, 110, 113, 381).
- 37.
Ibid., pp. 29–30.
- 38.
Ibid., pp. 9–13, 30, 41–43, 49–50, 71–75, 80, 209, 358–364.
- 39.
Ibid., p. 36.
- 40.
Or in the centre of the nervous system.
- 41.
Darwin 1890, pp. 41–44.
- 42.
Contrarily to instinctive actions, intelligent actions are issued from conscious choices (from the animal).
- 43.
For example, the position that the cat adopts in order to attack its prey is useful. On the contrary, the movement of the loving cat, opposed to the position of the attacking cat, is of no use. Still, the cat can, by this position, show that it is not going to attack.
- 44.
Darwin 1890, pp. 67–68.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Ibid., pp. 86–87.
- 47.
- 48.
Darwin 1874, pp. 130–134.
- 49.
Variations can be studied independently through time while natural selection represents a differential system (cf. Röllin 1980).
- 50.
Winter 2009, p. 145.
- 51.
- 52.
Cf. Tort 1980.
- 53.
Behaviour can be considered as cultural when the animal actions are not determined by their biology and their environment. It is necessary to add the importance of meaning for the animal considered as a subject (cf. Lestel 2001, p. 368).
- 54.
A common mistake has to be avoided here. Saussure uses historical as opposed to natural. Linguistics is a historical (and not natural) science. With respect to the later distinction of diachronic and synchronic linguistics, both aspects have to be studied by a historical, i.e. not natural, science. In other words, the definition of linguistics as a historical science must not be reduced to diachronic considerations. It is via this very broad sense of historical as opposed to natural that Darwin ’s ethology and linguistics can be linked with Saussure’s epistemology of the science of language.
- 55.
Historical sciences, according to Saussure, study voluntary actions. However, the voluntary character of actions can be more or less pregnant. With respect to language, the voluntary character of linguistic acts is reduced to its minimum by Saussure (cf. Saussure 1891 [1967–1974, pp. 5–6] and 2002, p. 150).
- 56.
The voluntary character of actions is one of the “conditions” of historical sciences as defined by Saussure.
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Robert, T. (2015). Darwin’s Ethology and the Expression of the Emotions: Biosemiotics as a Historical Science. In: Velmezova, E., Kull, K., Cowley, S. (eds) Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics. Biosemiotics, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20663-9_13
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