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Introduction to Biosemiotics

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International Handbook of Semiotics

Abstract

This chapter provides an introductory overview of biosemiotics—the study of meaning-making mechanisms in the living world. Biosemiotics is a study of those types of sign processes that are not based on human language. We describe history of the field both before 1960 (focussing particularly on the work of Jakob von Uexküll), and after this date (in the framework of institutionalized semiotics). In addition to the phenomena and role of meaningful communication (including autocommunication, intraspecies, and interspecies communication) in the organization and design of organisms and communities, the problems as the semiotic thresholds, models of semiosis, and the role of semiosis in development and evolution are dealt from the biosemiotic point of view, i.e. on the basis of semiotic modelling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Mind also includes all the types of Aristotle’s anima. Translating J. Lotman in this manner one can lean on his shifting use of expression. In the Russian title of the book, “Внутри мыслящих миров”, the word mind is rendered мыслящие, or thinking; supposedly, one working title of the book was “Самовозрастающий логос” (self-expanding logos). Lotman defines intellect in relatively broad terms, not as uniquely human. Compare Hoffmeyer and Kull (2003).

  2. 2.

    Naturally, not everything in the world is plural; there are also singular things. With this we accept that in addition to mind there is also non-mind (that is, non-plural, or singular)— and thus there exist regions of plurality, that is, of signness (i.e. semiospheres). Such a world view (an ontology) can therefore also be called local pluralism.

  3. 3.

    In 1820s, also the earlier work of Caspar F. Wolff on epigenesis was rediscovered (Jahn 2001, p. 95).

  4. 4.

    Such a task was also formulated by Rosen et al. (1979, pp. 87). Cf. Kull et al. (2008).

  5. 5.

    For a more detailed comparison, see Uexküll (1992).

  6. 6.

    For Baer’s views, see Baer (1864). It is worth noting that in 1826 Karl Ernst von Baer was elected the professor of physiology, pathology and semiotics (!) of the University of Tartu, but he refused, since, at the time, he was conducting empirical research in Königsberg. Medicinal semiotics, one of the oldest branches of semiotics, engaged in studying the signs and symptoms of diseases, was well developed in nineteenth-century medicine. Medicinal semiotics, biosemiotics, and general semiotics were later unified in the works of Thure von Uexküll, the son of Jakob von Uexküll. (In 1994, Thure von Uexküll was elected honorary doctor of the University of Tartu in the field of semiotics and medicine.)

  7. 7.

    On these influences, see, e.g. Mildenberger (2007).

  8. 8.

    Naturally, there are more aspects to this, see e.g. Kull (1999).

  9. 9.

    T. Sebeok has described this period numerous times, e.g. Sebeok (1998).

  10. 10.

    Somewhat later, John Deely (2001, 2004) will put forth an analysis in which Uexküll stands next to Peirce as the ones who initiated the turn that would end modernity.

  11. 11.

    A name unfortunately somewhat misleading, since according to the more substantial division what is important is not the semiotics of plants, but rather the semiotics of the vegetative level (i.e., including the sign processes in protists, in fungi as well as of the tissue level in animals).

  12. 12.

    See Kull (2011).

  13. 13.

    Or rather threshold zone (see Kull et al. 2009).

  14. 14.

    And the much later discovery that there is not just one, but a bevy of (slightly different) genetic codes.

  15. 15.

    This is one of the foundational claims of biosemiotics, elaborated by Hoffmeyer (1996, 2008a). The conditions of the lower semiotic threshold, or rather a threshold zone (Kull et al. 2009) has been thoroughly studied by Deacon (2011). See also Kauffman (2012).

  16. 16.

    In his treatment of the semiotic threshold, Eco (1979/1976, 1988) placed this boundary between stereochemistry and the world of meanings. Indeed, transcription amounts to a stereochemical copying, while translation is an entirely different sort of relationship, which is not physically determined; the same goes for the nucleotide sequence in DNA and RNAs as well.

  17. 17.

    On the topic of zoosemiotics, cf. Turovski (2001), Maran (2007).

  18. 18.

    There can be more than three basic levels of learning mechanisms and accordingly of basic levels of semioses. For instance, between the indexical and symbolic, we have distinguished the emonic semiosis, which is characterised by imitative capacity or social learning and emotions. Emonic signs exist seemingly only in vertebrate animals.

  19. 19.

    The research conducted by Lev Vygotsky provides one source for the study of the symbolic threshold zone; the neurosemiotic foundation of this threshold zone has been described by Deacon (1997).

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Acknowledgments

I thank Silver Rattasepp for translation. The work is related to IUT2-44.

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  1. Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Kalevi Kull

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Correspondence to Kalevi Kull .

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  1. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education / University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Peter Pericles Trifonas

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Kull, K. (2015). Introduction to Biosemiotics. In: Trifonas, P. (eds) International Handbook of Semiotics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9404-6_22

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