Abstract
Meaning is a conditio sine qua non, without which organic life cannot be understood adequately: meaning is a correlate of the establishment of a self. The dimension of meaning, therefore, is a necessary complement of autopoiesis: Life unfolds, as the other side of its physico-chemical existence, a sphere of meaning for a self emerging exactly in this process of meaning-creation.
“It is the essence of life that it exists for its own sake, as the intrinsic reaping of value.”
Alfred North Whitehead (quoted according to Sandra Lubarsky (2014).)
The thoughts in this chapter have first been published in Weber (2001)), Weber (2002)), Weber (2003) and Weber and Varela (2002). Starting from there, the role of Hans Jonas as a pivotal thinker in an embodied philosophy of mind and life has become widely acknowledged, particularly by Thompson (2007) and Di Paolo (2005).
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translations of originally German texts by me, A.W.
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“All external stimuli, that have effects on an organism affect the matrix, i.e. the organism as a whole, and through it motivate reactions […]” (ibid.).
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“Every distinguishable change, therefore, arises out of the matrix, and emerges as an act of an agent, for such a vital matrix is an agent.” (1967:322)
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“The only way an external influence can produce an act is to alter the organic situation that induces acts; and to do this it must strike in a phase of ongoing activity, in which it is immediately lost, replaced by a change of a phase in the activity”, she writes (1967:283). “Motivation”, by the way, is a term also Buytendijk (1958) uses for the same reasons, and, to spot some more relatives, Langer develops her view by discussing Uexkülls Umwelt-concept.
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This relation sees also Lachmann (2000:154n9) who refers to Maturana.
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“[…] the primary characteristics which animals see are values, and all the qualities of form, color, shape, sound, warmth, and even smell, by which we would naturally expect them to recognize things, enter into their perceptual acts only as […] values for action” (1972:55).
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“But just because the created appearance is all that has organic structure, a work shows us the appearance of life; and the semblance of functional unity is indispensable if the illusory tension pattern is to connote felt tensions, human experience.” (1953:373) Consider also: “In creating an emotive symbol, or work of art, the creator does articulate a vital import which he could not imagine apart from its expression, and consequently cannot know before he expresses it.” (1953:389)
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Weber, A. (2016). Meaning. In: Biopoetics. Biosemiotics, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0832-4_4
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