Riin Magnus

Biosemiotics Within and Without Biological Holism: A Semio-historical Analysis

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the biosemiotic work of Jakob von Uexküll and of various theories on biological holism, this article takes a look at the question: what is the status of a semiotic approach in respect to a holistic one? The period from 1920 to 1940 was the peak-time of holistic theories, despite the fact that agreement on a unified and accepted set of holistic ideas was never reached. A variety of holisms, dependent on the cultural and disciplinary contexts, is sketched here from the works of Jan Smuts, Adolf Meyer-Abich, John Scott Haldane, Kurt Goldstein, Alfred North Whitehead and Wolfgang Köhler. In contrast with his contemporary holists, who used the model of an organism as a unifying explanatory tool for all levels of reality, Jakob von Uexküll confined himself to disciplinary organicism by extending the borders of the definition of “organism” without any intention to surpass the borders of biology itself. The comparison reveals also a significant difference in the perspectives of Uexküll and his contemporary holists, a difference between a view from a subjective centre in contrast with an all-encompassing structural view. Uexküll’s theories are fairly near to J. S. Haldane’s interpretation of an organism as a coordinative centre, but even here their models do not coincide. Although biosemiotics and holistic biology have different theoretical starting points and research-goals, it is possible nonetheless to place them under one and the same doctrinal roof.

The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: Umwelt

This is the second article in a series of review articles addressing biosemiotic terminology. The biosemiotic glossary project is designed to integrate views of members within the biosemiotic community based on a standard survey and related publications. The methodology section describes the format of the survey conducted July–August 2014 in preparation of the current review and targeted on Jakob von Uexküll’s term ‘Umwelt’. Next, we summarize denotation, synonyms and antonyms, with special emphasis on the denotation of this term in current biosemiotic usage. The survey findings include ratings of eight citations defining or making use of the term Umwelt. We provide a summary of respondents’ own definitions and suggested term usage. Further sections address etymology, relevant contexts of use, and related terms in English and other languages. A section on the notion’s Uexküllian meaning and later biosemiotic meaning is followed by attempt at synthesis and conclusion. We conclude that the Umwelt is a centerpiece phenomenon, a phenomenon that other phenomena in the living realm are organized around. To sum up Uexküll’s view, we can characterize an Umwelt as the subjective world of an organism, enveloping a perceptual world and an effector world, which is always part of the organism itself and a key component of nature, which is held together by functional cycles connecting different Umwelten. In order to pay respect to Uexküll’s work, we must move from notion to model, from mention of Uexküll’s Umwelt term to actual application of it.

Time-plans of the organisms: Jakob von Uexküll’s explorations into the temporal constitution of living beings

The term “time-plan” is introduced in the article to sum up the diversity of temporal processes described by Jakob von Uexkull (1864–1944) in the framework of the general Planmassigkeit of nature. Although Uexkull hardly had any connections with his contemporary philosophies of time, the theme of the subjective times and timing of the organisms forms an essential part of his umwelt theory. As an alternative to the dominance of evolutionary time in biological discussions, Uexkull took perceptual and developmental times of organisms as his natural scientific priorities. While discussing the characteristics of the latter, Uexkull departs from an epigenetic position. Discussion about perceptual time entails detecting the primary units of time (moments) as well as how the succession of moments results in the perception of movement. The last part of the article will explicate the significance of the “time plan” concept for biophilosophical discussions. It is suggested that the bioethical question rising from Uexkull’s works may take the following form: do other biological subjects besides humans have a right to their own timing?

The Semiotic Challenges of Guide Dog Teams: the Experiences of German, Estonian and Swedish Guide Dog Users

Based on interviews with guide dog users from Sweden, Estonia and Germany and participatory observation of the teams’ work, the article discusses three kinds of semiotic challenges encountered by the guide dog teams: perceptual, sociocultural and communicative challenges. Perceptual challenges stem from a mismatch between affordances of the urban environment and perceptual and motoric abilities of the team. Sociocultural challenges pertain to the conflicting meanings that are attributed to (guide) dogs in different social contexts and to incompatible social norms. Challenges related to intrateam communication and interpretation of the other counterpart’s behavior are mostly tied to the difficulties of placing the other’s activities in the right context. Germany, Estonia and Sweden differ in their history of guide dog institutions and the organisation of guide dog work, but the challenges of the guide dog users appear to be fairly similar. However, differences appear in the stress laid on one or another type of challenge as well as in the explanations provided by the informants for the background of the challenges. The challenges, as analysed in the article, reflect not only the existing problems of guide dog users, but also their expectations for a social and physical environment, in which the teams would feel welcome.

The Function, Formation and Development of Signs in the Guide Dog Team’s Work

Relying on interviews and fieldwork observations, the article investigates the choice of signs made by guide dogs and their visually impaired handlers while the team is on the move. It also explores the dependence of the choice of signs on specific functions of communication and examines the changes and development of sign usage throughout the team’s work. A significant part of the team’s communication appears to be related to retaining the communicative situation itself: to the establishment of intrateam contact; to keeping the other prone to receive messages and to establish adequate sign relations; to giving and receiving feedback. The signs used for the purpose of retaining contact are analyzed in the article mainly with the handler in the role of the addresser. Signs also vary according to the character and aim of the team’s referential communication. Searching for objects and places, orientation and avoidance of obstacles can be discerned as three major functional frames that determine the choice of signs. As the team’s cooperation evolves, so also do the means of communication. The analysis shows that intrateam communication becomes less segmented and the signs used in referential communication shift from symbolic to symptomatic signs (e.g. body movement instead of verbal communication) and become harder to detect for an outside observer.

Eduardo Kohn’s guide to forest thinking

Review of How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human , by Eduardo Kohn. Berkley: University of California Press, 2013.

Exemplifying Umweltlehre Through One’s Own Life A Biography of Jakob von Uexküll by Florian Mildenberger

Jakob von Uexkull wasa well-know authorintheGermanbiologicalandphilosophicalcircles in the first decades of the 20th century. His work influenced Ernst Cassirer andMartin Heidegger, Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Konrad Lorenz, among many others.However, tempora mutantur, after the Modern Synthesis in biology, his texts becamenon-understandable in the framework of the mainstream discourse for several decades.But what is fascinating is that in 1987 he is mentioned as one out of 8 major classicsof semiotics (see T. von Uexkull 1987; in Krampen et al. 1987), and in 2001, as oneout of 50 major classics of biology of all times (see Hassenstein 2001,inJahnandSchmitt 2001). Meanwhile, many minds got infected by Uexkull’s TheoretischeBiologie—Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Rene Thom (not to mention thosewho in many different fields have used some of his concepts—Ortega y Gasset,Giorgio Agamben, Noam Chomsky, Arne Naess),... and above all, Thomas A. Sebeok.In 2007, Florian Mildenberger has published a monograph on the life and work ofJakob von Uexkull, entitled Umwelt als Vision: Leben und Werk Jakob von Uexkulls(1864–1944). It is the first full scientific biography written about Uexkull, predatedjust by Mildenberger’s own professorial dissertation (2005).

Introduction: Framing nature and culture

Lauri Linask, Riin Magnus The articles gathered in this special issue of Sign Systems Studies discuss a variety of discourses, theoretical models, artistic activities, principles of design, etc. which in one way or another expose and manifest, but also guide, our perception of nature and human-environment relations. Most of the articles in this issue have grown out of presentations made at the conference Framing Nature: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning, which took place in Tartu from 29 April 2014 to 3 May 2014.3 Humans create multiple environments by using various frames of interpretation. In addition, specific means of expression and modes of signification give nature a particular shape and character. However, framing nature is not a one-way process – i.e. the semiotic frames are not simply of nature, but they are part of nature as they have an effect on the ecological processes themselves. Such a modified environment in turn becomes an object of further models, interpretations and significations. Hence, nature frames culture just like culture frames nature in a variety of ways, some of which are examined in the articles of the current issue. In the first article of the issue, “Urban discourse – city space, city language, city planning: Eco-semiotic approaches to the discourse analysis of urban renewal”, Ernest W. B. Hess-Lüttich reviews a broad set of approaches to the discourse of urban development. He finds that, for planning a sustainable urban environment, successful communication between different stakeholders should take place, the stakeholders’ various backgrounds, interests and even perceptions of reality must be observed and taken into account, and a coherence of different discourses involved

A hundred introductions to semiotics, for a million students: Survey of semiotics textbooks and primers in the world

In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in different decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. The publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred in the 1980s. A leading role of French, Russian and Italian works is demonstrated.

The role of trust in binding the perspectives of guide dogs and their visually impaired handlers

Building on anthropological discussions of perspectivism and (zoo)semiotic accounts of sign use by humans and other animals, the article explores the cooperation of a guide dog and its visually impaired handler as contingent on the mutual adjustment of two individual perspectives. A perspective is defined as a point of view which comprises the meanings as well as the forms of objects that the subject perceives and acts upon. On certain occasions, individual perspectives can be alligated to one another, resulting in a transformation of the meaningful worlds of the subjects. Three types of connections between individual perspectives are delineated in the paper, resulting in the formation of mimetic, collaborative and comparative double perspectives. Although all of them bear relevance for the guide dog team’s interactions, the collaborative double perspective is put under further scrutiny. The maintenance of the collaborative double perspective depends on the formation of trust between the two individuals. While investigating the conditions for the establishment of trust, a question is raised as to whether a shared communication system can serve as an ultimate ground for it.