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Theses on Biosemiotics: Prolegomena to a Theoretical Biology

Kalevi Kull
Department of Semiotics University of Tartu Tartu, Estonia kalevi.kull@ut.ee

Terrence Deacon
Department of Anthropology University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA, USA deacon@berkeley.edu

Claus Emmeche
Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmarkemmeche@nbi.dk

Abstract Theses on the semiotic study of life as presented here provide a collectively formulated set of statements on what biology needs to be focused on in order to describe life as a process based on semiosis, or signaction. An aim of the biosemiotic approach is to explain how life evolves through all varieties of forms of communication and signification (including cellular adaptivebehavior, animal communication, and human intellect) and to provide tools for grounding sign theories. We introduce the concept of semiotic threshold zone and analyze the concepts of semiosis, function, umwelt, and the like as the basic concepts for theoretical biology. Keywords biosemiotics, communication, function, relations, semiosis, semiotic threshold zone, signification, umwelt

JesperHoffmeyer
Department of Molecular Biology University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark jhoffmeyer@mail.dk

Frederik Stjernfelt
Center for Semiotics Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark semfelt@hum.au.dk

February 19, 2009; accepted August 29, 2009 Biological Theory 4(2) 2009, 167–173. c 2010 Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

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Theses on Biosemiotics

Thevariety of scientific disciplines that constitute modern biology and semiotics, which is the science of sign systems, commonly known from the study of human language and social-sign systems, have recently demonstrated trends toward a recognition that sign processes per se and the processes of life may be intimately and inseparably interconnected. This view has developed into a general approach calledbiosemiotics. The term “biosemiotics” appears to have been coined by Friedrich S. Rothschild in 1962, but Thomas Sebeok played a major role in defining the field in the 1980s and 1990s (see, e.g., Anderson et al. 1984; Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1992; Sebeok 1996, 2001).1 There have been several attempts to formulate the basic principles of biosemiotics, in both extensive versions (Hoffmeyer 1996, 2008)and the more compact ones (Sebeok 1996; Hoffmeyer 1997; Emmeche et al. 2002; Stjernfelt 2002), together with detailed analyses of some central biosemiotic problems (Deacon 1997; Kull et al. 2008). Still, the establishment of biosemiotics requires, on the one hand, a deepening and grounding of the theory of semiotics and, on the other hand, a development of a richer theoretical biology. But asthose of us who identify as biosemioticians have begun to organize international associations, annual meetings, edited volumes, and journals devoted to this new field, it has become apparent that a single well-defined paradigm is still in the process of coalescing from a diverse collection of theoretical positions. Although such diversity is a healthy starting point from which to develop anintellectually productive field of research, it is also important to develop a clear sense of the scope of these various visions of the field. To accomplish this it is necessary to first identify points of common terminology and shared theoretical assumptions and then to identify incompatible frameworks and conceptual issues that still need to be resolved. This article represents an effort to articulate a commonset of assumptions that are shared among a group of researchers in the field, who ground their work on a strongly Peircean framework. It is hoped that carefully outlining and analyzing our shared theoretical assumptions will help clarify and contrast this approach with respect to others. Because a significant number of those of us who identify themselves as Peircean biosemioticians are located in...