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Constructive Aspects of Biosemiotics

2017; Springer Nature; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s12304-017-9304-9

1875-1350

Tommi Vehkavaara, Alexei A. Sharov,

Philosophy and History of Science

Biosemiotics has emerged from the synthesis of biology and semiotics (Anderson et al. 1984), however its relations with other scientific, philosophical, and epistemological concepts are still not fully crystallized.This Special Issue is focused on constructive aspects of biosemiotics, more specifically on such a naturalized approach to agency, normativity, knowledge, and meaning that emphasizes the primacy of activity and real construction of the cognitive agents themselves as opposed to the view of agents as mainly passively or mechanically reacting.Such point of view has been central in many forms of constructivism which assumes that knowledge is actively constructed by humans or other cognitive agents (Piaget 1967).Several researchers have explored the relations between biosemiotics with constructivism (Bielecka 2012; Brier 2008; Huber and Schmidt-Tannwald 2008; Favareau 2010).The topics of interest related to construction could thus be in questions how do organisms and other agents construct: (a) themselves (self-construction) and (b) their local environment they are interacting with.The self-construction includes specifically the construction of the Bknowledge^, Bworld view^, or Umwelt (of this constructing Bself^), which is the result of the cognitive interaction of the organism/agent with its environment.The environment, in turn, contains typically other agents and their constructions, which implies that communication networks between organisms/agents are both constructed and have constructive power over their agents as well.Such constructive perspective is present in the works of theoretical precursors of biosemiotics, especially by Jakob von Uexküll (the concepts of functional circle and Umwelt), and Gregory Bateson (cybernetics and information), but to some extent also by C.S. Peirce (e.g. the meaning of a sign as constructed by its interpreter).Our attempt is to facilitate the discussion of other constructive theories which are less often employed in biosemiotics.These include second order