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50The Great Chain of Semiosis. Investigating the Steps in the Evolution of Semiotic CompetenceBiosemiotics 9 (1): 7-29. 2016.Based on the conception of life and semiosis as co-extensive an attempt is given to classify cognitive and communicative potentials of species according to the plasticity and articulatory sophistication they exhibit. A clear distinction is drawn between semiosis and perception, where perception is seen as a high-level activity, an integrated product of a multitude of semiotic interactions inside or between bodies. Previous attempts at finding progressive trends in evolution that might justify a …Read more
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8Dicisigns and Habits: Implicit Propositions and Habit-Taking in Peirce’s PragmatismIn Myrdene Anderson & Donna West (eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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1427Firefly Femmes Fatales: A Case Study in the Semiotics of DeceptionBiosemiotics 3 (1): 33-55. 2010.Mimicry and deception are two important issues in studies about animal communication. The reliability of animal signs and the problem of the benefits of deceiving in sign exchanges are interesting topics in the evolution of communication. In this paper, we intend to contribute to an understanding of deception by studying the case of aggressive signal mimicry in fireflies, investigated by James Lloyd. Firefly femmes fatales are specialized in mimicking the mating signals of other species of firef…Read more
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11Thermodynamic metaphors: A discussion of basic ideas in cognitive semantics exemplified in a hot topicSemiotica 2003 (146): 267-285. 2003.
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53Investigations Into the Phenomenology and the Ontology of the Work of Art: What are Artworks and How Do We Experience Them? (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2015.This book investigates the nature of aesthetic experience and aesthetic objects. Written by leading philosophers, psychologists, literary scholars and semioticians, the book addresses two intertwined issues. The first is related to the phenomenology of aesthetic experience: The understanding of how human beings respond to artworks, how we process linguistic or visual information, and what properties in artworks trigger aesthetic experiences. The examination of the properties of aesthetic experi…Read more
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36Simple animals and complex biology: Von Uexküll’s two-fold influence on Cassirer’s philosophySynthese 179 (1): 169-186. 2011.It is a well-known fact that Ernst Cassirer was inspired by his colleague, the biologist Jakob von Uexkiill at the university of Hamburg. This paper claims this inspiration was double—affecting both Cassirer's philosophical anthropology and Cassirer's epistemology of biology, but in two rather different ways. Thus, the paper intends to shed light on a corner of the history of the development of German thought of the interwar period. It may also have an actual interest because both Cassirer and U…Read more
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23Locale, Street, Square—a Naive Theory of the CityKnowledge, Technology & Policy 21 (3): 105-113. 2008.
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134Theses on Biosemiotics: Prolegomena to a Theoretical BiologyBiological Theory 4 (2): 167-173. 2009.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 sign action. An aim of the biosemiotic approach is to explain how life evolves through all varieties of forms of communication and signification (including cellular adaptive behavior, animal communication, and human intellect) and to provide tools for grounding sign theories. We introduce the…Read more
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19Waterproof fire stations? Conceptual schemata and cognitive operations involved in compound constructionsSemiotica 2006 (161): 363-393. 2006.
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36The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologismSemiotica 2013 (194): 77-109. 2013.
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46On operational and optimal iconicity in Peirce's diagrammatologySemiotica 2011 (186): 395-419. 2011.Two different concepts of iconicity compete in Peirce's diagrammatical logic. One is articulated in his general reflections on the role of diagrams in thought, in what could be termed his diagrammatology — the other is articulated in his construction of Existential Graphs as an iconic system for representing logic. One is operational and defines iconicity in terms of which information may be derived from a given diagram or diagram system — the other has stronger demands on iconicity, adding to t…Read more
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Green War Banners in Central Copenhagen: A Recent Political Struggle Over Interpretation—And Some Implications for Art Interpretation as SuchIn Peer F. Bundgaard & Frederik Stjernfelt (eds.), Investigations Into the Phenomenology and the Ontology of the Work of Art: What are Artworks and How Do We Experience Them?, Springer Verlag. 2015.
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27The ontology of espionage in reality and fictionSign Systems Studies 31 (1): 133-161. 2003.A basic form of iconicity in literature is the correspondence between basic conceptual schemata in literary semantics on the one hand and in factual treatments on the other. The semantics of a subject like espionage is argued to be dependent on the ontology of the field in question, with reference to the English philosopher Barry Smith’s “fallibilistic apriorism”. This article outlines such an ontology, on the basis of A. J. Greimas’s semiotics and Carl Schmitt’s philosophy of state, claiming th…Read more
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14Multi safe compound constructions: A reply to Anders SøgaardSemiotica 2008 (172): 313-322. 2008.
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20Sebeotics at the threshold: Reflections around a brief Sebeok introductionSemiotica 2003 (147). 2003.
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407Mereology and semioticsSign Systems Studies 28 73-97. 2000.This paper gives a fIrst overview over the role of mereology the theory of parts and wholes - in semiotics. The mereology of four major semioticians - Husserl, Jakobson, Hjelmslev, and Peirce is presented briefly and its role in the overall architecture of each of their theories is outlined - with Brentano tradition as reference. Finally, an evaluation of the strength and weaknesses of the four is undertaken, and some guidelines for further research is proposed.
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72Dicisigns: Peirce’s semiotic doctrine of propositionsSynthese 192 (4): 1019-1054. 2015.The paper gives a detailed reconstruction and discussion of Peirce’s doctrine of propositions, so-called Dicisigns, developed in the years around 1900. The special features different from the logical mainstream are highlighted: the functional definition not dependent upon conscious stances nor human language, the semiotic characterization extending propositions and quasi-propositions to cover prelinguistic and prehuman occurrences of signs, the relations of Dicisigns to the conception of facts, …Read more
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38Peirce and diagrams: two contributors to an actual discussion review each otherSynthese 192 (4): 1073-1088. 2015.The following two review papers have a common origin. Pietarinen’s book Signs of Logic and Stjernfelt’s book Diagrammatology were both published in the same Synthese Library Series being published by Springer. The two books also share the common topic of diagrammatic reasoning in Charles Peirce’s work. Beginning in a conference Applying Peirce held in Helsinki in conjunction with the World Congress of Semiotics in June 2007, two authors have commented upon these books under the headline of Synth…Read more
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Aarhus UniversityRegular Faculty