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42The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: The Semiotic ThresholdBiosemiotics 10 (1): 109-126. 2017.The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way to address common terminology within biosemiotic research. The glossary integrates the view of the members of the biosemiotic community through a standard survey and a literature review. The concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ was first introduced by Umberto Eco, defining it as a boundary between semiotic and non-semiotic areas. We review here the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’, first describing its denotation within sem…Read more
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6What kind of evolutionary biology suits cultural research?Sign Systems Studies 44 (4): 634-647. 2016.What kind of evolutionary biology suits cultural research?
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8Biosemiootika ja looduse sisemise väärtuse probleem. KokkuvõteSign Systems Studies 29 (1): 364-365. 2001.
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41The institution of semiotics in EstoniaSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 314-341. 2011.The article gives a historical overview of the institutional development of semiotics in Estonia during two centuries, and describes briefly its current status. The key characteristics of semiotics in Estonia include: (1) seminal role of two world-level classics of semiotics from the University of Tartu, Juri Lotman and Jakob von Uexkull; (2) the impact of Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics, with a series of summer schools in Kaariku in 1960s and the establishment of semiotic study of culture; (3)…Read more
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50Semiotic ecology: different natures in the semiosphereSign Systems Studies 26 (1): 344-371. 1998.
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3Alexandr Levich (1945–2016) and the Tartu–Moscow Biosemiotic NexusSign Systems Studies 44 (1-2): 255-266. 2016.Alexandr Levich and the Tartu–Moscow Biosemiotic Nexus.
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47Interview with Vyacheslav V. Ivanov about semiotics, the languages of the brain and history of ideasSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 290-313. 2011.The interview with one of the founders of the Tartu–Moscow school, semiotician Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov (b. 1929) from August 2010, describes V. V. Ivanov’s opinions of several scholars and their work (including Evgenij Polivanov, Mikhail Bakhtin, Andrej Kolmogorov, Nikolaj Marr etc.), his relationships with his father Vsevolod Ivanov, as well as V. V. Ivanov’s views on the past and future of semiotics, with some emphasis on neurosemiotics, zoosemiotics, semiotics of culture, cybernetics,…Read more
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52The place of art among other modelling systemsSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 249-269. 2011.This article by Juri Lotman from the third volume of Trudy po znakovym sistemam (Sign Systems Studies) in 1967, deals with the problem of artistic modelling. The general working questions are whether art displays any characteristic traits that are common for all modelling systems and which could be the specific traits that can distinguish art from other modelling systems. Art is seen as a secondary modelling system, more precisely, as a play-type model, which is characterised simultaneously by p…Read more
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40Biosemiotics: To know, what life knowsCybernetics and Human Knowing 16 (3/4): 81-88. 2009.The field of semiotics is described as a general study of knowing. Knowing in a broad sense as a process that assumes (and includes) at least memory (together with heredity), anticipation, communication, meaningful information, and needs, is a distinctive feature of living systems. Sciences are distinguished accordingly into 'phi-sciences' (that use physicalist methodology) and 'sigma-sciences' (that use semiotic methodology). Jesper Hoffmeyer’s book Biosemiotics is viewed as an inquiry into the…Read more
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44Uexküll and the post-modern evolutionismSign Systems Studies 32 (1-2): 99-114. 2004.Jakob von Uexküll’s evolutionary views are described and analysed in the context of changes in semiotic and biological thinking at the end of Modern age. As different from the late Modernist biology, a general feature of Post-Modern interpretation of living systems is that an evolutionary explanation has rather secondary importance, it is not obligatory for an understanding of adaptation. Adaptation as correspondence to environment is a communicative, hence a semiotic phenomenon.
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4Bioloogia filosoofia ja metodoloogia: XIV teoreetilise bioloogia kevadkooli (7-9 mai, 1988, Kastna) teesidEesti Nsv Teaduste Akadeemia. 1988.
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29On the history of joining bio with semio: FS Rothschild and the biosemiotic rulesSign Systems Studies 27 128-138. 1999.
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113Jakob von Uexküll: An introductionSemiotica 2001 (134): 1-59. 2001.The article gives an account of life and work of Jakob von Uexk?ll, together with a description of his impact to theoretical biology, behavioural studies, and semiotics. It includes the complete bibliography of Uexk?ll's published works, as well as an extensive list of publications about him.
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14The Semiotic SpeciesAmerican Journal of Semiotics 32 (1/4): 35-48. 2016.Animals are treated in philosophy dominantly as opposed to humans, without revealing their independent semiotic richness. This is a direct consequence of the common way of defining the uniqueness of humans. We analyze the concept of ‘semiotic animal’, proposed by John Deely as a definition of human specificity, according to which humans are semiotic (capable of understanding signs as signs), unlike other species, who are semiosic (capable of sign use). We compare and contrast this distinction to…Read more
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24Baldwin and biosemiotics: What intelligence is forIn Bruce H. Weber & David J. Depew (eds.), Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered, Mit Press. pp. 253--272. 2003.
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42Evolution, Choice, and Scaffolding: Semiosis is Changing Its Own BuildingBiosemiotics 8 (2): 223-234. 2015.We develop here a semiotic model of evolution. We point out the role of confusion and choice as a condition for semiosis, which is a precondition for semiotic learning and semiotic adaptation. Semiosis itself as interpretation and decision-making between options requires phenomenal present. The body structure of the organism is largely a product of former semiosis. The organism’s body together with the structure of the ecosystem serves also as a scaffolding for the sign processes that carry on t…Read more
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50Biosemiotic QuestionsBiosemiotics 1 (1): 41-55. 2008.This paper examines the biosemiotic approach to the study of life processes by fashioning a series of questions that any worthwhile semiotic study of life should ask. These questions can be understood simultaneously as: (1) questions that distinguish a semiotic biology from a non-semiotic (i.e., reductionist–physicalist) one; (2) questions that any student in biosemiotics should ask when doing a case study; and (3) still currently unanswered questions of biosemiotics. In addition, some examples …Read more
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10An introduction to phytosemioticsSign Systems Studies 28 326-350. 2000.Asking, whether plants have semiosis, the article gives a review of the works on phytosemiotics, referring to the tradition in botany that has seen plants as non-mechanic systems. This approach can use the concept of biological need as the primary holistic process in living systems. Demonstrating the similarity between the need and semiosis, it is concluded that sign is a meronomic entity. A distinction between five levels of sign systems is proposed: cellular, vegetative, animal, linguistic, an…Read more
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26A note on biorhetoricsSign Systems Studies 29 (2): 693-703. 2001.This article analyses the possibility to look at living systems as biorhetorical systems. Rhetorics of biology, which studies the rhetoric of biological discourse, is distinguishable from biorhetorics, which attempts to analyse the expressive behaviour of organisms in terms of primordial (unconscious) rhetoric. The appearance of such a view is a logical consequence from recent developments in new (or general) rhetorics on the one hand (e.g., G. A. Kennedy's claim that rhetoric exists among socia…Read more