-
Evolution and semioticsIn Thomas A. Sebeok & Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.), Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991, . 1992.
-
16Uexküll 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.
-
33An 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
-
24Semiosphere and a dual ecologySign Systems Studies 33 (1): 175-188. 2005.This article compares the methodologies of two types of sciences (according to J. Locke) — semiotics, and physics — and attempts thereby to characterise the semiotic and non-semiotic approaches to the description of ecosystems. The principal difference between the physical and semiotic sciences is that there exists just a single physical reality that is studied by physics via repetitiveness, whereas there are many semiotic realities that are studied as unique individuals. Seventeen complementary…Read more
-
8Semiosphere is the relational biosphereIn Claus Emmeche (ed.), Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs, Imperial College Press. pp. 179--194. 2011.
-
34Ladder, tree, webSign Systems Studies 31 (2): 589-602. 2003.Fundamental turns in biological understanding can be interpreted as replacements of deep models that organise the biological knowledge. Three deep models distinguished here are a holistic ladder model that sees all levels of nature being complete (from Aristotle to the 18th century), a modernist tree model that emphasises progress and evolution (from Enlightenment to the recent times), and a web model that evaluates diversity (since the 20th century). The turn from the tree model to the web mode…Read more
-
51Interview 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
-
15Habits – semioses – habits (review)Sign Systems Studies 44 (4): 623-629. 2016.Review of Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness. Donna E. West and Myrdene Anderson. Cham: Springer, 2016, 434 pp.
-
42Exemplifying Umweltlehre Through One’s Own Life A Biography of Jakob von Uexküll by Florian MildenbergerBiosemiotics 2 (1): 121-125. 2009.
-
12Beyond Word: On the Semiotic MechanismsBiosemiotics 7 (3): 465-470. 2014.Juri Lotman wrote, in Russian, a book Непредсказуемые механизмы культуры — the unpredictable mechanisms of culture. Its English translator, Brian Baer, preferred to translate the title as The Unpredictable Workings of Culture . He had a reason for this — many scholars tend to refuse the term ‘mechanism’ for the phenomena of meaning-making. However, there exist quite clear cultural differences in this opinion. For instance in Russian, ‘mechanisms’ are understood so broadly that there is no questi…Read more
-
42Biosemiotics and the problem of intrinsic value of natureSign Systems Studies 29 (1): 353-364. 2001.This article poses the hypothesis that the problem of the intrinsic value of nature that stems from the work of G. E. Moore and is widely discussed in environmental philosophy, bas a parallel in a contemporary discussion in semiotics on the existence of semiosis in nature. From a semiotic point of view. value can be defined as an intentional dimension of sign. This is concordant with a biological interpretation of value that relates to biological needs. Thus. a semiotic approach in biology may p…Read more
-
27Semiootika institutsioon Eestis. KokkuvõteSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 342-342. 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: seminal role of two world-level classics of semiotics from the University of Tartu, Juri Lotman and Jakob von Uexküll; the impact of Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics, with a series of summer schools in Kääriku in 1960s and the establishment of semiotic study of culture; the publica…Read more
-
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
-
6What kind of evolutionary biology suits cultural research?Sign Systems Studies 44 (4): 634-647. 2016.What kind of evolutionary biology suits cultural research?
-
8Biosemiootika ja looduse sisemise väärtuse probleem. KokkuvõteSign Systems Studies 29 (1): 364-365. 2001.
-
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
-
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.
-
50Semiotic ecology: different natures in the semiosphereSign Systems Studies 26 (1): 344-371. 1998.
-
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
-
Semiosphere versus biosphereIn Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Elsevier. pp. 11--194. 2005.
-
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