Cover of Sign Systems Studies
Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-20 of 45 documents


1. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Winfried Nöth, Kalevi Kull Introduction: Special issue on semiotics of nature
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
the semiotic threshold: semiosis in the physical nature?
2. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Winfried Nöth Protosemiotics and physicosemiosis
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Protosemiotics is the study of the rudiments of semiosis, primarily in nature. The extension of the semiotic field from culture to nature is both necessary and possible in the framework of Peirce's semiotic theory. Against this extension, the critique of pansemiotism has been raised. However, Peirce's semiotics is not pansemiotic since it is based on the criterion of thirdness, which is not ubiquitous in nature. The paper examines the criteria of protosemiosis in the domain of physical and mechanical processes.
3. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Winfried Nöth Protosemiootika ja füsikosemioosis. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
4. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
John Deely Physiosemiosis in the semiotic spiral: A play of musement
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
A main question for semiotics today is how far does the paradigm for the action of signs, semiosis. extend. There is general agreement by now that semiosis extends at least as far as awareness or cognition occurs, which includes the entire domain of animal sign usage, or zoosemiosis. The open question today is whether semiotics is broader still, and on this question two positions have emerged. The comparatively conservative position would extend semiotics to the whole of living things. This extension was first formally proposed and argued under the label phytosemiotics, the study of an action of signs in the realm of vegetable life. The conservative faction has rallied around the label of biosemiotics. The more radical faction argues that even this extension leaves something out, namely, the physical universe at large which surrounds and upon which depends all life. The radical argument is that what is distinctive of the action of signs is the shaping of the past on the basis of furore events, a shaping that can be discerned even in the rocks and among the stars - a veritable physiosemiosis, theoretical justification and practical exploration ofwhich marks the final frontier of semiotic inquiry.
5. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
John Deely Füsiosemioosis semiootilises spiraalis: mõttejoon. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
6. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Lucia Santaella "Matter as effete mind": Peirce's synechistic ideas on the semiotic threshold
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Following Peirce's broad concept of semiosis as a foundation of a field ofsrudy, the semiotics ofphysical nanrre, it is argued that we have to explore the interconnections of Peirce's semiotics with metaphysics. These interconnections will be analyzed in five steps: (I) Peirce's radical antidualism and evolutionism, implied in his synechistic ideas, (2) Peirce's semiotic statement that "all this universe is perfused with signs if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448, n.l), (3) Peirce's bold statement that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.24), (4) his theory of final causation, which can only be properly understood in the light of semiosis, (5) his metaphysics and his methodeutics in relation to semiotics. The laws of nature are discovered by abductive inference revealing an affinity between the human mind and the designs of nature. Hence, the formal laws of thought are not simply laws of our minds but laws of the intelligibility of things.
7. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Lucia Santaella "Mateeria kui (välja)kurnatud mõte": Peirce'i sünekistlikud vaated semiootilise läve kohta. Kokkuvote
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
8. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Solomon Marcus Conway's game of life and the ecosystem represented by Uexküll's concept of Umwelt
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Inspired by a mathematical ecology of thearre (M. Dinu) and the eco-grammar systems (E. Csuhaj-Varju et al.), this paper gives a brief analysis of simple cellular automata games in order to demonstrate their primary semiotic features. In particular, the behaviour of configurations in Conway's game of life is compared to several general features of Uexküll's concept of Umwelt. It is concluded that ecological processes have a fundamental semiotic dimension.
9. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Solomon Marcus Conway "elu mäng" ja ökosüsteemi esirus Uexkülli omailma mudeli abil. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
general ecosemiotics
10. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Winfried Nöth Ecosemiotics and the semiotics of nature
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Ecosemiotics is the study of sign processes (semioses) in relation to the natural environment in which they occur. The paper examines the cultural, biological, and evolutionary dimensions of ecosemioses on the basis of C. S. Peirce's theory of continuity between matter and mind and investigates the ecosemiotic dimensions of natural signs. Ecosemiotics and the semiotics of nature are distinguished from pansemiotism, and the coevolution of sign processes with their natural enviromnent is discussed as a determining factor of ecosemiosis.
11. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Winfried Nöth Ökosemiootika ja looduse semiootika Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
12. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Zdzislaw Wąsik On the biological concept of subjective significance: A link between the semiotics of nature and the semiotics of culture
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
A logical-philosophical approach to the meaning-carriers or meaning-processes is juxtaposed with the anthropological-biological concepts of subjective significance uniting both for the semiotics of culture and the semiotics of nature. It is assumed that certain objects, which are identifiable in the universe of man and in the world surrounding all living organisms as significant from the perspective of meaning-receivers, meaning-creators and meaning-utilizers, can be determined as signs when they represent other objects, perform certain tasks or satisfy certain needs of subjects. Hence, the meaning of signifying objects may be found in the relation between the expression of a signifier and (I) a signified content, or (2) a signified function, or (3) a signified value of the cultural and natural objects subsumed by the interpreting subjects under the semiotic ones.
13. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Zdzislaw Wąsik Subjektiivse täbenduslikkuse bioloogilisest mõistest: seos looduse- ja kultuurisemiootika vahel. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
14. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Soren Brier Ecosemiotics and cybersemiotics
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The article develops a suggestion of how cybersemiotics is pertinent to ecosemiotics. Cybersemiotics uses Luhmann's triadic view of autopoietic systems (biological, psychological, and socio-communicative autopoiesis) and adopts his approach to communication within a biosemiotic framework. The following levels of exosemiosis and signification can be identified under the consideration of nonintentional signs, cybernetics, and information theory: (1) the socio-communicative level of self-conscious signification and language games. (2) the instinctual and species specific level of sign stimuli signifying through innate release response mechanism and sign games, and (3) the level of structural coupling, signal recognition, and languaging, where cybernetic feedback loops evince differences. Signification and communication levels arise whenever autopoietic systems interpenetrate (I) with the language system's semiotic and the psyche's phenosemiotic processes based on imaging, emotion, and volition and (2) between the psyche's phenosemiotic and the body's endosemiotic processes. It is at these two levels that we have the ecosemiotic signification processes of nonintentional signs in nature. Humans are linguistic cyborgs as animals are sign cyborgs because signs at different levels interpenetrate and form our embodied processes. Sign producing and interpreting capability has had selective influence on both animals and humans in evolution.
15. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Soren Brier Ökosemiootika ja kübersemiootika. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
cultural ecosemiotics
16. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Alf Hornborg Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Ecosemiotics represents a theoretical approach to human ecology that can be applied across several disciplines. lts primary justification lies inthe ambition to transcend "Cartesian", conceptual dichotomies such as culture/nature. society/nature, mental/material. etc. It argues that ecosystems areconstituted no less by flows of signs than by flows of matter and energy. This paper discusses the roles of different kinds of hmnan sign systems in the ecologyof Amazonia, ranging from the phenomenology of unconscious sensations. through linguistic signs such as metaphors and ethnobiological taxonomies, to money and the political economy of environmental destruction. Human-environmental relations mediated by direct, sensory and (oral) linguistic communication have tended to enhance biological diversity, suggesting modes of calibrating the long-term co-evolution of human and non-human populations. Economic sign systems, on the other hand, have rapidly and drastically transfonned human-environmental relations in Amazonia to the point where the entire rainforest ecosystem is illlder threat. In detaching themselves from the direct, "face-to-face" communication between humans and their natural environments, flows of money and commodities - and the decontextualized knowledge systems that they engender - have no means of staying geared to the long-term negotiation of local, ecological co-existence. It is argued that the ongoing deterioration of the biosphere can be viewed as a problem of communication, deserving semiotic analysis.
17. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Alf Hornborg Elu märgid: Amasoonia inimökoloogia ökosemiootilises perspektiivis. Kokkuvõte
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
18. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Andreas Weber Cognition as expression: On the autopoietic foundations of an aesthetic theory of nature
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This paper attempts to put forward an aesthetic theory of nature based on a biosemiotic description of the living, which in turn is derived from an autopoietic theory of organism (p. Varela). An autopoietic system's reaction to material constraints is the unfolding of a dimension of meaning. In the outward Gestalt of autopoietic systems, meaning appears as fonn, and as such it reveals itself in a sensually graspable manner. The mode of being of organisms has an irreducible aesthetic side in which this mode of being becomes visible. Nature thus displays a kind of transparency of its own functioning: in a nondiscursive way organisms show traces of their conditio vitae through their material self-presentation. Living beings hence always show a basic level of expressiveness as a necessary component of their organic mode of being. This is called the ecstatic dimension of nature (G. Böhme, R. Corrington). Autopoiesis in its full consequence then amounts to a view reminding of Paracelsus' idea of the signatura rerum (c. Glacken, H. Böhme): nature is transparent, not because it is organized digitally as a linguistic text or code, but rather because it displays analogically the kind of intentionality engendered by autopoiesis. Nature as a whole, as «living fonn" (S. Langer), is a symbol for organic intentionality. The most fundamental meaning of nature protection thus is to guarantee the «real presence" of our soul.
19. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Andreas Weber Tunnetus kui väljendus: loaduse esteetilise teooria autopoieetilistest alustest. Kokkuvote
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
20. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Christina Ljungberg Wilderness from an ecosemiotic perspective
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
"Wilderness" is a concept which has undergone a radical change in recent years. Owing to the scale of global destruction of the wilderness and its various ecosystems, the idea of wilderness has been transformed from its original negative sense as an Other into a matter of public concern. This as replaced the understanding of "wilderness " not only as a place but as a category closely linked with the development of buman culture. As the result of human practice and representation, nature is thus also political Models and concepts of nature in the creative arts can be indicative of a certain culture's relationship with nature, as they communicate prevailing ideologies. This is particularly pertinent to concepts of nature in Canada where wilderness includes vast tracts of forests, lakes and an Arctic North, which has led to a distinctively Canadian relationship between Canadians and their natural environment. The change in the literary representations of interactions between humankind and environment in Canadian fiction - from the "double vision" resulting from the view of the wilderness both as a threatening Other and free space; to the view of threatened nature as a means of identification; and, finally, as a post-modem place of transgression and possibility - invites questions about both the semiotic threshold between nature and culture, and about the function of boundaries in the constitution of identity.