Biosemiotics (from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of

semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

(especially

Neurosemiotics Neurosemiotics is an area of science which studies the neural aspects of meaning making. It interconnects neurobiology, biosemiotics and cognitive semiotics. Neurolinguistics, neuropsychology and neurosemantics can be seen as parts of neurosemioti ...

) and

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, production of signs and

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

s and

communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

processes in the biological realm.Favareau, Donald (ed.) 2010. ''Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary''. (Biosemiotics 3.) Berlin: Springer. Biosemiotics integrates the findings of biology and semiotics and proposes a

paradigmatic shift A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist a ...

in the scientific view of

life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

, in which

semiosis Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sig ...

(sign process, including meaning and interpretation) is one of its immanent and intrinsic features. The term ''biosemiotic'' was first used by Friedrich S. Rothschild in 1962, but

Thomas Sebeok Thomas Albert Sebeok (, ; November 9, 1920December 21, 2001) was a Hungarian-born American polymath,Cobley, Paul; Deely, John; Kull, Kalevi; Petrilli, Susan (eds.) (2011). Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of S ...

Thure von Uexküll Karl Kuno Thure Freiherr von Uexküll (March 15, 1908, Heidelberg – September 29, 2004, Freiburg) was a German scholar of psychosomatic medicine and biosemiotics. He developed the approach of his father, Jakob von Uexküll, in the study of livi ...

Jesper Hoffmeyer Jesper Hoffmeyer (21 February 1942 – 25 September 2019) was a professor at the University of Copenhagen Institute of Biology, and a leading figure in the emerging field of biosemiotics. He was the president of the International Society for Biose ...

and many others have implemented the term and field. The field is generally divided between theoretical and applied biosemiotics. Insights from biosemiotics have also been adopted in the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

and

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

, including human–animal studies, human–plant studies and cybersemiotics.

Definition

Biosemiotics is the study of meaning making processes in the living realm, or, to elaborate, a study of * signification,

and

habit A habit (or wont, as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. A 1903 paper in the '' American Journal of Psychology'' defined a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, ...

formation of

living Living or The Living may refer to: Common meanings *Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms ** Living species, one that is not extinct *Personal life, the course of an individual human's life * ...

processes *

(creating and changing sign relations) in living nature * the biological basis of all signs and sign interpretation * interpretative processes, codes and cognition in organisms

Main branches

According to the basic types of semiosis under study, biosemiotics can be divided into *vegetative semiotics (also ''endosemiotics'', or

phytosemiotics Phytosemiotics is a branch of biosemiotics that studies the sign processing capabilities present in plants. Some functions that plants perform that utilize this simple semiosis includes cellular recognition, plant perception, intercellular commun ...

), the study of semiosis at the cellular and molecular level (including the translation processes related to genome and the organic form or phenotype); vegetative semiosis occurs in all organisms at their cellular and tissue level; vegetative semiotics includes prokaryote semiotics, sign-mediated interactions in bacteria communities such as

quorum sensing In biology, quorum sensing or quorum signaling (QS) is the process of cell-to-cell communication that allows bacteria to detect and respond to cell population density by gene regulation, typically as a means of acclimating to environmental disadv ...

and quorum quenching. *

zoosemiotics Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals, more precisely the study of semiosis among animals, i.e. the study of how something comes to function as a sign to some animal. It is the study of animal forms of knowing. Cons ...

or animal semiotics, or the study of animal forms of knowing; animal semiosis occurs in the organisms with

neuromuscular A neuromuscular junction (or myoneural junction) is a chemical synapse between a motor neuron and a muscle fiber. It allows the motor neuron to transmit a signal to the muscle fiber, causing muscle contraction. Muscles require innervation to ...

system, also includes

anthroposemiotics Human communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans communicate. Humans' ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are referencing or thinki ...

, the study of semiotic behavior in humans. According to the dominant aspect of semiosis under study, the following labels have been used: biopragmatics, biosemantics, and biosyntactics.

History

Apart from

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...

(1839–1914) and

Charles W. Morris Charles William Morris (May 23, 1901 – January 15, 1979) was an American philosopher and semiotician. Early life and education A son of Charles William and Laura (Campbell) Morris, Charles William Morris was born on May 23, 1901, in Denver, C ...

(1903–1979), early pioneers of biosemiotics were

Jakob von Uexküll Jakob may refer to: People * Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name Other * Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP * Max Jakob Memorial ...

(1864–1944),

Heini Hediger Heini Hediger (30 November 1908 – 29 August 1992) was a Swiss biologist noted for work in proxemics in animal behavior and is known as the "father of zoo biology". Hediger was formerly the director of Tierpark Dählhölzli (1938–1943), Z ...

(1908–1992), Giorgio Prodi (1928–1987),

Marcel Florkin Marcel Florkin (Liège, 15 August 1900 – 3 May 1979) was a Belgian biochemist. Florkin was graduated in 1928 as a Doctor in Medicine and became in 1934 a professor of biochemistry at the University of Liège. He retired as professor emeritus in ...

(1900–1979) and Friedrich S. Rothschild (1899–1995); the founding fathers of the contemporary interdiscipline were

(1920–2001) and

(1908–2004). In the 1980s a circle of mathematicians active in Theoretical Biology,

René Thom René Frédéric Thom (; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became ...

(

Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

), Yannick Kergosien (

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...

and

), and Robert Rosen (

, also a former member of the Buffalo group with Howard H. Pattee), explored the relations between Semiotics and Biology using such headings as "Nature Semiotics", "Semiophysics", or "Anticipatory Systems" and taking a modeling approach. The contemporary period (as initiated by Copenhagen-Tartu school) include biologists

Kalevi Kull Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms of ...

Claus Emmeche Claus Emmeche (born 1956) is a Danish people, Danish theoretical biologist and philosopher, one of founders of contemporary biosemiotics. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and is head of the Center for the Philosophy of Na ...

Terrence Deacon Terrence William Deacon (born 1950) is an American neuroanthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984). He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Anth ...

, semioticians

Martin Krampen Martin Krampen (March 9, 1928, in Siegen – June 18, 2015, in Ulm) was a leading German semiotician, semiotics Professor in Göttingen. Biography The son of a Protestant pastor, Krampen was born on March 9, 1928, in Siegen and was raised in Wu ...

, Paul Cobley, philosophers Donald Favareau,

John Deely John Deely (April 26, 1942 – January 7, 2017) was an American philosopher and semiotician. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he held the Rudman Chair of Gradu ...

, John Collier and complex systems scientists Howard H. Pattee,

Michael Conrad Michael Conrad (October 16, 1925November 22, 1983) was an American actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of veteran cop Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on '' Hill Street Blues''. He won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Seri ...

Luis M. Rocha Luis M. Rocha is the George J. Klir Professor of Systems Science at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science, Binghamton University (State University of New York). He is also Visiting Professor at the Católica Biom ...

Cliff Joslyn Cliff Joslyn (born 1963) is an American mathematician, cognitive scientist, and cybernetician. He is the Chief Knowledge Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle, and visiting professor of systems science at Binghamto ...

and León Croizat. In 2001, an annual international conference for biosemiotic research known as the ''Gatherings in Biosemiotics'' was inaugurated, and has taken place every year since. In 2004, a group of biosemioticians – Marcello Barbieri,

, and Anton Markoš – decided to establish an international journal of biosemiotics. Under their editorship, the ''Journal of Biosemiotics'' was launched by

Nova Science Publishers Nova Science Publishers is an academic publisher of books, encyclopedias, handbooks, e-books and journals, based in Hauppauge, New York. It was founded in 1985. Nova is included in Book Citation Index (part of Web of Science Core Collection) an ...

in 2005 (two issues published), and with the same five co-editors ''

Biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Ancient Greek, Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics (especially Neurosemiotics) and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-makin ...

'' was launched by

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

in 2008. The book series ''Biosemiotics'' (Springer), edited by Claus Emmeche, Donald Favareau, Kalevi Kull, and Alexei Sharov, began in 2007 and 27 volumes have been published in the series by 2024. The

International Society for Biosemiotic Studies The International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) is an academic society for the researchers in semiotic biology. The Society was established in 2005. Its official journal is Biosemiotics, published by Springer and launched in 2008. The p ...

was established in 2005 by Donald Favareau and the five editors listed above. A collective programmatic paper on the basic theses of biosemiotics appeared in 2009. and in 2010, an 800 page textbook and anthology, ''Essential Readings in Biosemiotics,'' was published, with bibliographies and commentary by Donald Favareau. One of roots for biosemiotics has been medical semiotics. In 2016, Springer published ''Biosemiotic Medicine: Healing in the World of Meaning,'' edited by Farzad Goli as part of Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality.

In the humanities

Since the work of

and

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

, several scholars in the humanities have engaged with or appropriated ideas from biosemiotics in their own projects; conversely, biosemioticians have critically engaged with or reformulated humanistic theories using ideas from biosemiotics and complexity theory. For instance, Andreas Weber has reformulated some of Hans Jonas's ideas using concepts from biosemiotics, and biosemiotics have been used to interpret the poetry of

John Burnside John Burnside (19 March 1955 – 29 May 2024) was a Scottish writer. He was one of four poets (with Ted Hughes, Sean O'Brien and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for a single book – in th ...

. Since 2021, the American philosopher

Jason Josephson Storm Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (''né'' Josephson) is an American academic, philosopher, social scientist, and author. He is currently Professor in the Department of Religion and chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College. He als ...

has drawn on biosemiotics and empirical research on

animal communication Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals (sender or senders) to one or more other animals (receiver or receivers) that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers. Information may be sent int ...

to propose ''hylosemiotics'', a theory of ontology and communication that Storm believes could allow the humanities to move beyond the

linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. ...

's work also represents an engagement between humanistic and biosemiotic approaches. Deely was trained as a historian and not a biologist but discussed biosemiotics and zoosemiotics extensively in his introductory works on semiotics and clarified terms that are relevant for biosemiotics. Although his idea of physiosemiotics was criticized by practicing biosemioticians, Paul Cobley, Donald Favareau, and Kalevi Kull wrote that "the debates on this conceptual point between Deely and the biosemiotics community were always civil and marked by a mutual admiration for the contributions of the other towards the advancement of our understanding of sign relations."

References

Bibliography

*Alexander, V. N. (2011). ''The Biologist's Mistress: Rethinking Self-Organization in Art, Literature and Nature''. Litchfield Park AZ: Emergent Publications. * Barbieri, Marcello (ed.) (2008). ''The Codes of Life: The Rules of Macroevolution.'' Berlin: Springer. * Emmeche, Claus; Kull, Kalevi (eds.) (2011). ''Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs''. London: Imperial College Pres

*Emmeche, Claus; Kalevi Kull and Frederik Stjernfelt. (2002): ''Reading Hoffmeyer, Rethinking Biology.'' (Tartu Semiotics Library 3). Tartu:

Tartu University Press University of Tartu Press () is a university press and publishing house owned by the University of Tartu, Estonia. Tartu University Press dates its history back to 1632, when University of Tartu was founded. It is the largest university press ...

br>
*Favareau, D. (ed.) (2010)
Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary.
Berlin: Springer. *Favareau, D. (2006). The evolutionary history of biosemiotics. In "Introduction to Biosemiotics: The New Biological Synthesis." Marcello Barbieri (Ed.) Berlin: Springer. pp 1–67. * Jesper Hoffmeyer, Hoffmeyer, Jesper. (1996): ''Signs of Meaning in the Universe.'' Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (special issue of Semiotica vol. 120 (no.3-4), 1998, includes 13 reviews of the book and a rejoinder by the author). * Jesper Hoffmeyer, Hoffmeyer, Jesper (2008). ''Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs.'' Scranton:

University of Scranton Press The University of Scranton Press was the university press of the University of Scranton, headquartered on its campus in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The press published more than 200 books and other publications between 1988 and 2010. The majority of t ...

. * Jesper Hoffmeyer, Hoffmeyer, Jesper (ed.)(2008). ''A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as a Precursor to Biosemiotics.'' Berlin: Springer. * Hoffmeyer Jesper; Kull, Kalevi (2003):

Baldwin Baldwin may refer to: People * Baldwin (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Places Canada * Baldwin, York Regional Municipality, Ontario * Baldwin, Ontario, in Sudbury District * Baldwin's Mills, ...

and Biosemiotics: What Intelligence Is For. In: Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew (eds.), ''Evolution and Learning - The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered'.'' Cambridge: The MIT Press. *Kull, Kalevi, eds. (2001). ''Jakob von Uexküll: A Paradigm for Biology and Semiotics.'' Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. = ''Semiotica'' vol. 134 (no.1-4)">Semiotica.html" ;"title="= '' = ''Semiotica'' vol. 134 (no.1-4) *Friedrich Rothschild">Rothschild, Friedrich S. (2000). ''Creation and Evolution: A Biosemiotic Approach''. Edison, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. *Thomas Sebeok">Sebeok, Thomas A.; Umiker-Sebeok, Jean (eds.) (1992): ''Biosemiotics. The Semiotic Web 1991.'' Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. *Sebeok, Thomas A.; Hoffmeyer, Jesper; Emmeche, Claus (eds.) (1999). ''Biosemiotica.'' Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [ = ''Semiotica'' vol. 127 (no.1-4)]. *

External links

International Society for Biosemiotics Studies

older version

New Scientist article on BiosemioticsBiosemiotics in Spanish

Overview of Gatherings in Biosemiotics
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040428080815/http://www.zbi.ee/~uexkull/ Jakob von Uexküll Centrebr>Zoosemiotics Home Page
{{Authority control Plant intelligence Plant communication Zoosemiotics