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Scientific results in biosemiotics:
Then and now
Kalevi Kull1
In 1987, which was seen as marking 25 years from what was considered to
be the beginning of semiotics proper (under this name) in the Soviet Union
in 1962, volume 20 of the journal Sign Systems Studies (Труды по знаковым
системам) asked the main members of the Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics for their responses to the following three questions (Ivanov et al.
1987):2
1. What are the scientific results achieved during this time that you consider
the most significant?
2. What areas of research do you consider the most promising in the future?
3. What are the scientific hopes that were pinned in the 1960s on semiotics,
but that, in your opinion, did not materialize?
Now, in 2020, it is 20 years from the beginning of the Gatherings in Biosemiotics (2001) as an annual international event, and just 25 years after
the first international session under the name biosemiotics took place at a
major biological conference3 that was convened as a part of the conference
of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies
of Biology, held in Leuven (Belgium) in 1995.4
1
2
3
4
Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Estonia; kalevi.kull@ut.ee.
“1. Какие научные результаты, достигнутые за это время, Вы считаете наиболее
значительными? 2. Какие направления исследований Вы считаете наиболее
перспективными в будущем? 3. Какие научные надежды, которые возлагались в
1960-е гг. на семиотику, по Вашему мнению, не оправдались?” (Ivanov et al. 1987: 3).
On the details about other early biosemiotics meetings, as well as an account of biosemiotics of the 20th century, see Kull 2005. A more extensive history of biosemiotics is
provided by Favareau 2010.
The ISHPSSB meeting in Leuven on July 20–23, 1995 included a section on biosemiotics,
which was held over two sessions with two presentations in each. The presentations were:
Manfred Laubichler – “The riddle of context dependency: How semiotics can inform
biological theory”; Kalevi Kull – “Semiosis and co-adaptation”; Jesper Hoffmeyer – “Biosemiotics: towards a new synthesis in biology?” and Sahotra Sarkar – “Decoding ‘coding’:
Text, context and DNA”. (The proceedings of the meeting included of two additional abstracts for the biosemiotics section, but their authors were not present: these were Günter
Wagner and Junyong Kim and their paper “A structuralist approach to the character
concept in evolutionary theory”, and Joachim Wolff – “Neurosemiotics: Mechanisms of
Scientific results in biosemiotics: Then and now
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We should also remember, that it is 30 years from the workshop “Models
and Methods in Biosemiotics“, organized by Thure von Uexküll and his colleagues in Glottertal, Germany, in June 7–9, 1990, which was followed by
the 2nd Biosemiotic Workshop on the main theme “Biosemiotic Models –
New Approaches to Rehabilitation” in May 9–11, 1991, and the third, on the
theme “Umwelt und Umweltbegriff – die Umweltlehre Jakob von Uexküll’s“,
in June 20, 1992. In these Glottertal meetings, attended by Thomas Sebeok,
Jesper Hoffmeyer, Martin Krampen, Roland Posner, Thomas Ots, among
others (I was in the 3rd of these), the International Society of Biosemiotics
was planned to establish. For that purpose, a text – Preamble – was prepared
(1991), which stated:
The International Society of Biosemiotics (IBS) promotes science which
describes biological phenomena as sign processes explaining them in the
framework of the semiotic paradigm.
The semiotic paradigm is understood as requiring the connection of
phenomena and empirical data by meaning relationships which are circularly and triadically constituted (as sign, interpretant and referent). It serves
as a necessary complement to the mechanical paradigm which describes
phenomena and data as linear and dual relationships (as a structure of causes
and effects).
This means that the abolishment of separation between natural and human sciences has become a concrete task.
This enterprise needs a joint effort of natural scientists (geneticists, cytologists, students of medicine, etc.) and human scientists (linguists, psychologists, philosophers, etc.) to discuss issues
– serving to clarify and develop a common transdisciplinary terminology
– aiming at the elaboration of models in the framework of the semiotic paradigm and
– promoting the planning and execution of research projects in which conceptions and methods of the natural and human sciences complement each
other.
The German version of this remarkable document (probably written by
Thure von Uexküll) had the following text:
meaning assignment to endogenous and exogenous signals in the brain: How do they
relate to the multilayered organization of brain functions?”) Some of the contributions
were published in the special issue on biosemiotics in the European Journal of Semiotic
Studies vol. 9(2), 1997.
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Präambel
Die internationale Gesellschaft für Biosemiotik (IBS) will Wissenschaft fördern, die biologische Vorgänge als Zeichenprozesse beschreibt und damit im Rahmen des semiotischen Paradigmas
erklärt.
Unter dem semiotischen Paradigma versteht sich die Verknüpfung von Beobachtungs-Daten durch Bedeutungsbeziehungen die
triadisch und zirkulär (als Zeichen, Interpretant und Bezeichnetes)
konstituiert sind. Es dient zur notwendigen Ergänzung des mechanischen Paradigmas, das Beobachtungsdaten durch duale Beziehungen
linear als Ursache/Wirkungs-Gefüge beschreibt.
Damit ist die Überwindung der Trennung von Natur- und
Geisteswissenschften zu einer konkreten Aufgabe geworden.
Dies erfordert die Zusammenführung von Naturwissenschaftlern (Genetikern, Cytologen, Mediziner usw.) mit Geisteswissenschaftlern (Sprachforschern, Psychologen, Philosophen usw.) zu
Diskussionen, die
1. der Klärung und Entwicklung einer gemeinsamen (transdisciplinären) Terminologie dienen,
2. die Erarbeitung von Modellen im Rahmen des semiotischen
Paradigmas zum Ziel haben, und
3. die Planung und Durchführung von Forschungsprojekten fördern, in denen sich naturwissenschaftliche und geisteswissenschaftliche Denkanzätze und Methoden ergänzen.
Biosemiotics has always been seen (by most biosemioticians) as a science
that is not restricted to any particular school of thought. Its study object
is meaning-making in living systems, which includes the mechanisms and
phenomena related to the semiotic attributes of life: coding, translating,
referring, anticipating, perceiving, interpreting, sensing, acting, searching,
recognizing, choosing, remembering, learning, knowing, forgetting, imitating, representing, modelling, communicating, etc. It uses knowledge and
methods from various areas of biology and semiotics. Biosemiotic models –
if adequate – have an obvious fundamental role in biology, and in semiotics.
In what follows, let me apply the same three questions from 1987 to the
recent decades (and future) of biosemiotics, and try to give brief answers,
from the perspective of my own decades in this undertaking.
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1. What are the scientific results achieved during this time
that you consider the most significant?
By “significant scientific results” one should obviously mean: (i) the discoveries and (ii) the ordering and systematic analysis of a considerable amount
of material. From this point of view, it may not seem that much has been
successfully accomplished. However, in case of discoveries, one may not
recognize a discovery in its early stage (or is not sure enough yet), even
while recognozing that some seeds or sprouts of the discovery are certainly
there. In the systematic work, its seems that much more has been done with
theoretical (e.g., conceptual analysis) than with experimental or empirical
material. Nevertheless, a small sampling of that work done is listed below.5
(1) A monographic overview of biosemiotics, authored by Jesper Hoffmeyer
(2008a), which followed his earlier book on biosemiotics (Hoffmeyer 1996),
is certainly both a necessary and important achievement, as it provides a
rather detailed semiotic interpretation of biological phenomena based on
many concrete examples, and links together many problems needing further
analysis and development in biosemiotics. Another outstanding monograph
is Incomplete Nature by Terrence Deacon (2012), following his Symbolic
Species (Deacon 1997), which focuses on the origin and evolution of semiotic phenomena in living systems. Several edited volumes complement these
works (e.g., Emmeche, Kull 2011).
(2) General analyses of the roots and history of biosemiotics were also published during this time, particularly the textbook anthology with commentary by Donald Favareau (2010) and an anthology of zoosemiotics (Maran,
Martinelli, Turovski 2011). In addition, earlier biosemiotic work by Gregory
Bateson (Hoffmeyer 2008b), Thomas Sebeok (Cobley et al. 2011), Giorgio
Prodi (Cimatti 2018), Adolf Portmann (Jaroš, Klouda 2021), Howard Pattee
(Pattee, Rączaszek-Leonardi 2012) and several other scholars in biosemiotics has all been the subjects of full-length volumes. The work of Jesper
Hoffmeyer was reviewed in two volumes (Emmeche et al. 2002; Favareau
et al. 2012); and the impact of Umberto Eco to biosemiotics was reviewed
the vol. 46(2/3) of Sign Systems Studies, to provide just a few such examples here. Studies on the legacy and applications of Jakob von Uexküll’s
work have grown in number remarkably during this period, also (e.g.,
Mildenberger 2007; Brentari 2015; Michelini, Köchy 2020; for a review on
5
See also an earlier account in Kull 2012.
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recent Uexküll-studies see Kull 2020). Interest in the analysis of applicability
of Peirce’s approach and models for biosemiotics has also been extensive (ElHani et al. 2009; Stjernfelt 2014; Romanini, Fernández 2014; etc.).
(3) The general biosemiotic research problems, and the main tasks and
results of biosemiotics were collectively formulated and published (Kull,
Emmeche, Favareau 2008; Kull, Deacon, Emmeche, Hoffmeyer, Stjernfelt
2009; Favareau et al. 2017).
(4) Extensive reviews on the existing data about organic codes (Barbieri
2015) and biocommunication (Baluska et al. 2018; Gordon, Seckbach 2016;
Witzany 2011; 2012; 2014; Witzany, Nowacki 2016; etc.) were published.
This is a rich material for further biosemiotic analysis.
(5) A multi-year and deep discussion was held about the relationships between the codes and interpretation processes in the realm of prelinguistic
semiosis. This discussion will obviously continue in some extent, however, it has already led to a rather good understanding of the topic (Deacon
2015; Deely 2009; Champagne 2009; Cobley 2014; 2016: 75–90; Gare 2019;
Markoš 2010; Rodríguez Higuera 2019; Vega 2018; discussion in Constructivist Foundations vol. 15(2): 122–163 (2020); etc.).
(6) The Peircean tradition in semiotics and the legacy of Jakob von Uexküll
turned out to be very useful starting points, which have received (and continue to receive) the major attention in biosemiotic studies. However, these
ceased to play the role of the only and single basis for biosemiotic studies in the last few years. Remarkable roles have also played by the ideas of
Ferdinand de Saussure, Gregory Bateson, Adolf Portmann, Hans-Georg
Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach, the works of Thomas Sebeok, Juri
Lotman, Umberto Eco, and others. We therefore observe a certain plurality
of approaches, together with attempts towards their integration, and also
some interesting critique of several of the above-mentioned approaches.
(7) A detailed and profound analysis of basic concepts (and of the whole
conceptual apparatus) of biosemiotics has started, which includes the biosemiotic glossary project organised by the editors of the journal Biosemiotics
Morten Tønnessen, Alexei Sharov and Timo Maran, as well as several independent works. I would particularly emphasise the developments in
the analysis of the concepts of protosemiosis (Alexei Sharov and Tommi
Scientific results in biosemiotics: Then and now
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Vehkavaara), agency (Alexei Sharov), umwelt (Riin Magnus, Carlo Brentari,
et al.), scaffolding (Jesper Hoffmeyer; vol. 8(2) of Biosemiotics), and constructivism (vol. 10(2) of Biosemiotics). Also, several concepts that were initially
formulated outside of the semiotic approach (for instance, affordance), have
become reformulated and included into the conceptual apparatus of biosemiotics (e.g., Campbell et al. 2019).
(8) A very important biosemiotic re-interpretation and analysis of the classical problems of general biology and philosophy of biology has been started.
The inclusion of biosemioticians in the Third-Way-of-Evolution group is
remarkable in this context. Biosemiotics has contributed to the discussions
on evolutionary theory and its extended synthesis (vols. 9(1) and 11(2) of
Biosemiotics, etc.), on the epigenetic turn (Markoš, Švorcová 2019), and on
biological mimicry (Maran 2017; vol. 12(1) of Biosemiotics), to name just a
few examples.
(9) The links between biosemiotics and the humanities were analysed
(Cobley 2016; Wheeler 2006; etc.), including in the fields of ecosemiotics
(Maran 2018), ecocritics, environmental history, ecological philosophy etc.
(by Timo Maran, Kati Lindström, Andreas Weber, among others). The impact of biosemiotics to ecocriticism and to studies of environmental history
has likewise been remarkable.
(10) The most important theoretical development of the recent decade, according to my understanding, concerns the primary mechanism of interpretation. Semiosis, even in its simple forms, includes the process of choice,
which requires the simultaneity of possibilities, or, in other words, the appearence of being in the present, the subjectivity. This turns the attention of
biosemiotic research to the microscale of time, to the processes taking place
within a second.
Let me emphasise that the question as answered above focuses exclusively
on the scientific aspects of the biosemiotic project. In addition to this, of
course, noticeable organizational developments of biosemiotics as an institutionalized community and field of study took place during this period, some
of the most important of which I list here only very briefly:
(i) the persistence of the annual international Gatherings in Biosemiotics
conferences since their inaguration in 2001;
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(ii) the Book Series in Biosemiotics, published by Springer Nature since
2007, of which 19 volumes have been published as of now (and which
was preceded by a collective volume, Introduction to Biosemiotics: The
New Biological Synthesis, edited by Marcello Barbieri in 2007);
(iii) the internationally peer-reviewed journals on biosemiotics – the shortlived Journal of Biosemiotics (one volume with two issues published in
2005) and the long-lived Biosemiotics since 2008 (for a review of the
first ten years of this journal, see Maran, Sharov and Tønnessen 2017);
(iv) the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (and its website),
founded in 2005; the global network via various channels;
(v) university-level courses on biosemiotics (as well as on zoosemiotics
and on ecosemiotics) being taught in several well-regarded universities
worldwide; increasing number of students writing their Masters and
Doctoral level theses in biosemiotics; pedagogical videos on biosemiotics appearing on the web (Victoria Alexander);
(vi) many events on biosemiotics besides the annual Gatherings (for instance the conference on Biosemiotics and Culture, in Oregon, 2013;
the annual Code Biology conferences; the recent series of fortnight
web-seminars on biosemiotics under the name of the Biosemiotics
Glade, since April 2020; etc.).
All these organizational activities certainly support and further the ongoing
scientific work itself.
2. What areas of research do you consider the most
promising in the future?
The main area that deserves attention, I think, is the mechanism of interpretation and its various forms. While the mechanisms of codes, and the
forms of codes, in living systems were rather well understood already decades ago and became later well described in many particular cases, the theoretical and empirical analysis of the primary processes of interpretation and
the phenomena directly related to it (e.g., choice, intention, subjective time
and space, biotranslation, semiosis itself) in the biological realm – and the
implications of such analyses – should and will be an area of major development in biosemiotics in the future.
Too, a review and deep analysis of the models of semiosis is necessary for
a fundamental theory of general semiotics that could link various different
approches that have been rather separate so far is still very much needed.
It will be fascinating to describe and understand how, from the interaction
Scientific results in biosemiotics: Then and now
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of codes, emerges an imaginary dimension leading to mind, in a way that is
characteristic to life itself.
This means turning our attention to the time structure of semiosis, i.e.,
to microsemiotics. Meaning as use (or meaning as function) has been traditionally studied on the basis of established habits. This could be called macrosemiotics. And here belongs also the study of codes. Meaning emerges,
however, at the tiny moment of choice, in the process of interpretation. Its
working as such from the cell to the brain and beyond will be a fascinating
area of research, with extensive implications.
Accordingly, the latter will bring in a renewed interest into studying the
semiotics of metabolism, into the dynamics of allosteric codes and the ways
of readaptation in metabolic networks, in semiosis as a distributed phenomenon, and in describing the nature and relevant steps of minimal semiosis,
minimal choice, and interpretation. This, in turn, will have important implications for understanding of an ecosystem as a semiotic system.
Thus, there will be a need for re-thinking, again and again, what is the
nature or mechanisms of biological goals and needs, as related (whether
universally or not) to semiosis in the cell, in the organism, and in the in
holobiont.
A detailed analysis of semiosis based on case studies of various particular
species will be likewise necessary. This includes the studies of the ontogeny
of umwelt (e.g., of some insects, spiders, fish, etc), and a detailed study of the
unfolding of meaning-making and the emergence of new types, or levels, of
semiosis in individual development. The goal will be the establishment of
semiotic developmental biology.
And finally: the re-writing of biology, again and again, so that the aspect of the organism’s own knowledge and meaning-making processes will
become a natural and fundamental aspect in the knowledge about, and the
ongoing study of, life.
3. What are the scientific hopes that were pinned on
biosemiotics in the 1990s that, in your opinion, did not
materialize?
First, there is a general problem: large parts of the humanities do not accept
pre-linguistic or non-linguistic meaning-making. Even within semiotics,
particularly in Italian and largely in French and Latin American semiotics,
biosemiotics is not seen as a field that is necessary for understanding human
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semiosis. However, the acceptance of biosemiotics in the humanities – particularly via ecosemiotics – is already much wider than is its acceptance in
biology proper. For mainstream biology mostly still does not even see the
problem of knowledge in organisms as a problem necessary to the understanding of life. This raises a question whether there is yet something absent
in biosemiotics itself that should be addressed.
My view has been that in biosemiotics, there is more to discover for biology than for the humanities. Yet its current reception seems to be just opposite. However, since biosemiotics has so much deepened my own understanding of biological processes, and of life itself, I believe that the current
situation tells us more about the socal aspects of science – i.e. about the contemporary acceptance and popularity of certain views – than it does about
the semiotic science of life and its discoveries itself.
Notably, a clear trend towards biosemiotics is demonstrated by some recent works that directly analyse the problem of biological meaning-making,
while yet still not using semiotic concepts (for instance, Tommasi et al. 2009;
Koch 2019; Ginsburg, Jablonka 2019). Semiotics is simply not known by
biologists, it is not a part of their education – therefore, they hesitate to use
the semiotic models explicitly.
An additional aspect that may play a role in this situation may stem from
the simplistic understanding of what a “sign” is. In the common view, semiotics is defined as the study of signs, while a sign is understood as an
“object” that possesses a meaning due to social convention or experience.
According to a more profound theory of semiotics, of course, this is not at
all the case. An object is only an aspect of signhood (in the Peircean model),
and moreover, if one thinks of this object as “a perceived whole with a certain structure or form“, then there are certainly semiotic processes in which
an “object” in this rather anthropomorphic sense does not exist. This is also
a reason why it might be better to define semiotics as the study of meaningmaking, instead of the study of signs – or even in some better way.
Thus, my hope or belief in the 1990s, it turns out, overestimated the capacity of understanding in the society of biologists. That said, we should
wait a minute and honestly acknowlege that there is clearly more to learn,
from this persistent non-acceptance –namely, that the formulations that one
can read in the writings of biosemioticians, including myself, have lacked
sufficient clarity and explanation.
An additional aspect here – and what became clear after a closer study
of existing semiotic theories – is that semiotics itself is not well integrated.
That there is as yet much too little that semiotics can provide as a safe set of
basic concepts and models (without getting lost in the woods of the Peircean
Scientific results in biosemiotics: Then and now
107
apparatus) when one has been suggested to use semiotics in one’s own field
of research. Semiotics is not easy because the number of its models is large.6
It was also rather unpredictable that some scholars close to biosemiotics have given up facing theoretical diffficulties, particularly difficulties of
the methodological or metaphysical kind. Some were frightened by the critique of neo-Darwinian biology expressed in biosemiotics, some by what
they may have seen as the unusual (within the natural sciences) methodologies that would be necessary for the study of meaning, which implies that
the classical setup of experiment with the condition of ceteris paribus and
the principle of experimentum crucis should be updated for biosemiotic research, due to the nature of the living object of study itself.
In summary: there was a hope that more biologists would become interested in semiotic models, and that among biologists proper, the interest in
the biological mechanisms of semiosis will be wider. The semiotic turn in
biology, therefore, has so far been really slow (even though I always wanted
it to be slow, in order for it to be truly persistent).
In theoretical work, the difficulty of problems is often rather unpredictable. Facing a truly new problem, or even doing rather standard research, you may not know what the problem itself is hiding. And if you
are happy, it does hide something unexpected to be revealed. Which means
that it would have been uninteresting if all our hopes in the 1990s would
have materialized. However, and there is no doubt in this – we have found
ourselves to live and work in an area which does teach us a lot – which is
biosemiotics itself.
Coda
The literature on biosemiotics has grown already so big in these last two
decades, that one person cannot read and know it all. Therefore, each of us
in biosemiotics will evaluate the situation in one’s own individual way that
will be somewhat different from that of their colleagues.
There are several ways how to delimit and describe the periods in science. One of these would pay attention to the openings in the field after
passing away of an influential leader. In 1993, Juri Lotman died, and semiotics in Tartu had to search and find their new ways. Biosemiotics stepped
6
As my colleague Israel Chávez has stressed – while indeed a semiotician is assumed to be
in command of Peircean triadic concepts, any semiotician should no less be in command
of the types of oppositions in the Saussurean and phonological traditions (pers. comm.).
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to the scene. In 2001, Thomas Sebeok died, and biosemiotics built a global
network. In 2019, Jesper Hoffmeyer died. His legacy7 also demonstrates
yet invisible free spaces that will be filled by unpredictable achievements in
understanding.
The annual Spring Schools in Theoretical Biology (Estonia), which have
lasted already for 45 years and still continue, uses a snail as its logo. The
meaning of the snail-symbol was explained by a verse: “The snail is like a
theoretician. / It carries all it has with it, / moves on slowly but persistently,
/ develops in a spiral and strives for harmony.“8 Indeed, the development of
biosemiotics has likewise been slow, but persistent. And I think that demonstrates the strength of this view and its research program.9
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9
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