The article aims to provide a general framework for assessing and categorizing the cognitive systems of human and non-human animals. Our approach stems from biosemiotic, ethological, and phenomenological investigations into the relations of organisms to one another and to their environment. Building on the analyses of Merleau-Ponty and Portmann, organismal bodies and surfaces are distinguished as the base for sign production and interpretation. Following the concept of modelling systems by Sebeok, we develop a concentric model of human and non-human animal (...) cognition that posits three intertwined spheres: corporeity, social communication, and culture. The model explicitly works with the pluralistic perspective that views the communication and cognition of humans as distinct, but not superior to those of non-human animals. Our position is substantiated by two case studies: the first one focuses on the acquisition and spread of nut-cracking technique among the chimpanzees in the Täi forest, the second one on the communication and cognition of deafblind persons. From an epistemological perspective, our paper is a contribution to contemporary attempts to link biosemiotics and ethology with phenomenological concepts of agency, living bodies, and lifeworld. (shrink)

Práce se zabývá filosofickou analýzou vědeckého výzkumu, kterou v polovině minulého století provedla botanička Agnes Arberová. Její koncepce je cenným příspěvkem k otázce kontextu vzniku vědeckého objevu a procesu jeho zdůvodnění v biologických disciplínách. Ve stati se pokusím doložit, že její úvahy mají ráz v zásadě fenomenologický, a proto bude její koncepce interpretována na pozadí úvah Maurice Merleau-Pontyho o tělesné povaze smyslů. Taková interpretace napovídá, že Arberová ve shodě s Merleau-Pontym uvažuje o fenoménech nikoli jako o objektech, které lze zkoumat (...) odděleně, nýbrž nám představuje fenomenální pole, v němž se fenomény vyjevují v souvislosti s předcházející zkušeností. Orientace v předmětu výzkumu lze vnímat jako otázku rovnováhy, jíž badatel výzkumem aktivně vyhledává. (shrink)

Continuously from the 1940s, Michael Polanyi comments on topics that have resonated later since the 1960s in the works of his fellow theorists of science, philosophers of natural sciences, and epistemologists. First part of this article provides a brief reconstruction of Polanyi’s concept of „personal knowledge“ which focuses mainly on the interconnection of the individual level of scientific research with its social dimension. My aim is to evaluate the potential of this concept for the interpretation of research fields where sciences (...) are in close contact with other disciplines. I am convinced that Polanyi’s original approach to the problem of reality should be read as an advocacy of diversity of thought. In my interpretation, Polanyi carries out some form of philosophical therapy of science and its self-concept, which, like the whole of Western society, has undergone dramatic changes over the last century. (shrink)