Cassirer’s philosophy of symbols is applied to Uexküll’s concept of “Umwelt” (meaningful environment). I argue that the vast domain of human symbolism extends the human Umwelt far beyond the Umwelts of animal species. We humans live and act in many intersecting symbolic worlds, one of the most important of which is our ethical Umwelt. I claim that against the background of ecological disaster and the uncontrolled accelerating incursion of our financial institutions and biotechnological industry into planetary (...) ecology, the term “Umwelt” can no longer simply mean the part of our surroundings that is meaningful to us. Given the current severe ecological crisis, Cassirer’s idea of an “ethical Umwelt” must also be expanded, and an ethical imperative must be integrated into our understanding of “environment.” In other words, for us today the meaning of the term “Umwelt” or “meaningful environment” should be synonymous with “the living world to be saved” or “sacred environment.”. (shrink)

Several language experiments have been carried out on apes and other animals aiming to narrow down the presumed qualitative gap that separates humans from other animals. These experiments, however, have been driven by the understanding of language as a purely symbolic sign system, often connected to a profound disinterest for language use in real situations and a propensity to perceive grammatical and syntactic information as the only fundamental aspects of human language. For these reasons, the language taught to apes tends (...) to discard iconic and indexical elements in favour of symbolic signs. This paper sheds light on the iconic components of human language, with close attention to the iconic properties of language as present in the ape language experiments. We emphasise the role of the body in the interpretation and production of iconic signs, while demonstrating the need to take into account the Umwelt theory in the research paradigm of the experiments. Uexküll’s Umwelt theory is used to exemplify the methodological problems connected to the teaching of human language to other animal species; furthermore, we discuss how the modelling capacities of language affect the biological layer that constitutes the animal Umwelt. Language is analysed as a particular case of Umwelt transition, and as such its implications are further discussed in the article. With this paper, we enrich the discussion surrounding the human-ape pidgin language by advocating for the need to include iconic components as vital parts of this research area. With this inclusion, we uncover the inter-dependency of iconic, indexical and symbolic signs in human language, aiming to further develop the research paradigm of the ape language experiments. (shrink)

It is a truism among ethologists that one must not forget that animals perceive and represent the world differently from humans. Sometimes this caution is phrased in terms of von Uexküll’s Umwelt concept. Yet it seems possible (perhaps even unavoidable) to adopt a common ontological framework when comparing different species of mind. For some purposes it seems sufficient to ­anchor comparative cognition in common-sense categories; bats echolocate insects (or a subset of them) after all. But for other purposes it (...) seems necessary to find out more about how organisms organize their perceptions into biologically significant and perhaps cognitively meaningful states. Complex animals have high bandwidth sensory channels that feed into large nerve networks with very complex dynamics. Even for relatively simple animals belonging to species believed to have a small, fixed number of neurons, the odds are very much against any two animals of the same species, let alone different species, having exactly the same couplings to the environment, the same dimensionality in their nervous systems, or the same dynamics. Given such diversity (which von Uexküll himself recognized), how should we think about shared representation, shared meaning, and cognitive similarity between individuals and species? (shrink)

Jakob von Uexküll’s umwelt theory opens new perspectives for understanding animal extinction. The umwelt is interpreted here as a sum of structural correspondences between an animal’s subjective experience, ecosystem, physiology, and behaviour. The global environmental crisis disturbs these meaning-connections. From the umwelt perspective, we may describe extinction as umwelt collapse: The disintegration of an animal’s umwelt resulting from the cumulative errors in semiotic processes that mediate an organism and ecosystem. The loss of (...) umwelt-ecosystem integration disturbs “ecological memory,” which provides the ecosystem with adaptive modelling and self-design capacities. Making a distinction between core and mediated umwelts, and describing different types of umwelt collapse, are suitable methods for more detailed analysis. The concept of umwelt collapse enables the reinterpretation of extinction, from an internal perspective, as a semiotic breakdown. Such an approach may help us map scenarios of animal extinction, and may lead to successful compensation strategies in adapting to environmental change. (shrink)

Spannungsverhältnisse zwischen Natur und Mensch prägen unseren Alltag, unsere Sprache und öffentliche Diskurse im Themenspektrum der Nachhaltigkeit. Letztere entfaltet normatives Potential, steht bildungs- und wirtschaftspolitisch im Zentrum und bildet sich in der Literatur ab. Natur, Umwelt und Nachhaltigkeit sind Themen, die viele Wissensdomänen berühren – von naturwissenschaftlichen Fragen über rechtliche Aspekte bis zu Überlegungen der Sprachkritik. Sie bedürfen einer Betrachtung aus verschiedensten Fachdisziplinen, wie es etwa auch im Rahmen der Environmental Humanities gefordert wird. Um in diesem Zuge die Relevanz (...) sprachbezogener Zugänge und Wissenschaften zu stärken, führt dieser Band Perspektiven der Literaturwissenschaft, Didaktik, BNE, Human Animal Studies, Geschichte, Philosophie usw. mit Beiträgen aus verschiedenen neueren und auch traditionellen linguistischen Teilbereichen zusammen, wie beispielsweise der Ökolinguistik, der Diskurslinguistik oder der Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation. Der Band eröffnet somit für Wissenschaftler*innen aus Linguistik und anderen Fachdisziplinen sowie für interessierte Lehrkräfte Einblicke in interdisziplinäre Zugänge zu sprachlichen Perspektiven auf Nachhaltigkeit. (shrink)

Jakob von Uexküll's theories of life -- Biography and historical background -- Nature's conformity with plan -- Umweltforschung -- Biosemiotics -- Concluding remarks -- Marking a path into the environments of animals -- The essential approach to the organism -- Heidegger and the biologists -- Paths to the world -- Disruptive behavior : Heidegger and the captivated animal -- The worldless stone -- The poor animal -- For example, three bees and a lark -- Animal morphology -- (...) A shocking wealth -- A fine line in the rupture of time -- An affected body -- The theme of the animal melody : Merleau-Ponty and the umwelt -- The structure of behavior -- A pure wake, a quiet force -- A leaf of being -- Interanimality -- The-animal-stalks-at-five-oclock : Deleuze's affection for Uexküll -- Problematic organisms -- Uexküll's ethology of affects -- The body without organs, the embryonic egg, and prebiotic soup -- Nature's refrain sung across milieus and territories -- The animal stalks. (shrink)

Capturing information means for every organism acquiring knowledge about the living and not living objects that exist in its surroundings. In this way, the “historical” concept of Umwelt, as a subjective surrounding has been recently integrated in the theory of landscape ecology where a landscape is not only a geographical entity but also a cognitive medium. The landscape may be considered a semiotic context used by the organisms to locate resources heterogeneously distributed in space and time. In particular, inside (...) a landscape there are different eco-fields defined as spatial arrangements of objects carrier of meaning that organisms utilize to track resources. Along this epistemic path the sonic component of the landscape is an important carrier of information commonly used by the majority of animal species to managing many vital functions. In particular birds, which are animals with a complex system of acoustic communication, seem to organize acoustic centers for public information. These sonic patterns (soundtopes) are characterized by a great variability in space and time and function like a special eco-field that allows species to share information about the status of resources and the dynamics of populations. The availability of such public information avoids a deeper and more expensive exploration of the environment to assess its quality. (shrink)

Brains enjoy a bodily life. Therefore animals are subjects with a point of view. Yet, coding betrays an anthropomorphic bias: we can, therefore they must. Here I propose a reformulation of Brette's question that emphasizes organismic perception, cautioning for misinterpretations based on external ideal-observer accounts. Theoretical ethology allows computational neuroscience to understand brains from the perspective of their owners.

The book is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the Estonian-German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. After a first introductory chapter by Morten Tønnessen and a second chapter on Uexküll's life and philosophical background, it contains four chapters devoted to the analysis of his main works; they are followed by a vast eighth chapter which deals with the influence Uexküll had on other philosophers and scientists, and by a conclusions focused on the possibility of updating Uexküll's work. The monograph combines (...) a careful reconstruction of the historical context in which the Uexküllian concepts emerged (the debate between mechanism and vitalism, contemporary scientific studies) and a thorough analysis of the philosophical contents of the Uexküllian views. As far as the key issue is concerned, Uexküll's notion of Umwelt refers to the perceptive and operative world which surrounds animal species; it is a subjective species-specific construction which provides living organisms with great security and behaviour stability. Moreover, the relationship that the animal carries out with its environment proves to be a complex system of semiotic interactions: its behaviour is not a set of mechanical reactions, but the result of a spontaneous attribution of meaning to the outside world, whose environmental elements are actively interpreted by the subject. The environment of animal species becomes a field of meaning, an exceedingly complex subjective elaboration; this can lessen the distance between animals and men, crediting both with the cognitive ability to grasp meanings and to use signs. (shrink)

For Uexküll, biology is the science of the organization of living beings. In the context of Entwicklungsmechanik, he refers to Driesch’s and Spemann’s experiments on the development of embryonic germ cells to prove that self-differentiating processes constitute organisms as natural objects. Uexküll focuses on the theory of such self-differentiating processes or organizations. The notion of organization implies for him a “technique of nature” that is capable of structuring organic and inorganic material according to plans and rules. These plans and rules (...) are part of the overall order of the world. As preformed sign systems or codes, they determine and regulate the development and existence of individual animal subjects in their specific Umwelten. (shrink)

For Uexküll, biology is the science of the organization of living beings. In the context of Entwicklungsmechanik, he refers to Driesch’s and Spemann’s experiments on the development of embryonic germ cells to prove that self-differentiating processes constitute organisms as natural objects. Uexküll focuses on the theory of such self-differentiating processes or organizations. The notion of organization implies for him a “technique of nature” that is capable of structuring organic and inorganic material according to plans and rules. These plans and rules (...) are part of the overall order of the world. As preformed sign systems or codes, they determine and regulate the development and existence of individual animal subjects in their specific Umwelten. (shrink)

Through a critical engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the concepts of nature, life, and behavior, and with contemporary accounts of animal groups, this article argues that animal groups exhibit sociality and that sociality is a fundamental ontological condition. I situate my account in relation to the superorganism and selfish individual accounts of animal groups in recent biology and zoology. I argue that both accounts are inadequate. I propose an alternative account of animal groups and animal (...) sociality through a Merleau-Pontian inspired definition of behavior. I criticize Merleau-Ponty’s individualistic prejudice, but show that his philosophy contains the resources necessary to overcome this bias. I define behavior as a holistic, ongoing, meaningful and Umwelt-oriented intrinsically configured expression of living forms of existence. By looking at cases of animal groups drawn from contemporary studies in zoology and behavioral ecology, I show that animal groups, in the fact that they behave, manifest themselves to be a fundamental form of existence, namely, the social form of existence. (shrink)

This paper explains how recent changes in the ways we study other animals to better understand the human faculty of language are indicative of changing narratives concerning the intelligence of other animals. Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt as a species-specific model of the world is essential to understanding the semiotic abilities of all organisms, including humans. From this follows the view that human language is primarily a cognitive tool for making models of the world. This view is consistent with the (...) basic premises of cognitive linguistics. The rejection of behaviorism in linguistics represents a turning point in the history of animal studies. The resulting criticism of long-term studies with primates illustrates this shift concerning the study of wild animals within the language sciences and beyond. New insights in dog cognition and research on the processing of human language in canines are reflective of a change in focus away from anthropocentrism towards the species-specific semiotic abilities of animals in the twenty-first century. This new orientation away from comparing animal sign-systems to human language and the importance of studying intelligent wild animals in the wild instead of in captivity have lead to an important re-evaluation of our relationship with other animals and our views of their cognitive and semiotic profiles. This leads to questions such as what role non-human organisms can play in the language sciences, and what our limitations are of studying the sign systems of other animals. Recent research on the signifying abilities of wild dolphins, for instance, has identified a new set of characteristics by which to study intelligence in other species. (shrink)

The works, views and ideas of Heini Hediger (1908-1992), one of the most distinguished and influential zoologist of the 20th century, had and still have an enormous impact on contemporary understanding of animal behaviour. His views on territorial, social, etc. aspects of animal behaviour are based on semiotic concepts derived from Umwelt-theory (J. v. Uexküll) and combined with ideas from modern ethology. Hediger's special attention was devoted to the area of animal-man communications; he treated these problematic (...) phenomena as a system of semiosis-processes, in a mainly holistic way. Hediger's approach inspires the author to propose a notion "the need for impression" to be used in zoosemiotic analyses. (shrink)

The works, views and ideas of Heini Hediger (1908-1992), one of the most distinguished and influential zoologist of the 20th century, had and still have an enormous impact on contemporary understanding of animal behaviour. His views on territorial, social, etc. aspects of animal behaviour are based on semiotic concepts derived from Umwelt-theory (J. v. Uexküll) and combined with ideas from modern ethology. Hediger's special attention was devoted to the area of animal-man communications; he treated these problematic (...) phenomena as a system of semiosis-processes, in a mainly holistic way. Hediger's approach inspires the author to propose a notion "the need for impression" to be used in zoosemiotic analyses. (shrink)

Animal welfare is a complex matter that includes scientific, ethical, economic and other dimensions. Despite the existence of more comprehensive approaches to animal welfare and the obvious shortcomings of the ‘Five Freedoms’, for zoological gardens the freedoms still constitute the general guidelines to be followed. These guidelines reflect both, an ethical view and a science based approach. Analysis reveals that the potential ineptitude of the ‘Five Freedoms’ lies in the manifold perceptions that people have of other animals. These (...) perceptions are biased by our own umwelt, which is intertwined with different cultural attitudes towards other species. Perceptions of animals may be held simultaneously by different interest groups and may often be incompatible, thus often making it difficult to follow the ‘Five Freedoms’ in practice. We aim to recognise and consider the multiplicity of factors that, besides animal subjectivity, are relevant in understanding this hybrid environment. The moral value and practical applicability of the ‘Five Freedoms’ are sometimes undermined by prioritising some freedoms over others and by species bias. Both are characteristic phenomena of the zoo as a hybrid environment where other species are managed by humans. Given deficiencies are further amplified by humanistic and moralistic attitudes that people hold. (shrink)

Jeder Gegenstand oder jedes Ereignis, inbezug auf die das Tier ein Gebaren zeigt, wird als “valent” bezeichnet, es wird gesagt, dass sie „Valenz” besitzen. Auf Grund der Analyse einer Experimentaluntersuchung vonF. Brock über die „Umwelt” des EinsiedlerkrebsesPagurus arrosor wird gezeigt, dass diese „Valenz” sich auf die Bedürfnisse des Tiers und die Beachtung durch das Tier bezieht. Die Folgerungen des Begriffs der „Valenz” werden entwickelt und die Notwendigkeit wird erwiesen, das Gebaren der Tiere in seiner Bezogenheit auf ihre eigenen Merkwelten, (...) nicht auf die unsrige, zu betrachten.L'auteur dit de chaque objet ou de chaque événement par rapport auquel l'animal montre du „behaviour”, qu'il est „valent”, qu'il possède de la „valence”. En se basant sur l'analyse des recherches expérimentales deF. Brock sur le „Umwelt” de l'hermitePagurus arrosor, l'auteur démontre que la „valence” est relative aux besoins de l'animal et à l'attention de la part de l'animal. Il développe ensuite les conséquences diverses que l'idée de „valence” implique et il prouve qu'il est nécessaire d'observer le „behaviour” de l'animal par rapport à sa propre perception et non pas par rapport à la nôtre. (shrink)

Umwelt theory has finally come of age. The paradigm-breaking power of Jakob vonUexküll’s technical term, after decades of inquiry by scholars such as Merleau-Ponty(1962) and Kauffman (1993) has become part of the vernacular of animal studies, psychology, sociology, and other scientific domains (Buchanan 2008; Lahti 2015;Stevens et al. 2018). The newfound fame of the Umwelt frame, however, is as much a boon to the field of biosemiotics as it is a burden, due to the usual serial misinterpretation (...) and cooptation that occurs in popularizing a concept.One prominent scholar, however, deeply wedded to the original lineage of meaning Umwelt theory offers, is the renowned ethologist and primatologist Frans de Waal, who has based his life work on understanding its core meaning through experimentation.From the first to the last page of de Waal’s latest overview of animal cognition, he anchors his interpretations in classical as well as cognitive ethology — steeped in the contributions of von Uexküll. This deceptively readable popular scientific monograph Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? affords digestible insights for the curious reader as well as enlightening details to those attuned to the fierce debates in animal cognition, consciousness, and ethics.The book incorporates Niko Tinbergen and Lorenz’s contrastive ethological interpretative styles to best enter into the Umwelten of other species, especially primates. DeWaal not only reviews his remarkable career and the history of ethology, but pushes further into the nuances of species-specific experimentation design and best practices in ethological methodologies. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Arbeit ist eine Fortsetzung derThompson'schen Analysen des Parasitenzyklus bei Insekten, die mit der irrealen Folgerung endeten, dass unter gewissen Voraussetzungen — die wir in der gegenwärtigen Analyse akzeptiert haben —jeder Parasit in relativ kurzer Generationenfolge seinen Wirt, und damit sich selbst, zur Ausrottung bringen muss. Der Einfluss von wiederkehrenden Umwelt-katastrophen wie sie z.B. durch ungünstiges Wetter sehr häufig bedingt sind, wurde untersucht mit dem Ergebnis, dass solche Katastrophen, wenn sie in nicht allzugrossen Intervallen auftreten, völlig genügen, um (...) die Unterbrechung der akkumulativen Parasitierung im Zyklus zu erklären.Die grössere Empfindlichkeit der Parasiten, welche aus allen Beobachtungen und Analysen sich ergibt, ist nicht physiologisch, sondern ökologisch bedingt. Methodisch hat sich gezeigt, dass die Analyse tierischer Populationen weitgehend ohne Anwendung von Integralen möglich ist.Die Ergebnisse, welche die hohe Bedeutung der Feinde bei grosser Wirtsdichte, und ihre minimale Wirksamkeit, wenn letztere niedrig ist, zeigen, sind unabhängig von einem besonderen Dichtefaktor der Feindvermehrung — wie er im allgemeinen besteht und die aufgezeigten Tendenzen noch verstärkt — gewonnen. Der Einfluss des Superparasiten wird unter dem Einfluss wiederkehrender Umwelt-katastrophen minimal. Am Modell einiger beobachteter Gradationen wird die Übereinstimmung mit unserer Analvse demonstriert.Le travail ci-dessus est la continuation des analyses deThompson des cycles parasitaires chez les insectes, qui l'ont à la conclusion absurde qu'en acceptant certaines suppositions — que nous avons acceptées dans la présente analyse — chaque parasite exterminerait son hôte et par conséquent soi-même. Nous avons étudié l'influence de certains phénomènes catastrophiques récurrents provenant du milieu comme par exemple celle d'un temps défavorable. Ces phénomènes, pourvu qu'ils ne se présentent pas à des intervalles trop grands, suffisent amplement pour expliquer l'interruption de la parasitation accumulative dans les cycles.La sensibilité plus grande des parasites qui est démontrée dans toutes les observations et analyses ne provient pas de causes physiologiques, mais écologiques.La méthodologie a donné comme résultat intéressant le fait que l'analyse des populations animales peut se faire sans l'application des intégrales.Les résultats démontrant la grande importance des ennemis quand les hôtes sont nombreux, mais par contre une activité minimale des ennemis quand les hôtes sont rares, ont été obtenus indépendamment d'une augmentation spéciale des ennemis qui, en général, constitue un facteur important, ce qui renforce encore les tendances que nous avons trouvées. L'influence des superparasites devient minime sous l'action des catastrophes récurrentes dus au milieu. Finalement, au moyen de quelques gradations bien observées, nous avons démontré que notre analyse est conforme aux faits. (shrink)

Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject? With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has (...) called Uexküll "a high point of modern antihumanism." A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, _A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans_ advances Uexküll's revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species' morphology and behavior. _A Theory of Meaning_ extends his thinking on the _umwelt_, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll's work for the first time will find that his concept of the _umwelt_ holds out new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the whole framework of biopolitics itself. (shrink)

This paper analyses the cultural and biosemiotic bases of human attitudes towards other species. A critical stance is taken towards species neutrality and it is shown that human attitudes towards different animal species differ depending on the psychological dispositions of the people, biosemiotic conditions (e.g. umwelt stuctures), cultural connotations and symbolic meanings. In real-life environments, such as zoological gardens, both biosemiotic and cultural aspects influence which animals are chosen for display, as well as the various ways in which (...) they are displayed and interpreted. These semiotic dispositions are further used as motifs in staging, personifying or de-personifying animals in order to modify visitors’ perceptions and attitudes. As a case study, the contrasting interpretations of culling a giraffe at the Copenhagen zoo are discussed. The communicative encounters and shifting per ceptions are mapped on the scales of welfaristic, conservational, dominionistic, and utilitarian approaches. The methodological approach described in this article integrates static and dynamical views by proposing to analyse the semiotic potential of animals and the dynamics of communicative interactions in combination. (shrink)

Play behaviour is notorious for constituting a much debated, yet little clarified field of research. In this article, attempts are made to reach conclusions on the relation between human play and the play of other animals (especially cat play), as well as on the very character of play. The concept of Umwelt is reviewed, as are definitions of animal play, categorization of animal play and the role of meta-communication in playful behaviour. For some, play is a symbol (...) of everythingthat is good. The author of the current article does not deny that social morality may have originated from play behaviour, but stresses the existence of cruelty play, which leads to additional assumptions. Another notion that is treated in some detail is perceptual play, which proves to demonstrate complex semiotic play that is related first of all to signification. At the end of the article an alternative categorization of animal play is suggested, in which the fundamental role of mind games is emphasized. Throughout the text, examples of play behaviour are offered by the two domestic cats Muki and Maluca. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungTrotz seiner großen Verbreitung in den Lebenswissenschaften wurde dem Aquarium bisher wenig wissenschafts- und technikhistorische Aufmerksamkeit zuteil. Dies ist nicht zuletzt durch den Umstand begründet, dass das Aquarium und seine Geschichte bisher größtenteils als außerwissenschaftlich aufgefasst wurden. Dabei spielen so unterschiedliche Kontexte wie Akklimatisierung, Amateurnaturkunde und bürgerliche Populärkultur eine wichtige Rolle. Gleichzeitig ist die Entwicklung des Aquariums aber auch eng mit der Geschichte der Lebenswissenschaften verbunden. Mit Blick auf die zweite Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts verstehe ich das Aquarium als techno-natural (...) assemblage, in der Technologie, Kultur und Natur zu einem künstlichen Naturraum verbunden sind. Seine Geschichte beginnt in der britischen Amateurnaturkunde und der französischen Akklimatisierungsbewegung. Im Deutschland des späten 19. Jahrhunderts entwickelte sich das Aquarium zu einem Massenphänomen. Gleichzeitig hielt es Einzug in die Lebenswissenschaften, wo es als Einfallstor, Instrument und Umwelt Verwendung fand. Wie sich zeigt, ist das Aquarium eine hochgradig konstruierte Technologie, die sich aus einer Verbindung unterschiedlicher Traditionen herausgebildet und das Leben in die Lebenswissenschaften gebracht hat. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘shared meaning’, and the relationship between a shared understanding of signs within an animal social group and the Umwelten of individuals within the group. I explore the concept of the ‘Total Umwelt’, as described by Tønnesen, (2003), and use examples from the traditional ethology literature to demonstrate how semiotic principles can not only be applied, but underpin the observations made in animal social biology. Traditionally, neo-Darwinian theories of evolution concentrate (...) on ‘fitness’ or an organism’s capacity to survive and reproduce in its own environmental niche. However, this process also relies on underlying signs and sign processes, which are often over-looked in traditional ethology and behavioural ecology. Biosemiotics, however, places the emphasis on sign process, with signs and signals comprising a semiosphere. Significantly, whilst the semiosphere is formulated as physical phenomena, specifically energetic and material signs which can be detected and transmitted as signals from one individual to another, it is the Umwelten of living organisms which give those signals meaning. Further, two or more Umwelten can merge, giving rise to a ‘Total Umwelt’, which facilitates shared meaning of signs between two or more individuals. Across and within generations, this gives rise to cultural interpretation of signs within populations. I argue this is the fundamental basis for emergent group properties in social species, or indeed in solitary living species where individuals interact to mate, defend territories or resources, or in raising altricial young. I therefore discuss a fusion of traditional behavioural ecology- based theory with semiotics, to examine the phenomenon of ‘shared meaning’ in animal social groups. (shrink)

We respond to a phenomenological challenge set forth in Thomas Nagel’s “What Is It Like To Be a Bat?,” namely, to seek a method for obtaining a phenomenological description of non-human animal experience faithful to an animal’s first-person subjective perspective. First, we examine “translational” strategies employing empathy and communication with animals. Then we turn to a “transpositional” strategy from Uexkull’s Umwelt theory in which we objectively determine the components of a non-human animal’s subjective world of experience (...) and then map those coordinates onto our own subjective world. While this method gives us partial access to the animal’s “perception-world” aspect of its Umwelt, it does not inform us about what it is like to live in the interactive, “effect-world” aspect. To better overcome this limitation, we add a “transformational” approach derived from Deleuze’s & Guattari’s notion of “becoming-animal,” in which we take on an animal’s manners and capacities for interacting with the other objects and creatures in its world. (shrink)

Teleological theories are often dismissed in the study of animal behaviour, because of both the anthropomorphic element, and the paradox of retro-causation. Instead, emergent properties of animal systems, such as those which drive behaviour and decision making, are generally deemed to be non-purposeful. Nonetheless, organisms’ interactions with the environment, including sensory processing, have long been subject to biological study, and the resulting models include Jakob von Uexküll’s functional circle (part of his ‘Umwelt Theory’). The functional circle is (...) modelled on an assumption of three- dimensional space containing matter and energy, and one-dimensional, linear time. Moreover, the function of such models relies upon feedback within biological systems, and generally assume that the functional feedback loops close. I argue that this is impossible, because a feedback loop cannot go back intime to close itself, and so whilst it may approximate closure in space, it does not close in the dimension of time. To address this problem, I propose a conceptual model where time is treated as having a three- dimensional structure, and is measured in terms of past, future, and subjective present, termed the ‘period,’ ‘present’ and ‘phase,’ respectively. Space and matter, meanwhile, occur as a two- dimensional intersect, in which three-dimensional emergent properties which occur ion time are embedded. The model relies on functional helices rather than circles, and the loops of each helix (unlike circular loops) never achieve closure. I explain how this therefore results in a biological system, based on both feedback and anticipatory probabilities, which is both autopoietic and teleological. I also provide examples of how the concept can be applied, using foraging behaviour as an example. I further propose the theoretical origin of such a system is ‘timing’ and ‘rhythm,’ both of which I argue have their origins in single cellular organisms’ chemotaxis and the associated gradient descent search. (shrink)

This article argues that organisms, defined by a semi-permeable membrane or skin separating organism from environment, are (must be) semiotically alert responders to environments (both Innenwelt and Umwelt). As organisms and environments complexify over time, so, necessarily, does semiotic responsiveness, or ‘semiotic freedom’. In complex environments, semiotic responsiveness necessitates increasing plasticity of discernment, or discrimination. Such judgements, in other words, involve interpretations. The latter, in effect, consist of translations of a range of sign relations which, like metaphor, are based (...) on transfers (carryings over) of meanings or expressions from one semiotic ‘site’ to another. The article argues that what humans describe as ‘metaphor’ (and believe is something which only pertains to human speech and mind and, in essence, is ‘not real’) is, in fact, fundamental to all semiotic and biosemiotic sign processes in all living things. The article first argues that metaphor and mind are immanent in all life, and are evolutionary, and, thus, that animals certainly do have minds. Following Heidegger and then Agamben, the article continues by asking about the place of animal mind in humans, and concludes that, as a kind of ‘night science’, ‘humananimal’ mind is central to the semiotics of Peircean abduction. (shrink)

This article, drawing on selected feminist magazines of the 1980s, particularly Feminist Arts News (FAN) and GEN, offers a textual ‘braiding’ of narratives to re-present a history of Black British feminism. I attempt to chart a history of Black British feminist inheritance while proposing the politics of (other)mothering as a politics of potential, pluralistic and democratic community building, where Black thought and everyday living carry a primary and participant role. The personal—mothering our children—is the political, affording a nurturing of alterity (...) through a politics of care that is fundamentally antiracist and antisexist. I attempt to show how Black feminist thought can significantly contribute to democracy in the present and how Black British history and thought, as fundamentally antiracist and anticolonial, can generate a reinvention much needed in the present of a shared British history. I argue for feminist intervention premised upon a politics of care, addressing through activist mothering the urgency of Black absence from prestigious institutions. Such debilitating absence in Britain inhibits the development of scholarship, distorts feminist history and seriously concerns potential Black feminists. From diverse texts, I develop a genealogical narrative supplemented through memory work. This ‘gathering and re-using’ privileges Black women's theorising as a crucial component of the methodological metissage, which includes auto-theorising to develop ideas of resemblance in relation to Black British feminism and feminist kinship. The resultant ‘braiding’, I suggest after Lionnet, questions the absence of intersubjective spaces for reflection on Black British feminist praxis, indicating a direction for British feminists of all complexions. Attentive to the 1980s as historical context while invoking the maternal, I consider what is required to engage generationally, counterwrite the academy and pursue a dynamic process of transformation within a transnational feminism that challenges Black British absence from academic knowledge production, while nurturing its presence. (shrink)

Going beyond the creolisation theories of Brathwaite and Glissant, I attempt to develop ideas concerning the gendering of creolisation, and a historicising of affects within it. Addressing affects as ‘physiological things’ contextualised in the history of the Caribbean slave plantation, I seek, importantly, to delineate a trajectory and development of a specific Creole history in relation to affects. Brathwaite's proposition that ‘the most significant (and lasting) inter-cultural creolisation took place’ within the ‘intimate’ space of ‘sexual relations’ is key to my (...) argument. In the light of this, I consider how Creole cultural knowledge about affect—as the primary motivational system inclusive of fear, anger, outrage and so on — might be identified, and what constitutes such Creole knowledge within which affect might be embedded. How might Glissant's relationality and Creole literary texts add to this knowledge? I focus primarily on three texts: Clarke's The Polished Hoe, Collins’ The Colour of Forgetting and Morejón's ‘Amo a mi amo’/‘l Love My Master’. Each text on which I draw is selected for its intersectional representation of gender relations, ‘knowledge about sexual difference’ and its representation of Creole subjectivities within the context problematised here as the ‘demonic ground’. Moreover, as auto-theorising texts, they represent both narrative and meta-narrative of a creolising of affects in and against the economy of the slave plantation. Each represents also a stage or aspect of the development of subjectivities and an affective community that inform this intervention concerned with theorising against consolidated, universalising and Eurocentric conceptualisations of affect. In the process, I attempt to offer a differentiated cartography and literary archaeology of affect. (shrink)