The semiotic species: Deelying with animals in philosophy

Animals are treated in philosophy dominantly as opposed to humans, without revealing their independent semiotic richness. This is a direct consequence of the common way of defining the uniqueness of humans. We analyze the concept of 'semiotic animal' , proposed by John Deely as a definition of human specificity, according to which humans are semiotic (capable of understanding signs as signs), unlike other species, who are semiosic (capable of sign use). We compare and contrast this distinction to the more standard ways of drawing the distinction between humans and animals.

The present essay aims at integrating different concepts of meaning developed in semiotics, biology, and cognitive science, in a way that permits the formulation of issues involving evolution and development. The concept of sign in semiotics, just like the notion of representation in cognitive science, have either been used too broadly, or outright rejected. My earlier work on the notions of iconicity and pictoriality has forced me to spell out the taken-forgranted meaning of the sign concept, both in the Saussurean and the Peircean tradition. My work with the evolution and development of semiotic resources such as language, gesture, and pictures has proved the need of having recourse to a more specified concept of sign. To define the sign, I take as point of departure the notion of semiotic function (by Piaget), and the notion of appresentation (by Husserl). In the first part of this essay, I compare cognitive science and semiotics, in particular as far as the parallel concepts of representation and sign are concerned. The second part is concerned with what is probably the most important attempt to integrate cognitive science and semiotics that has been presented so far, The Symbolic Species, by Terrence Deacon.

2003

This article traces the comparative fortunes of the terms 'semiology' and 'semiotics,' with the associated expressions 'science of signs' and 'doctrine of signs,' from their original appearance in English dictionaries in the 1800s through their adoption in the 1900s as focal points in discussions of signs that flourished after pioneering writings by Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. The greater popularity of 'semiology' by midcentury was compromised by Thomas Sebeok's seminal proposal of signs at work among all animals, and Umberto Eco's work marked a 'tipping point' where the understanding associated with 'semiotics' came to prevail over the glottocentrism associated with 'semiology.'

Cognitive Semiotics, 2009

This article outlines a general theory of meaning, The Semiotic Hierarchy, which distinguishes between four major levels in the organization of meaning: life, consciousness, sign function and language, where each of these, in this order, both rests on the previous level, and makes possible the attainment of the next. This is shown to be one possible instantiation of the Cognitive Semiotics program, with influences from phenomenology, Popper's tripartite ontology, semiotics, linguistics, enactive cognitive science and evolutionary biology. Key concepts such as "language" and "sign" are defined, as well as the four levels of The Semiotic Hierarchy, on the basis of the type of (a) subject, (b) value-system and (c) world in which the subject is embedded. Finally, it is suggested how the levels can be united in an evolutionary framework, assuming a strong form of emergence giving rise to "ontologically" new properties: consciousness, signs and languages, on the basis of a semiotic, though not standardly biosemiotic, understanding of life.

the rest of the living, reflection on animal representations is, in the context of human understanding, ultimately self-reflection. With contributions from seven countries on three continents, we believe that this collection of essays comprises an eloquent and reasonably representative portrayal of current and modern analysis of animal representations. The chapters are elaborated by scholars brought together by the first international conference ever devoted explicitly to zoosemiotics, Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations, arranged in Tartu, Estonia, April 4-8, 2011. Methodologies applied include philosophical, ecocritical, autobiographical, postcolonial, historical, and phenomenological research. All these approaches are tied together by a common understanding of semiotics as an analytical tool enabling us to conceptualise the meaning of animals, as well as the meaning in animals and in animal lives. Some subjects of inquiry recur in different chapters. The protagonists and antagonists treatedbesides humansinclude insects and birds, sheep and dogs, fish and marmotsjust a small selection of our fellow species, for whom our mutual understanding may often prove to be a matter of life and death. With the following chapters we hope to demonstrate that the explanatory power of zoosemiotics, combined with the array of the aforementioned approaches in the study of animal representations, may offer some new and exciting perspectives in our still long way to mutual understanding with animals. While applying a range of different theories and methodologies, this book is grounded in a rich semiotic approach to the study of animal representations. The semiotic toolbox provides scholars from various backgrounds with means to analyse phenomena that can be approached from both sides of the traditional nature/culture dividenot least due to the emerging academic fields of biosemiotics and ecosemiotics. In these, plus zoo-semioticsoriginally framed as the semiotics of animal communication 1the study constituted by semiotics of animal representations has a firm scientific outlook (if still in development) at its base. To put it simply, this outlook is essentially equivalent with the idea that animals and other biological organisms, and ecosystems, can usefully be studied from the perspective of communication, signi-fication, and representationin short, from the perspective of meaning generation.

Semiotica, 2000

Four ages by John Deely contributes to demonstrating the centrality of the theory of sign to the history of philosophy. The notion of sign and its foundation in a theory of sign together constitute the vital context of the specific perspective of our present for a new understanding of the history of philosophy as a whole. Human understanding (Locke) is possible because man is a semiotic animal, but also a ''political animal'' (Aristotle). Otherness and civilization: in Deely's view these are the basic elements of the origin of philosophy, which does not have a precise beginning, any more than the experience of the other as other, or of the ''Other in its otherness,'' as Deely puts it, has a precise beginning. The other is necessary to the constitution of the objective world in its species-specifically human form. The relation with the other as other, the ''otherness relation,'' irreducibly transcends the realm of knowledge. The relation with the other in its otherness constitutes an ethical foundation. This relation is involvement, exposition, responsibility, non-indi¤erent proximity of one-for-the-other. The ethical perspective is the very perspective from which we have read John Deely's Four ages.

The Iranian Political Science Associaion/Gam-e-Nou, 2024

Our research pays attention to the problem of the coverage of the realm of semiotic beings. This problem is raised by the meeting between the contemporary account of the human animal as a semiotic animal and the possible advent of a technological singularity, meaning a living technological being aware of semiosis. Apart from highlighting the prospective emergence of a complex phenomenon leading to evolutionary pressures on humans, we also pointed to a positive direction toward developing a cooperative relationship between the latter and a sustainable form of technological life: the furtherance of semiotics. To this end, we started by providing a few historical and philosophical references to help us better understand the problem at stake. Next, we described how beings gain semiotic access to reality, the distinction between the realm of semiotic beings and of machines, and the infinite character of the study of semiotics. Finally, we concluded that the realm of semiotic beings is still, despite technological advances, exclusively human.

(Presentation given at IcON 2015, Kaunas, Lithuania. The written version was originally intended for the Proceedings, but nothing came out of it and so here it is.) This presentation will deal with the idea that the different varieties of semiotics have essentially a general proposal of unity within the context of the so-called general semiotics, but that this core of ideas has not developed into a set of actual propositions arguing for the unity of semiotics as a whole. This remarkable disunity resembles the problems first found in the major and well-documented opposition between semiology and semiotics, but the nuances of its articulation may well be overcome through the effort of providing a biosemiotic account of semiotic phenomena. Yet, a general biosemiotic paradigm requires "tweaking" some more commonplace assumptions on how sign-systems work, creating a series of new problems, such as the possibility of referring to the same signification mechanisms throughout wildly dissimilar types of organisms. Bridging the gap inside the different branches of semiotics can prove to be a daunting task, but it is one that can be undertaken with the objective of a more cohesive discipline. Is cohesion, however, a value worth pursuing in semiotics? While a negative answer can be satisfactorily given, this presentation will argue for the positive approach.

As a branch of theoretical semiotics which aims to contribute to the development of the theory of both semiotics and education, edusemiotics must also problematize the most foundational semiotic conceptions of sign and semiosis. The biosemiotic notion, that a sign relation is necessarily dependent on learning restricts semiotics to the biological sphere, to living beings. This fits well with education which can be seen as transition from the zoosemiotic sphere to the anthroposemiotic sphere. However this radical discontinuity between living and non-living spheres makes it difficult to understand how signs and semiosis are viable at all and what their basic nature is. Ontologically we can imagine that sign relations must also be somehow based on the features of non-living beings. In this article I will analyse how a concept of a sign can be seen as a general model of interaction between any beings. This paper develops the conception of semiosis and signification with regard to the competence (or habits) of the subject experiencing the meaning. Such task requires the explication of the ontological basis of semiosis-a step often perceived as dangerous by semioticians or ignored by educators.