The Uexküllian Pillars of Sebeok: Umwelt as a Semiosic Model of Reality (or on the Idealism of Biosemiotics)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me14.360Keywords:
biosemiotics, Umwelt, semiosis, idealismAbstract
Thomas Sebeok is recognized as the principal founder of biosemiotics, an interdisciplinary doctrine where semiotics and biology intersect to understand living beings as entities of semiosis, that is, beings capable of producing and interpreting signs. According to his statements, his theoretical project is mainly supported by two pillars: the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and the biology of Jakob von Uexküll. However, this does not exclude other influences, such as one of Uexküll's sons, Thure. This text explores this line of theoretical influence in Sebeok's work, specifically that of the two Uexkülls. On the one hand, Jakob's doctrine of the surrounding world (Umweltlehre) allows Sebeok to begin understanding non-verbal semiosic processes beyond humans, in plants and animals. On the other hand, Thure's endosemiotic proposal, which sees the cell as the minimal unit of semiosis, helps Sebeok extend the field of biosemiotics to all living beings. With this, Sebeok ultimately achieves the conception of the surrounding worlds of living beings as semiosic models of reality, that is, as phenomenological and meaningful models subjectively constituted through signs. This implies the adoption of idealist theses, inherited from Kantian transcendentalism, which imply some philosophical consequences that are analyzed towards the end of the work.
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