ABSTRACTAlan Watts’ philosophy of religion makes a claim for secular competence in religious prax... more ABSTRACTAlan Watts’ philosophy of religion makes a claim for secular competence in religious praxis. The argument appears as paradoxical as a Zen koan: religion is a secular affair, for both the value and actuality of faith are lost when held faithfully, but reborn in the necessity of acting on insecure foundations that life demands. The premise is that believing can either assist a believer in dealing with facts of living, or hide them from the believer’s attention. In the latter the believer is less likely to prosper. I posit that religion, as Watts uses the term, represents the binding of interpretation within and as living being, put to work as a furthering of the coordination of organism and environment. As such, religion is a process of biosemiotic ontology, an entailment of the function of sign use. As persons, religion is that process by which what we believe becomes what we do and thus who we are. Watts warns us not to bind-perception-into-action speciously, that is, not to...
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
Commentary on the article by John Deely in this volume: John Deely (2015), Ethics and the Semiosi... more Commentary on the article by John Deely in this volume: John Deely (2015), Ethics and the Semiosis-Semiotics Distinction. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 37, 3-4, 13-30.
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
Abstract ‘Things’ fall into multiplicities of sets: most notably, there are things that are livi... more Abstract ‘Things’ fall into multiplicities of sets: most notably, there are things that are living and things that are not, things that are thought and things that are thought of, and things that exist and things that don’t. Historically and in European thought, there has been a tendency to depict such sets as discontinuous, and ‘settled’ by inherent polar opposition. A more recent trend has been to depict them as dipolar continuums, and to presume a sliding scale of every conceivable set. When this is taken to an extreme, it results in a kind of know-nothingism that refuses to tell the difference between differences. Though so many of these sets so clearly overlap, when this notion is treated as ‘real’ (i.e., as a matter of ‘stuff’), the very notion of sets is rendered absurd, the fact of synechism is turned on its head, and ‘relative’ is transformed into something that denies the relatedness of things. Yet still, no set exists without the opposition of whatever is not included in it; and too, thought – here identified as the consequent of a living thing minding its surrounds and not merely human abstraction – is co-existent with ‘setting’ things. The question of how to square these circles remains a vital issue throughout philosophy and within every conceivable science. Here, we shall deal with just one. Continued human success may well hinge upon success at formulating an anthropology that is both nonhuman and postbiotic. Such a study demands more than mere replacement of modern fragmentation with a tyranny of structurelessness, more than a deconstruction of modernism, pastiche of all conceivable culture, or philosophical kitsch. It also demands that we reject the postmodern tropes of absurd and ironic detachment and rediscover the passion of relating, the beauty of truthing, as well as the dead weight of living. All this demands a motivational turn away from issues of self, and towards those of other selves, which cannot possibly be accomplished singularly. Building on classical Pragmatism and Peircean semiotics, this essay seeks to outline a postbiotic anthropology. The living and the not living are given rough treatment, while finer attention is given to the objects of the self and other virtual elements of actual existence. As with living things, a postbiotic anthropology will succeed or fail based on its capacity, and so we begin with the agency of non-corporeal, non-living and not even conceived entities.
Abstract Practice commonly develops independent of theory: only rarely does some heritable info... more Abstract Practice commonly develops independent of theory: only rarely does some heritable informational structure knowingly emerge. With this in mind, Biosemiotic theory is well served by an informed synthesis with Constantin Stanislavski’s theatrical technique. For it is not enough merely to catalog signage by studying the consequence of its function, we also seek to generate signs with knowing intent. This implies more than the strategic use of signs, which all complex living things do, and of which our many subjective selves emerge. It calls for an objective artifice of signs, that is, some set of techniques competent to produce subjectivity, and capable of being objectified such that it can become a knowable standard. This is precisely what Stanislavski offers, ways of knowingly creating novel, actual, believably generative, signs. Within the realm of human action and in terms of human knowing, he positively exemplifies applied semiotic theory: his approach to dramatizing fictional characters also expresses how self-consciousness comes to be. What Stanislavski implies, Charles Tilly presumes and this essay asserts: our own biotic evolution has been influenced by post-biotic or metaphoric evolution, which results from the ‘living’ interaction of certain classes of non-living things. These derive from the pragmatic a priori made implicit by Chauncey Wright, which is the motivation of living things to act on specific needs within specific situations. The need to breathe is one example; the need to make competent use of existing epistemic structures is another. But such structures have their own needs, and ‘act’ to fill them. When this is compounded culturally, it may result in self- consciousness – a self-constructed artifice of semiosis with great consequence to biotic processes. Tilly supplies evidence that such compounding happens within human society, as well as a theoretical basis for its expression as a semiotic sociology. This essay uses pragmatic semiotics to explore the strong parallels that exist between the deliberately objective motivations upon which science, sanity and self-consciousness all depend, Stanislavski’s practicable artifice of signaling pathways and social emergence, and Tilly’s approach to society as ongoing performance.
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
ABSTRACTAlan Watts’ philosophy of religion makes a claim for secular competence in religious prax... more ABSTRACTAlan Watts’ philosophy of religion makes a claim for secular competence in religious praxis. The argument appears as paradoxical as a Zen koan: religion is a secular affair, for both the value and actuality of faith are lost when held faithfully, but reborn in the necessity of acting on insecure foundations that life demands. The premise is that believing can either assist a believer in dealing with facts of living, or hide them from the believer’s attention. In the latter the believer is less likely to prosper. I posit that religion, as Watts uses the term, represents the binding of interpretation within and as living being, put to work as a furthering of the coordination of organism and environment. As such, religion is a process of biosemiotic ontology, an entailment of the function of sign use. As persons, religion is that process by which what we believe becomes what we do and thus who we are. Watts warns us not to bind-perception-into-action speciously, that is, not to...
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
Commentary on the article by John Deely in this volume: John Deely (2015), Ethics and the Semiosi... more Commentary on the article by John Deely in this volume: John Deely (2015), Ethics and the Semiosis-Semiotics Distinction. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 37, 3-4, 13-30.
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
Abstract ‘Things’ fall into multiplicities of sets: most notably, there are things that are livi... more Abstract ‘Things’ fall into multiplicities of sets: most notably, there are things that are living and things that are not, things that are thought and things that are thought of, and things that exist and things that don’t. Historically and in European thought, there has been a tendency to depict such sets as discontinuous, and ‘settled’ by inherent polar opposition. A more recent trend has been to depict them as dipolar continuums, and to presume a sliding scale of every conceivable set. When this is taken to an extreme, it results in a kind of know-nothingism that refuses to tell the difference between differences. Though so many of these sets so clearly overlap, when this notion is treated as ‘real’ (i.e., as a matter of ‘stuff’), the very notion of sets is rendered absurd, the fact of synechism is turned on its head, and ‘relative’ is transformed into something that denies the relatedness of things. Yet still, no set exists without the opposition of whatever is not included in it; and too, thought – here identified as the consequent of a living thing minding its surrounds and not merely human abstraction – is co-existent with ‘setting’ things. The question of how to square these circles remains a vital issue throughout philosophy and within every conceivable science. Here, we shall deal with just one. Continued human success may well hinge upon success at formulating an anthropology that is both nonhuman and postbiotic. Such a study demands more than mere replacement of modern fragmentation with a tyranny of structurelessness, more than a deconstruction of modernism, pastiche of all conceivable culture, or philosophical kitsch. It also demands that we reject the postmodern tropes of absurd and ironic detachment and rediscover the passion of relating, the beauty of truthing, as well as the dead weight of living. All this demands a motivational turn away from issues of self, and towards those of other selves, which cannot possibly be accomplished singularly. Building on classical Pragmatism and Peircean semiotics, this essay seeks to outline a postbiotic anthropology. The living and the not living are given rough treatment, while finer attention is given to the objects of the self and other virtual elements of actual existence. As with living things, a postbiotic anthropology will succeed or fail based on its capacity, and so we begin with the agency of non-corporeal, non-living and not even conceived entities.
Abstract Practice commonly develops independent of theory: only rarely does some heritable info... more Abstract Practice commonly develops independent of theory: only rarely does some heritable informational structure knowingly emerge. With this in mind, Biosemiotic theory is well served by an informed synthesis with Constantin Stanislavski’s theatrical technique. For it is not enough merely to catalog signage by studying the consequence of its function, we also seek to generate signs with knowing intent. This implies more than the strategic use of signs, which all complex living things do, and of which our many subjective selves emerge. It calls for an objective artifice of signs, that is, some set of techniques competent to produce subjectivity, and capable of being objectified such that it can become a knowable standard. This is precisely what Stanislavski offers, ways of knowingly creating novel, actual, believably generative, signs. Within the realm of human action and in terms of human knowing, he positively exemplifies applied semiotic theory: his approach to dramatizing fictional characters also expresses how self-consciousness comes to be. What Stanislavski implies, Charles Tilly presumes and this essay asserts: our own biotic evolution has been influenced by post-biotic or metaphoric evolution, which results from the ‘living’ interaction of certain classes of non-living things. These derive from the pragmatic a priori made implicit by Chauncey Wright, which is the motivation of living things to act on specific needs within specific situations. The need to breathe is one example; the need to make competent use of existing epistemic structures is another. But such structures have their own needs, and ‘act’ to fill them. When this is compounded culturally, it may result in self- consciousness – a self-constructed artifice of semiosis with great consequence to biotic processes. Tilly supplies evidence that such compounding happens within human society, as well as a theoretical basis for its expression as a semiotic sociology. This essay uses pragmatic semiotics to explore the strong parallels that exist between the deliberately objective motivations upon which science, sanity and self-consciousness all depend, Stanislavski’s practicable artifice of signaling pathways and social emergence, and Tilly’s approach to society as ongoing performance.
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics ... more This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.
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Continued human success may well hinge upon success at formulating an anthropology that is both nonhuman and postbiotic. Such a study demands more than mere replacement of modern fragmentation with a tyranny of structurelessness, more than a deconstruction of modernism, pastiche of all conceivable culture, or philosophical kitsch. It also demands that we reject the postmodern tropes of absurd and ironic detachment and rediscover the passion of relating, the beauty of truthing, as well as the dead weight of living. All this demands a motivational turn away from issues of self, and towards those of other selves, which cannot possibly be accomplished singularly. Building on classical Pragmatism and Peircean semiotics, this essay seeks to outline a postbiotic anthropology. The living and the not living are given rough treatment, while finer attention is given to the objects of the self and other virtual elements of actual existence. As with living things, a postbiotic anthropology will succeed or fail based on its capacity, and so we begin with the agency of non-corporeal, non-living and not even conceived entities.
In English by Gerald Ostdiek
Continued human success may well hinge upon success at formulating an anthropology that is both nonhuman and postbiotic. Such a study demands more than mere replacement of modern fragmentation with a tyranny of structurelessness, more than a deconstruction of modernism, pastiche of all conceivable culture, or philosophical kitsch. It also demands that we reject the postmodern tropes of absurd and ironic detachment and rediscover the passion of relating, the beauty of truthing, as well as the dead weight of living. All this demands a motivational turn away from issues of self, and towards those of other selves, which cannot possibly be accomplished singularly. Building on classical Pragmatism and Peircean semiotics, this essay seeks to outline a postbiotic anthropology. The living and the not living are given rough treatment, while finer attention is given to the objects of the self and other virtual elements of actual existence. As with living things, a postbiotic anthropology will succeed or fail based on its capacity, and so we begin with the agency of non-corporeal, non-living and not even conceived entities.