Jesper Hoffmeyer

Ens et verum convertuntur, “communication and being are co-
extensive”. To be for nature is to be intelligible for the animal
whose being is to understand (Deely 2003: 39)

La questione dell’io é inevitabilmente connessa con quella
dell’altro (Ponzio 2001: 137)

The author revisits neuropsychiatrist Kurt Goldstein's (1934/1995, 1963) concept of self-actualization. It is argued that the interdisciplinary field of biosemiotics (Emmeche and Kull, 2011; Hoffmeyer, 2009) provides contemporary language and examples to understand Goldstein's concept, and expands the breadth of its application to include all living things (not only humans). The introduction to biosemiotics also provides an opportunity for humanistic psychology to form a meaningful collaboration with the naturalistic sciences. Self-actualization is defined through three important aspects. The first is that of individuation or the process of becoming a self. The second is that of holism, or the recognition that the organism and environment comprise a meaningful whole. Finally, the third is that self actualization is the only motivating drive. With the expansion of application that a biosemiotic view provides, it is maintained that all life is governed by biosemiosis.

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. 

The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.

Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.

Biosemiotics, if it is a paradigm for biology, should mean a different approach in all branches of biology. It cannot restrict itself to the re-interpretation of existing knowledge (like a philosophy of biology), or with the application of a new terminology. It is a way of thinking, experimenting, and describing for both theoretical and empirical biology. For Jakob von Uexküll, Umweltforschung was, first of all, an experimental science, the detailed physiological description and analysis of functional circles, the investigation of sensors and effectors of organisms together with the codes which connect them both inside and outside the organism. The semiotic approach has raised this problem and makes this work meaningful. However, the problem of what the semiotic approach should mean for experimental biology is not enough investigated in contemporary biosemiotics.
From the point of view of sociology of science, biosemiotics, according to the impact made by Jesper Hoffmeyer, seems to be a child of the cultural movement, related somehow to the values of methodological anarchism and love of symbiosis, holism and critics of neo-Darwinism. However, my belief is that it should be combined with the results of theoretical biology, with the understanding of complex systems, chaos, recursive mathematics, etc. When combining all these tools, biosemiotics may indeed build the bridges it has started to build.

In biosemiotics various biological processes and phenomena – from biochemical to evolutionary levels – are described as possessing some semiotic character. Often this is indicated by using concepts and terminology (sign, meaning, purpose, intentionality, agency, mind,…) that are more familiar when they refer to human mental phenomena. Modern science has for good reasons strived to get rid of such anthropomorphisms because of the anthropomorphic errors that easily follow. If we want that biosemiotics would be taken as a scientifically serious approach, we need to be outstandingly careful in defining our concepts without committing to such errors.

Besides anthropomorphic errors, another problem may be that the biosemiotic concepts are used so vaguely so that no operationalization of them is possible. Especially the term “semiosis” is commonly attributed to various presumably biosemiotic cases without any specification about which kind of sign is in process and how the concept is applied in the case. Without such specifications it is not clear, for instance, how the semiotic consequences of the sign in case relate to its non-semiotic effects. However, there have been several attempts – from 1991 on – to specify the sign or sign-process in biological phenomena starting from more or less Peircean inspired ideas (or terms), but there are also other pitfalls that we have been prone to fall on. When developing semiotic models to biosemiotic cases we should take care that
1. the used semiotic concepts are carefully derived and adjusted to the case,
2. we do not merely decorate the standard biological description with epiphenomenal topping,
3. the elements of the sign under transformation or interpretation are detectable, differentiable, or identifiable for the biosemiotic agent in case (and not only for us), and
4. all the elements of the sign are necessary in the description of the phenomena, i.e. that they are irreducible.

I will shortly present some such attempts (Hoffmeyer & Emmeche 1991, Sharov 1998, Vehkavaara 1998, Hoffmeyer 1998, Queiros, Emmeche, El-Hani 2006). Although everyone of these can be criticized as being unsatisfactory in some respects, it is important that more attempts (hopefully better and better) are made. Biosemiotic modeling appears as more demanding task than it may look in the surface. I will examine more closely Thomas Short’s (2007) supposedly general conception of sign-interpretation and his biosemiotic application of it (a hungry bear tearing up logs and eating grubs exposed). In Short’s example we will see that there are in fact two different kinds of signs involved together, a cognitive sign (with the concept of object) and a more primitive action guiding sign that has no proper object for the semiotic agent.

Any  attempt  to  develop  biosemiotics  either  towards  a  new  biolo-gical  ground  theory or  towards  a  metaphysics of  living  nature  necessitates  some  kind  of  naturalization  of  its  semiotic  concepts.  Instead  of  standard  physicalistic naturalism, a certain kind of semiotic naturalism is pursued here. The  naturalized  concepts  are  defined  as  referring  only  to  the  objects  of  our  external experience. When the semiotic concepts are applied to natural pheno-mena in biosemiotics, there is a risk of falling into anthropomorphic errors if the semiotic concepts remain mentalistic. It is suggested that there really is an anthropomorphic  error  or  “hidden  prototype  fallacy”  arising  from  Peirce’s  prototype for semiosis: the research process of an experimental scientist. The fallacy lies in the concept of the object of representation — it is questionable whether  there  are  any  objects  of  representation  for  bacteria  and  whether  the  DNA-signs  have  any  objects.  The  conclusion  is  that  Peircean  semiotic  concepts  are  naturalizable  but  only  if  they  are  based  on  some  more  primitive  concept  of  representation.  The  causal  origins  of  representations  are  not  relevant, only their anticipative consequences (i.e. meaning).

The essay discusses congruency issues in the biosemiotic approach of the Danish biochemist, Jesper Hoffmeyer. The authors understand Hoffmeyer's anti-reductionistic approach to be similar to Michael Polanyi's multi-layered ontology, but suggest that the Polanyian approach has fewer handicaps as a model-building enterprise. We offer a historical review of Hoffmeyer's polarized narrative of 20th century biology and investigate his central thesis that life and semiosis are coextensive. We argue that Hoffmeyer conflates temporal and spatial features of semi-otic systems, his account of emergentism is unclear and the relationship between semiotic evolution and punctuated equilibrium is vague, possibly entailing incongruent metaphysical views.

This paper addresses the concept of semiotic scaffolding by considering it in light of questions arising from the contemporary challenge to the humanities. This challenge comes from a mixture of scientistic demands, opportunism on the part of Western governments in thrall to neo-liberalism, along with crass economic utilitarianism. In this paper we attempt to outline what a theory of semiotic scaffolding may offer to an understanding of the humanities' contemporary role, as well as what the humanities might offer to the elucidation of semiotic scaffolding. We argue that traditional humanist positions adopted in defence of the humanities fail to articulate the enhancement of humanity that semiotic scaffolding represents. At the same time, we note that the concept of scaffolding is sometimes in danger of taking on a functionalist perspective which understanding the humanities modus operandi is likely to dispel. Putting forward these arguments, we draw on the work of Peirce, Cassirer and Sebeok in elucidating the structural and 'future-orientated' benefits of the scaffolding process as it suffuses the humanities. The challenge to the humanities in the contemporary conjuncture is twofold. On one side, the humanities are charged with the task of achieving – and proving that they have achieved – immediate economic use-value. On the other side, the three hundred year-long rise of the natural sciences, and particularly their relation to technological development, have effectively thrown down the gauntlet to the humanities and challenged them to prove their worth. In what follows, we will argue that some of the responses to these challenges to the humanities uncritically fall back on traditional humanist positions derived from the very traditions of thought that are ultimately challenging the legitimacy of the humanities in the present. We suggest that an alternative perspective on the humanities – one that is critical of crass utilitarianism but is nonetheless unwilling to dismiss use-value – is

Description courte (Électre, 2019) : Une étude d'un des principaux axes de réflexion du philosophe des sciences et de la nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). À la lumière des découvertes de l'embryogenèse et en s'appuyant par ailleurs sur la théorie de l'information, il proposa une interprétation des concepts unificateurs de la cybernétique mécaniste.

Short Descriptor (Electre 2019): A study of one of the main axes of reflection of the French philosopher of science and of nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). Relying on the discoveries about embryogenesis, and also with the use of information theory, Ruyer proposed an interpretation of the main unifying concepts of mechanistic cybernetics.

Description longue : Cet ouvrage propose une étude fouillée d’un des principaux axes de réflexion du philosophe des sciences et de la nature français Raymond Ruyer (1902–1987) : la cybernétique. Après avoir proposé une philosophie structuraliste, Ruyer la modifia à la lumière des découvertes de l’embryogenèse, puis il proposa une interprétation des concepts unificateurs de la cybernétique mécaniste. Réfléchissant sur cette dernière et sur la théorie de l’information, en particulier sur l’origine de l’information, il défendit que cette cybernétique n’était qu’une lecture inversée de la vraie cybernétique, qui nous donnerait de lire dans l’expérience même les traces du pouvoir morphogénétique, appréhendé comme un champ axiologique. Dans un texte résumant son propre parcours, Ruyer affirma que la critique de la théorie de l’information « peut donner […] l’espoir d’aboutir à quelque chose comme une nouvelle théologie. »

Les idées directrices de Ruyer sont tout particulièrement contextualisées ici à partir de la question du développement des formes en biologie, et de celles de la génétique, de la genèse stochastique de l’ordre, et de l’identification mentale ou physique de l’information. L’ouvrage se termine en départageant ce qui est axiologique et théologique dans ce projet de métaphysique qui, bien que resté inachevé, n’en représente pas moins le plus impressionnant conçu en France au siècle dernier.

– Long description: This book offers an in-depth study of one of the main axes in the reflection of French philosopher of science and nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). In a text summarising his own development, Ruyer stated about the philosophical critique of information theory that it "is what can give the most long-lasting hope of getting to something like a new theology." After propounding a structuralist philosophy, and distinguishing between form and structure, to then modify it in the light of discoveries in embryogenesis, Ruyer offered a re-evaluation of the unifying concepts of mechanistic cybernetics. Thinking about it and about information theory, he defended the idea that this cybernetics was in reality an inverted reading of the real one, which would allow us to read in experience itself traces of the morphogenetic power, apprehended as the axiological field. On some transversal points, the development of forms in biology and genetics, the stochastic genesis of order, the identification of information with either psychological and mental, or physical reality, behaviour, and the access to meaning, this work exposes the main ideas of Ruyer while situating them in the context of the breadth of others' contributions. It ends by determining what is theological and axiological in this project for a metaphysics which, although unfinished, is nevertheless the most impressive effort done in France in the last century.

Anfang 2020 schien es kurzzeitig, als ließe sich gesellschaftliches Leben doch von einem Tag auf den anderen grundlegend ändern. Individuelle Gewohnheiten und sogar Großroutinen gesellschaftlicher Funktionssysteme wurden außer Kraft gesetzt, um den Gefahren der Corona-Pandemie zu begegnen. Allerdings wurde schnell klar, dass diese Veränderungen vor allem dazu dienen sollten, zur Normalität alter Gewohnheiten zurückkehren zu können. Je länger die Pandemie dauerte, umso deutlicher wurde auch, was sich schon im Umgang mit anderen Großkrisen als Hindernis zeigte: Im Streben nach Selbsterhaltung geht es nicht nur ums nackte Überleben, sondern auch um die Erhaltung von Lebensweisen und Identitätsmustern. „Wir sind unsere Gewohnheiten“ (Gregory Bateson) - und diese werden verteidigt, selbst wenn sie beginnen, die eigene Existenz zu bedrohen. Das Dilemma dieser „defensiven Routinen“ (Chris Argyris): sie zu verändern bedeutet die psychosoziale Identität zu gefährden, sie beizubehalten heißt die physiologische Identität aufs Spiel zu setzen. Gängige Problemlösung kommt hier an ihre Grenzen.

Cet article propose de considérer l’abduction d’après le paradigme biosémiotique tout en mettant l’emphase sur le caractère évolutionniste de la sémiotique de Charles S. Peirce. À cette fin, les principaux axiomes et hypothèses de la biosémiotique sont repris et discutés. Pour définir le rôle de l’abduction par rapport à la sémiotique et pour situer la sémiotique au sein d’une épistémologie générale, la classification des sciences de Peirce est reprise. Le concept d’Umwelt développé par Jakob von Uexküll sert ici d’assise à une théorie du signe et de la sémiose désubjectivée, où la cognition, dont l’abduction est un mode, est conçue comme un principe général au sein du vivant. M’appuyant sur les travaux récents de Frederik Stjernfelt sur la logique syntaxique des propositions naturelles, ou Dicisignes, le modèle évolutionniste de Peirce est mis à l’épreuve de la recherche contemporaine en épigénétique. La thèse qui mobilise les différents éléments de ce cadre théorique et qui motive l’ensemble du développement argumentatif de cet article est que l’abduction est une opération régulatrice qui agit à différents niveaux au sein du vivant.

In 2014, Jesper Hoffmeyer’s book Biosemiotics was published by Tallinn
University Press in its Estonian translation. On December 4, he gave a lecture, “Biosemiotics: Bridging the science-humanities gap” at Tallinn University, followed by the presentation of the book. During the next days, December 5–6, Jesper participated in the conference “Creative Continuity”, organized in Tartu by the Department of Semiotics. This meeting celebrated the 50th anniversary of Sign Systems Studies, the journal of semiotics published by the University of Tartu. The conference included guest lectures by Edna Andrews, Francesco Bellucci, and Jesper Hoffmeyer himself. The following interview was held on December 6, 2014, in Tartu, over a cup of coffee.