University of Tartu, Estonia
The paper briefly reviews the impact of Thomas A. Sebeok on biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, including both his work as a theoretician in the field and his activity in organising, publishing, and communicating. The major points of his work in the field of biosemiotics concern the establishing of zoosemiotics, interpretation and development of Jakob v. Uexküll’s and Heini Hediger’s ideas, typological and comparative study of semiotic phenomena in living organisms, study of evolution of semiosis, arguing for the coincidence of semiosphere and biosphere, and research on the history of biosemiotics.
Trying to formulate briefly, in a thesis-like form, the main statements of Sebeok on biological semiotics, I have arrived to the following list (Kull 2003: 54–55).
(1) Life
is semiosis. “Semiosis, or a triadic cooperative production involving a
sign, its object, and its interpretant […], is as much a criterial attribute of
all life as is the ability to metabolize” (Umiker-Sebeok, Sebeok 1980: 1).
(2) Umwelt
is a model. “The recalcitrant term ‘Umwelt’ had best be rendered in English
by the word ‘model’” (Sebeok 1988: 72). “All, and only, living entities
incorporate a species-specific model (Umwelt) of their universe” (Sebeok 1996:
102).
(3) There
exists a global communicative network in the biosphere, formed in its lowest
level by bacteria. “The earliest, smallest known biospheric module with
semiosic potential […] is a single bacterial cell. […] The largest, most
complex living entity may be […] Gaia. Both units at the polar ends […] display
general properties of autopoietic entities, […] but it is now bacteria that
merit, in my opinion, special consideration on the part of all who would work at
semiotics professionally” (Sebeok 2001: 12).
(4) Protists, plants, fungi, and animals represent different basic communication strategies, and accordingly, correspondent branches of biosemiotics are relevant. “Just as there are different sorts of strategies for metabolic activity, there are also various kinds of communication devices” (Umiker-Sebeok, Sebeok 1980: 1).
(5) Endosemiosis
occurs in organism – with multiple (genetic, immune, metabolic, neural) codes.
These four codes (with references to relevant literature) are mentioned, e.g.,
in Sebeok (1996: 107–108).
(6) Symbiosis
is a token of semiosis. “The biologist’s notion of symbiosis […] is
equivalent to the philosopher’s notion of semiosis” (Sebeok 1988: 72).
“Inasmuch as processes of sign transmission outside and inside organisms are at
play, it appears not unreasonable to suppose ‘symbiosis’ to be a token of
‘semiosis’ and ‘endosymbiosis’ to be a token of ‘endosemiosis’” (Sebeok 1996:
102).
(7) Language
appears with syntax. There are no syntactic structures in animal sign systems.
“What we know of zoosemiotic processes furnishes no evidence of syntactic
structures, not even in any of the alloprimates” (Sebeok 1996: 108).
References
Kull, Kalevi
2003. Thomas A. Sebeok and biology: Building biosemiotics. Cybernetics and
Human Knowing 10(1): 47–60.
Sebeok, Thomas
A. 1988. ‘Animal’ in biological and semiotic perspective. In: Ingold, Tim
(ed.), What is an Animal. London: Unwin Hyman, 63–76.
Sebeok, Thomas
A. 1996. Signs, bridges, origins. In: Trabant, Jürgen
(ed.), Origins of Languge. Budapest: Collegium Budapest, 89–115.
Sebeok, Thomas
A. 2001. Global
Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Umiker-Sebeok,
Jean; Sebeok, Thomas A. 1980. Introduction: Questioning apes. In: Sebeok,
Umiker-Sebeok (eds.) 1980: 1–59.