Variations in life history define key comparative and evolutionary biological questions, important for understanding the mechanisms of mammalian evolutionary divergence, developmental adaptability and plasticity. In this regard, the differences among predominantly altricial and precocial species represent a particularly significant, if still poorly understood and contested case. Here, it will be shown how the classical analysis of such ontogenetic variations, going back to the semantic biology of A. Portmann, can be expanded and synthesized with comparative physiological approaches, based on the negentropic (...) theory of ontogeny by I. A. Arshavsky and his school. In this little received but pioneering tradition, extensive comparative and experimental investigations were carried out on the role of musculoskeletal systems and stressors in driving life history variations, particularly in the altricial-precocial spectrum. As shown by Arshavsky and co-workers, by focusing on general allometric regularities, the approximations based on the classical energy rules of surface and mass offer valuable benchmarks, but also predictions that are frequently violated by the variability of physiological and metabolic scaling relationships among altricials and precocials, and thus, a complex and historical approach is needed to describe their local physiological mechanisms and systemic regularities. This paper shows how Arshavsky’s findings and framework can play an integrative role in this context, potentially helping to bridge the mainly descriptive approach of semantic morphology, as developed by Portmann’s school, with the more functional explanations predominating current ecology and life history theory. These problems can be important for biosemiotics by highlighting the contingent, activity-dependent, and surplus anabolic stress mechanisms underlying diversification in eutherian developmental systems and possibly, the epigenetic evolution of pace-of-life syndromes. (shrink)

La hermenéutica filosófica propone varias herramientas conceptuales útiles para la investigación, la crítica y el disfrute de las obras de arte. No obstante, existe una clara escasez de artículos de nivel intermedio que expliquen estos conceptos en el horizonte de su utilidad. Este artículo se enfoca en la noción de juego en la hermenéutica filosófica y realiza dos tareas: en primer lugar, interpreta la estética hermenéutica como respuesta a las necesidades teóricas y a los problemas filosóficos de su época. En (...) segundo lugar, destaca la relevancia del juego (Spiel) como estrategia fenomenológica para explicar la ontología de la obra de arte. Se argumenta que esta reinterpretación de la ontología de la obra de arte constituye una innovación filosófica que permite reconocer aspectos de la obra de arte que quedaban ocultos en otros abordajes estéticos del momento y que todavía son pertinentes de cara a las nuevas comprensiones de la obra de arte en la medida en que permiten reinterpretar el problema de la autonomía estética. (shrink)