Jakob von Uexküll’s evolutionary views are described and analysed in the context of changes in semiotic and biological thinking at the end of Modern age. As different from the late Modernist biology, a general feature of Post-Modern interpretation of living systems is that an evolutionary explanation has rather secondary importance, it is not obligatory for an understanding of adaptation. Adaptation as correspondence to environment is a communicative, hence a semiotic phenomenon.

Theses on the semiotic study of life as presented here provide a collectively formulated set of statements on what biology needs to be focused on in order to describe life as a process based on semiosis, or sign action. An aim of the biosemiotic approach is to explain how life evolves through all varieties of forms of communication and signification (including cellular adaptive behavior, animal communication, and human intellect) and to provide tools for grounding sign theories. We introduce the concept (...) of semiotic threshold zone and analyze the concepts of semiosis, function, umwelt, and the like as the basic concepts for theoretical biology. (shrink)

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

In this 1958 book, Professor Hanson turns to an equally important but comparatively neglected subject, the philosophical aspects of research and discovery.

There are two interrelated but distinct programs which go by the name evolutionary epistemology. One attempts to account for the characteristics of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans by a straightforward extension of the biological theory of evolution to those aspects or traits of animals which are the biological substrates of cognitive activity, e.g., their brains, sensory systems, motor systems, etc. (EEM program). The other program attempts to account for the evaluation of ideas, scientific theories and culture in general by (...) using models and metaphors drawn from evolutionary biology (EET program). The paper begins by distinguishing the two programs and discussing the relationship between them. The next section addresses the metaphorical and analogical relationship between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary biology. Section IV treats the question of the locus of the epistemological problem in the light of an evolutionary analysis. The key questions here involve the relationship between evolutionary epistemology and traditional epistemology and the legitimacy of evolutionary epistemology as epistemology. Section V examines the underlying ontological presuppositions and implications of evolutionary epistemology. Finally, section VI, which is merely the sketch of a problem, addresses the parallel between evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics. (shrink)

Drawing on biosemiotic theory and the Peircean idea of ‘abduction’, I shall propose the idea of a layered structure of bio / semiotic evolution, in which humanknowledge is systemic and recursive — and thus emergent both from what is forgotten and from earlier evolutionary strata. I will argue that abductions are those processes by which we move creatively between often unacknowledged types of knowledge which are rooted in our natural and cultural evolutionary past (e.g., unconscious, preconscious, or tacit knowledge; knowledge (...) that is experienced affectively) and the more familiar types of knowledge associated with self-conscious deductive and inductive reasoning. I shall suggest that these processes of ‘hooking back’ into the past in order to make new sense in the light of subsequent experience, are characteristic of all human inventiveness in both the arts and the sciences, and are facilitated by what Peirce called ‘The Play of Musement’.My reasons for attempting this task are that I hope to offer a semiotic and biosemiotic corrective to the widespread and culturally dominant idea that the progress ofhuman knowledge and cultural evolution depends on self rational efficiency, conceived of in terms of self-conscious deduction and induction alone — a conception which runs the risk of excluding from the account what is actually the most creative part of human knowing. Second, I will suggest that a properly semiotically informed understanding of human creativity — i.e., one which understands the Peircean semiotic as triadic and which draws on the post-Peircean theory that the semiotic drive in nature and in culture derives from the need to model the world as accurately as possible — should provide a very stern warning against the dangers of confusing the map with the territory. For creative artists and scientists (and life-livers, in general) progress, I shall suggest, inasmuch as they ignore the utilitarian dogma in practice. A biosemiotic understanding of human reasoning as an evolutionary semiotic process should thus contribute to a removal of the impediments of modernity which lie in the failure to properly grasp both what language (and semiosis in general) is, as well as the historical and prehistorical evolution that makes such semiosis possible. (shrink)

Die Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie beantwortet Fragen aus der Philosophie mit Hilfe der Evolutionstheorie: Wir können die Welt erkennen, weil sich unsere Vorfahren im Laufe der Evolution an diese Welt angepasst haben. Poppers Kritischer Rationalismus schließt sich diesem Ansatz an. Es gibt dabei zwei mögliche Schwerpunkte, was aus den einschlägigen Texten, etwa von Popper oder von Konrad Lorenz nicht immer deutlich wird: Der eine Schwerpunkt betrifft mehr die biologische Frage, wie sich Erkenntnisorgane und Erkenntnisfähigkeiten entwickelt haben, der andere mehr die methodologische Frage, (...) wie wir unser wissenschaftliches Wissen gewinnen und erweitern können. Zu beiden Fragen kann man auf weitere Antworten hoffen. (shrink)

Evolutionary adaptation has been suggested as the hallmark of life that best accounts for life’s creativity. However, current evolutionary approaches still fail to give an adequate account of it, even if they are able to explain both the origin of novelties and the proliferation of certain traits in a population. Although modern-synthesis Darwinism is today usually appraised as too narrow a position to cope with all the complexities of developmental and structural biology—not to say biosemiotic phenomena—, Darwinism need not be (...) if we separate metaphor from reality in natural selection in order to show the axiological complexity of this concept. This can shed light on the relationship between biosemiotics and biological evolution. (shrink)

In contrast to the traditional relational semiotics, biosemiotics decisively deviates towards dynamical aspects of signs at the evolutionary and developmental time scales. The analysis of sign dynamics requires constructivism to explain how new components such as subagents, sensors, effectors, and interpretation networks are produced by developing and evolving organisms. Semiotic networks that include signs, tools, and subagents are multilevel, and this feature supports the plasticity, robustness, and evolvability of organisms. The origin of life is described here as the emergence of (...) simple self-constructing semiotic networks that progressively increased the diversity of their components and relations. Primitive organisms have no capacity to classify and track objects; thus, we need to admit the existence of proto-signs that directly regulate activities of agents without being associated with objects. However, object recognition and handling became possible in eukaryotic species with the development of extensive rewritable epigenetic memory as well as sensorial and effector capacities. Semiotic networks are based on sequential and recursive construction, where each step produces components that are needed for the following steps of construction. Construction is not limited to repair and reproduction of what already exists or is unambiguously encoded, it also includes production of new components and behaviors via learning and evolution. A special case is the emergence of new levels of organization known as metasystem transition. Multilevel semiotic networks reshape the phenotype of organisms by combining a mosaic of features developed via learning and evolution of cooperating and/or conflicting subagents. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology has experienced a continuous rise over the last decades. Important new theoretical considerations and novel empirical findings have been integrated into the existing framework. In this paper, I would like to suggest three lines of research that I believe will significantly contribute to further advance EE: ontogenetic considerations, key ideas from cognitive biology, and the framework of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. EE, in particular the program of the evolution of epistemological mechanisms, seeks to provide a phylogenetic account of (...) the generation of cognitive processes underlying knowledge creation. Traditionally, EE and EEM have been oriented towards an account of evolutionary theory that mainly drew from the tenets of the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis largely dismisses ontogenetic processes and considers them irrelevant for evolutionary explanations. If anything, the role of development in evolution is believed to be that of a constraint. There is, however, ample evidence for a tight intertwinement of developmental and evolutionary processes. Organisms employ their cognitive apparatus to interact with the environment in order to achieve a fully functioning perceptual and cognitive nervous system. Also, ontogeny provides generative potentials to enable variations that natural selection can act upon. EEM’s agenda may, therefore, strongly benefit from bringing together ontogenetic and phylogenetic approaches. To grapple with this challenge, an alternative vision of the evolutionary theory termed Extended Evolutionary Synthesis could be used. This extended evolutionary theory explores relationships between the processes of individual development and phenotypic change during evolution and can provide a more suitable framework for EEM to draw from. In recent years, cognitive biology has gained momentum as an independent research field. Cognitive biology builds on the concepts of EEM and understands knowledge as a biogenic phenomenon. Its main objective is also the formulation of substantiated interrelations between cognition and evolution but it focuses on cognitive functionality at all levels of biological organization. It thus employs a “vertical” approach that encompasses nested hierarchies which span from single molecules, cells, and tissues to the organismal level, communities, and societies. In contrast to cognitive biology, EEM is here understood to adopt a “horizontal” approach that focuses on phylogenetic explanations of cognition and knowledge acquisition. Linking EEM with the key ideas of cognitive biology could make EEM’s research program stronger as it can more easily accommodate phylogenetic and ontogenetic questions within a hierarchical, multilevel perspective. This is of particular importance for a more comprehensive account of cognition since living systems are subject to context-dependent causal influences from different organizational levels. In addition to EEM, there is a second program of EE. This program has been labeled evolutionary epistemology of theories and understands the increase in human knowledge, such as scientific theories, as naturalistic accounts of evolution. Both, EEM and EET initially drew from the core concepts of the Modern Synthesis. Several scholars have severely criticized the analogies made between EET and the Neo-Darwinian key processes of evolution. In particular processes of random mutation, the rate of variation, natural selection as the unique driving force, and the adaptationist agenda are believed to reveal disanalogies. In contrast to the Modern Synthesis, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis not only recognizes developmental processes but also ecological interactions and systems dynamics as well as social and cultural evolutionary reciprocity as important evolutionary processes. Concepts of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis are therefore expected to be more fruitful for re-conceptualizing parallels between scientific theorizing and biological evolution. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders Wittgenstein’s relation to the pragmatist tradition. I first discuss, from a pragmatist perspective, three key issues of Wittgenstein studies: the distinction – invoked in recent discussions of On Certainty, in particular – between the propositional and the non-propositional (section 2); the tension between anti-Cartesian fallibilism and what has been called the ‘truth in skepticism’ in Wittgenstein (section 3); as well as the relation between metaphysics and the criticism of metaphysics in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and Wittgensteinian philosophy more generally (...) (section 4). I then proceed to a more metaphilosophical consideration of yet another problematic dichotomy, the one between deconstructive (therapeutic) and (re)constructive or systematic, argumentative philosophy – which, I argue, the pragmatist, together with Wittgenstein, ought to overcome rather than rely on (section 5). After having gone through these open issues in Wittgenstein scholarship at a general level, I briefly apply my considerations to the philosophy of religion, which is an important field of inquiry for both Wittgensteinian and pragmatist thinkers (section 6). (shrink)

The book is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the Estonian-German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. After a first introductory chapter by Morten Tønnessen and a second chapter on Uexküll's life and philosophical background, it contains four chapters devoted to the analysis of his main works; they are followed by a vast eighth chapter which deals with the influence Uexküll had on other philosophers and scientists, and by a conclusions focused on the possibility of updating Uexküll's work. The monograph combines (...) a careful reconstruction of the historical context in which the Uexküllian concepts emerged (the debate between mechanism and vitalism, contemporary scientific studies) and a thorough analysis of the philosophical contents of the Uexküllian views. As far as the key issue is concerned, Uexküll's notion of Umwelt refers to the perceptive and operative world which surrounds animal species; it is a subjective species-specific construction which provides living organisms with great security and behaviour stability. Moreover, the relationship that the animal carries out with its environment proves to be a complex system of semiotic interactions: its behaviour is not a set of mechanical reactions, but the result of a spontaneous attribution of meaning to the outside world, whose environmental elements are actively interpreted by the subject. The environment of animal species becomes a field of meaning, an exceedingly complex subjective elaboration; this can lessen the distance between animals and men, crediting both with the cognitive ability to grasp meanings and to use signs. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology (...) interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. -/- (...). (shrink)

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; (...) rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science. (shrink)

On this tour of the universe of signs, Jesper Hoffmeyer travels back to the Big Bang, visits the tiniest places deep within cells, and ends his journey with us - complex organisms capable of speech and reason. He shows that life at its most basic depends on the survival of messages written in the code of DNA molecules, and on the tiny cell - the fertilized egg - that must interpret the message and from it construct an organism. What propels (...) this journey is Hoffmeyer's attempt to discover how nature could come to mean something to someone; indeed, how "something" could become "someone." How could a biological self become a semiotic self? (shrink)

This paper is a critique of Darwinian models of the growth of scientific knowledge. Donald Campbell, Karl Popper, Stephen Toulmin, and others have discussed analogies between the development of biological species and the development of scientific knowledge: in both kinds of development, we find variation, selection, and transmission. It is argued that these similarities are superficial, and that closer examination of biological evolution and of the history of science shows that a non-Darwinian approach to historical epistemology is needed. An adequate (...) model of the growth of knowledge will have to go beyond evolutionary epistemology in discussing the role of intentional, abductive theory construction in scientific discovery, the selection of theories according to general criteria, the achievement of progress by sustained application of criteria, and the transmission of selected theories in highly organized scientific communities. (shrink)

A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research (...) is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". (shrink)

In the six decades since the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, spectacular empirical advances in the biological sciences have been accompanied by equally significant developments within the core theoretical framework of the discipline. As a result, evolutionary theory today includes concepts and even entire new fields that were not part of the foundational structure of the Modern Synthesis. In this volume, sixteen leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science survey the conceptual changes that have emerged since Huxley's (...) landmark publication, not only in such traditional domains of evolutionary biology as quantitative genetics and paleontology but also in such new fields of research as genomics and EvoDevo. Most of the contributors to Evolution—The Extended Synthesis accept many of the tenets of the classical framework but want to relax some of its assumptions and introduce significant conceptual augmentations of the basic Modern Synthesis structure—just as the architects of the Modern Synthesis themselves expanded and modulated previous versions of Darwinism. This continuing revision of a theoretical edifice the foundations of which were laid in the middle of the nineteenth century—the reexamination of old ideas, proposals of new ones, and the synthesis of the most suitable—shows us how science works, and how scientists have painstakingly built a solid set of explanations for what Darwin called the "grandeur" of life. (shrink)

Biographical sketch -- Philosophical context -- Observation -- Logic of discovery -- Philosophy and history of science -- Quantum theory -- Conceptual structure, analogy, and the logic of discovery revisited.

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of knowledge is (...) seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

"Advocates of the evolutionary analogy claim that mechanisms governing scientific change are analogous to those at work in organic evolution - above all, natural selection. By referring to the works of the most influential proponents of evolutionary analogies (Toulmin, Campbell, Hull and, most notably, Kuhn) the authors discuss whether and to what extent their use of the analogy is appropriate. A careful and often illuminating perusal of the theoretical scope of the terms employed, as well as of the varying contexts (...) within which the analogy is appealed to in contemporary debates, leads to the conclusion that such general theories of selective processes are either too sketchy or eventually not persuasive, if not altogether based on flawed views of evolutionary biology. By clarifying what is at stake, the analysis carried out in the book sheds new light on one of the dominant theories of scientific progress. It also invites criticism, of course - but that is the very fuel of philosophical confrontation." - Stefano Gattei, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca "This book presents a serious challenge to those, like David Hull, who seek to model scientific change as an evolutionary process. The authors point out that although there are similarities between the processes of scientific change and organic evolution, the dissimilarities present formidable difficulties to construing the relation as anything more than a weak analogy. Their argument employs what they call a 'type hierarchical' approach that promises to be a powerful tool for the classification of similarities between theories in all fields." - Michael Bradie, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University "This is a most interesting discussion of the analogy between biological and scientific change. Particularly commendable is the close attention paid to the thinking of the late David Hull and his pathbreaking work on this issue." - Michael Ruse, History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University. (shrink)