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A Semiotic Approach to the Study of Life| old_uid | 8414 |
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| title | A Semiotic Approach to the Study of Life |
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| start_date | 2010/03/23 |
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| schedule | 17h-18h30 |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Biosemiotics, the study of life from a semiotic or sign-theoretical perspective, is based on the idea that semiosis and signification is central to life. Living systems cannot be undestood apart form the environment towards which their activities are unavoidably directed. Life is always "about" something else. The phenomenon of something being "about" something else has come to be known as intentionality. Dead things like clouds or stones are not believed to posses intentionality, they are not about something else, but thoughts, fears, hopes and other mental states exhibit intentionality. Intentionality has been seen as a demarcation line between humans and animals. An alternative position, probably shared by most philosophers of mind, considers that whatever is real is also nonintentional and explicable naturalistically. The paper presents a third position, a biosemiotic approach (following the lead of the American scientist and philosopher Charles S. Peirce 1839-1914), that takes intentionality to be a real property of all living systems, a property that - like everything else in the life world - calls for evolutionary explanation. The paper will sketch an evolutionary trend towards increased semiotic freedom |
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| responsibles | Longo, Mossio |
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