Ebook: Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary

Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes.

Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well.

Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the ‘big questions’ of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

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Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes.

Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well.

Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the ‘big questions’ of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

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Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes.

Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well.

Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the ‘big questions’ of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xvii
Front Matter....Pages 79-79
Introduction: An Evolutionary History of Biosemiotics....Pages 1-77
Front Matter....Pages 79-79
The Theory of Meaning....Pages 81-114
The Logic of Signs....Pages 115-148
Front Matter....Pages 149-189
Biosemiotics: Its Roots, Proliferation and Prospects....Pages 191-214
The Clever Hans Phenomenon from an Animal Psychologist’s Point of View....Pages 215-215
Phytosemiotics....Pages 217-236
Endosemiosis....Pages 237-255
Signs and Codes in Immunology....Pages 257-277
From Animal to Man: Thought and Language....Pages 279-321
A Semiotic Perspective on the Sciences: Steps Toward a New Paradigm....Pages 323-335
Front Matter....Pages 337-376
Theoretical Biology on Its Way to Biosemiotics....Pages 377-413
Laws of Symbolic Mediation in the Dynamics of Self and Personality....Pages 415-415
Concepts of Molecular Biosemiotics....Pages 417-443
Form, Substance and Difference....Pages 445-462
The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics....Pages 463-500
Front Matter....Pages 501-518
The Semiotics of Nature: Code-Duality....Pages 519-540
Information and Semiosis in Living Systems: A Semiotic Approach....Pages 541-580
Front Matter....Pages 581-581
The Cybersemiotic Model of Communication: An Evolutionary View on the Threshold between Semiosis and Informational Exchange....Pages 583-628
Biosemiotics: A New Understanding of Life....Pages 629-656
Back Matter....Pages 581-581
....Pages 657-696