ISI Library

Other title information: Zoosemiotic perspectives

Notes: Editors of the series: Kalevi Kull, Silvi Salupere, Peeter Torop

Annotation: This book is a collective effort. Its authors belong to the research group in zoosemiotics and human-animal relations based in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and in the Department of Semiotics at the University of Stavanger in Norway. The two opening chapters are written and edited collectively and present a framework of philosophical, historical, epistemological and methodological matters of zoosemiotic research. These initial considerations are followed by specific case studies that have been conducted by individual authors. The specific chapters, however, have been cross-edited and commented on by other authors of the book so that the whole collection forms an integrated set of view-points.

Identifier: 9789949772803

Status: Available

Annotation: This book opens a new perspective on living nature through the philosophical foundation of biology as an understanding social science. The contributions integrate the pragmatic turn of the theory of science discussion, replacing the solus ipse subject of knowledge of objectivism by the intersubjective - communicative character of thought, experience and research. A three-leveled biosemiotics investigates rule-governed sign-mediated interactions within and between organisms of all organismic kingdoms. This approach underlines the complementarity of syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules as a precondition for adequately investigating the languagelike structure of the genetic code and the communicative organization of interacting living nature.

Identifier: 9525576019

Status: Available

Annotation: The "chicken-and-egg" enigma of how genetic information and the body intermingle in "performing life" is a fascinating challenge for biology. The "Jurassic Park Fallacy" is a more traditional interpretation, stating that all the information necessary to build a body is present in DNA; the cell is but a "juke box" playing unambiguously what is in its genetic text and tuning the performance to the environment. Anton Markos suggests a complementary approach: to assume that living beings are endowed with a capacity analogous to a human reader, who is able to extract meaning from a given text, according to her or his personal experience and cultural background. Hermeneutics was developed in the humanities as a method to achieve understanding, in a given context, of texts, history, and artwork. The author takes living beings as hermeneutical interpreters of "texts" encoded in DNA." "This book should interest scholars in both biology and the humanities. To bring both kinds of reader to a common platform, the first part compares two problem-solving strategies: the "objectivist" approach common in natural sciences and hermeneutics as used in the humanities. The second part surveys aspects of the development of twentieth-century biology, also accentuating branches that never became part of today's mainstream. The third part reviews a large body of recent evidence, which can be interpreted in favor of the author's arguments."

Identifier: 0195149483

Status: Available

Other title information: biofotonica, stiinta a complexitatii

Annotation: This book is an attempt to create an interdisciplinary perspective to light as a physical and biological henomenon.

Identifier: 9739899765

Status: Available

Annotation: Semiotic theory, which has restricted its focus largely to human forms of signification, is transformed by Robert S. Corrington into a semiotics of nature itself. Corrington situates the divide between "nature naturing" and "nature natured" within the context of classical American pragmaticism and postmodern psychoanalysis. At the heart of this new metaphysics is an insistence that all signs participate in larger orders of meaning that are natural and religious. Meanings embodied in nature point beyond nature to the mystery inherent in positioned codes and signs

Identifier: 0253314410

Status: Available

Annotation: Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

Identifier: 067420283X

Status: Available