Abstract
This article characterizes briefly the central aims of the semiotic study of animal life. Semiotic sciences in general can be defined as approaches to the study of various forms of knowing (as different from physical sciences, which study various things in the world), considering that knowing is possible only due to semiosis. The semiosphere is the sphere of knowing (knowing being always related to learning and acting). The basic types of knowing (as well as semiosis) include the vegetative, the animal, and the cultural. Zoosemiotics is focused on the animal type of knowing. Animal knowing is characterized by its use of iconic and indexical relations, whereas the extensive use of symbols is a prerequisite of specifically human (cultural, language-based) semiosis. However, the human organism also includes animal knowing as an inevitable part of its knowing. Knowledge cannot be credible if it is exclusively symbolic; it requires that iconic and indexical semiosis be involved.
About the author
Kalevi Kull (b. 1952) is a professor at the University of Tartu 〈kalevi@ut.ee〉. His research interests include semiotics, biology, and mechanisms of diversification. His publications include “Semiotics is a theory of life” (2005); “Semiotic ecology” (2008); “Vegetative, animal, and cultural semiosis: The semiotic threshold zones” (2009); and “Adaptive evolution without natural selection” (2013).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
