Meaning is a central concept of (bio)semiotics. At the same time, it is also a word of everyday language. Here, on the example of the world information, we discuss the “reduction-inflation model” of evolution of a common word into a scientific concept, to return subsequently into everyday circulation with new connotations. Such may be, in the near future, also the fate of the word meaning if, flexed through objectified semantics, will become considered an objective concept usable in semiotics. We argue (...) that reducing meaning to a technical term essentially synonymous to code and stripped of most of the original semantic field is not a necessary prerequisite for a meaningful application of the concept in semiotics and in biology. (shrink)

This is a wide ranging and deeply learned examination of evolutionary developmental biology, and the foundations of life from the perspective of information theory. Hermeneutics was a method developed in the humanities to achieve understanding, in a given context, of texts, history, and artwork. In Readers of the Book of Life, the author shows that living beings are also hermeneutical interpreters of genetics texts saved in DNA; an interpretation based on the past experience of the cell (cell lineage, species), confronted (...) with and incorporating present environmental clues. This approach stresses the history, not only of the digital record saved in the DNA, but also of the flesh - the cellular organization which has a direct time-continuity with the very origins of life. This book is aimed at reconciling two opposite approaches to life. The first strictly sticking to a belief that all phenomena observed in the realm of the living can be explained from laws of physics. The opposite stressing the importance of features characteristic for a given level of description. To bring both views into a common understanding, the first part gives a comparison of the two problem solving strategies. The second part surveys the development of 20th century biology, bringing to light branches that never became part of the research mainstream. The third section of the book reviews a large body of recent evidence that can be interpreted in favor of the hermeneutic arguments. (shrink)

What follows is a two-part review of Günther Witzany’s two-part book, The Logos of the Bios. The first part of the review is written by Sergey Chebanov, and it approaches the text as a source of ideas on biosemiotics and biohermeneutics. The second part is written by Anton Markoš, and it estimates the biological pithiness of the book and the correctness of the reflection of the included data of modern biology.

Evolution and life phenomena can be understood as results of history, i.e., as outcomes of cohabitation and collective memory of populations of autonomous entities across many generations and vast extent of time. Hence, evolution of distinct lineages of life can be considered as isomorphic with that of cultures. I argue here that cultures and culture-like systems – human culture, natural languages, and life forms – always draw from history, memory, experience, internal dynamics, etc., transforming themselves creatively into new patterns, never (...) foreseen before. This is possible thanks to the fact that all forms of life are descendants of life. Ontogeny and speciation in various lineages draw from continuous re-interpretation of conservative genetic/generic “texts”, as well as from changes of the interpretative process itself. The result is continuous appearances of new lineages-cultures and/or communities-cultures, in a semiotic process of re-interpretation and inventing new ways of living. The topic is developed here on the backgrounds of ideas presented by R. A. Rappaport in “Ritual and religion in the making of humanity” and J. Flegr in “Frozen evolution”. (shrink)

The “histone code” conjecture of gene regulation is our point of departure for analyzing the interplay between the (quasi)digital script in nucleic acids and proteins on the one hand and the body on the other, between the recorded and organic memory. We argue that the cell’s ability to encode its states into strings of “characters” dramatically enhances the capacity of encoding its experience (organic memory). Finally, we present our concept of interaction between the natural (bodily) world, and the transcendental realm (...) of the digital codes. (shrink)

The emergence of novelty in the realm of the living remains, despite the long tradition of evolutionary biology, unwelcome, calling for explanation by old, established knowledge. The prevailing neodarwinian evolutionary paradigm approaches living beings as passive outcomes of external (and extraneous, hence “blind”) formative forces. Many teachings opposing Darwinism also take the existence of eternal, immutable and external laws as a necessary prerequisite. Ironically enough, authors who oppose Darwinian theory, and admit that living beings possess a “self”, often accentuate internal, (...) ideal and eternal harmony,which is incompatible with historical changes; moreover such harmony is again imposed by external, atemporal “laws”. I describe here a third approach embodied by the names of two unrelated scholars, Stuart Kauffman (biology, physics) and Juri Lotman (semiotics, culturology). Their approach suggests thatthe evolution of organisms, minds, cultures — is a continuous negotiation (semiosis) of ‘laws’, driving to ever broader spaces of freedom and constantly larger autonomy of existence. (shrink)

In the case of living beings – the very concept of “level” of organization becomes obscure: it suggests a value-based assessment, assigning notions like “lower” and “higher” with rather vague criteria for constructing the ladder of perfection, complexity, importance, etc. We prefer therefore the term “domain”, entities ranking equal. Domains may represent natural entities as well as purely human constructs developed in order to gain understanding of some facets of living things; living, evolved beings as well as those abstract constructs, (...) such as genotype and ‘niche’ which have been developed in the search for better understanding of such living things. Delimitation of such domains is sometimes a question of the dexterity of the researcher, and sometimes draws from the tradition in a given field. Such domains are not completely translatable to each other. Rather, they interact by a process that we call here reciprocal formation. Life is unique among multi-domain systems. In contrast to purely physical systems, life is a semiotic system driven by the historical experience of lineages, interpreted and re-interpreted by the incessant turnover of both individuals and their communities. This paper provides cases of domain interrelations, and addresses two questions: How do new qualities of inter-domain interaction emerge historically? How do new domains emerge in evolution. Two approaches, physical and biosemiotic, are discussed as we seek to get a better understanding of the overarching tasks. (shrink)

We give a survey of epistemological and ontological approaches that have left traces in the 20th-century biology. A common motive of most of them is the effort to incorporate biology into the realm of physical sciences. However, such attempts failed, and must fail in the future, unless the criterion for what science is becomes biologically oriented. This means broadening the realm of classical natural sciences, incorporating at least part of the thesaurus of the “humanities”. We suggest three mutually complementary candidates (...) for further development in this direction: modular biology, the hermeneutics of the living, and the semiotic disciplines. (shrink)

The emergence of novelty in the realm of the living remains, despite the long tradition of evolutionary biology, unwelcome, calling for explanation by old, established knowledge. The prevailing neodarwinian evolutionary paradigm approaches living beings as passive outcomes of external (and extraneous, hence “blind”) formative forces. Many teachings opposing Darwinism also take the existence of eternal, immutable and external laws as a necessary prerequisite. Ironically enough, authors who oppose Darwinian theory, and admit that living beings possess a “self”, often accentuate internal, (...) ideal and eternal harmony,which is incompatible with historical changes; moreover such harmony is again imposed by external, atemporal “laws”. I describe here a third approach embodied by the names of two unrelated scholars, Stuart Kauffman (biology, physics) and Juri Lotman (semiotics, culturology). Their approach suggests thatthe evolution of organisms, minds, cultures — is a continuous negotiation (semiosis) of ‘laws’, driving to ever broader spaces of freedom and constantly larger autonomy of existence. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to explain the evolution of life through the evolution of cellular and supra-cellular closures, two distinct ways of strict delimitation against the surroundings. Such closures are a necessary precondition of organisation, semiosis, and agency. We argue that in addition to the basic, first-order, cellular closures, which have been in existence without interruption since the dawn of life, there also exist second-order closures (cell communities), which are dynamic and often formed ad hoc. Moreover, a living (...) entity may belong simultaneously to different kinds of such second-order closures. It is these second-order closures which organise cellular (and higher-order) communities and form the core of the bonds that hold the biosphere together. In second-order closures, there exist countless crisscrossing pathways leading to manifold interpretations of particular situations. We provide examples of such relationships and point to an elaborate network connecting all denizens of the biosphere. (shrink)

Modern biology gives many casuistic descriptions of mutual informational interconnections between organisms. Semiotic and hermeneutic processes in biosphere require a set of “sentient” community of players who optimize their living strategies to be able to stay in game. Perceptible surfaces of the animals, semantic organs, represent a special communicative interface that serves as an organ of self-representation of organic inwardness. This means that theinnermost dimensions and potentialities of an organism may enter the senses of other living being when effectively expressed (...) on the outermost surfaces of theformer and meaningfully interpreted by the later. Moreover, semantic organs do not exist as objectively describable entities. They are always born via interpretative act and their actual form depends on both the potentialities of body plan of a bearer and the species-specific interpretation of a receiver. As such the semantic organs represent an important part of biological reality and thus deserve to be contextualized within existing comparative vocabulary. Here we argue that the study of the organic self-representation has a key importance for deeper insight into the evolution of communicative coupling among living beings. (shrink)

Modern biology gives many casuistic descriptions of mutual informational interconnections between organisms. Semiotic and hermeneutic processes in biosphere require a set of “sentient” community of players who optimize their living strategies to be able to stay in game. Perceptible surfaces of the animals, semantic organs, represent a special communicative interface that serves as an organ of self-representation of organic inwardness. This means that the innermost dimensions and potentialities of an organism may enter the senses of other living being when effectively (...) expressed on the outermost surfaces of the former and meaningfully interpreted by the later. Moreover, semantic organs do not exist as objectively describable entities. They are always born via interpretative act and their actual form depends on both the potentialities of body plan of a bearer and the species-specific interpretation of a receiver. As such the semantic organs represent an important part of biological reality and thus deserve to be contextualized within existing comparative vocabulary. Here we argue that the study of the organic self-representation has a key importance for deeper insight into the evolution of communicative coupling among living beings. (shrink)

Modern biology gives many casuistic descriptions of mutual informational interconnections between organisms. Semiotic and hermeneutic processes in biosphere require a set of “sentient” community of players who optimize their living strategies to be able to stay in game. Perceptible surfaces of the animals, semantic organs, represent a special communicative interface that serves as an organ of self-representation of organic inwardness. This means that theinnermost dimensions and potentialities of an organism may enter the senses of other living being when effectively expressed (...) on the outermost surfaces of theformer and meaningfully interpreted by the later. Moreover, semantic organs do not exist as objectively describable entities. They are always born via interpretative act and their actual form depends on both the potentialities of body plan of a bearer and the species-specific interpretation of a receiver. As such the semantic organs represent an important part of biological reality and thus deserve to be contextualized within existing comparative vocabulary. Here we argue that the study of the organic self-representation has a key importance for deeper insight into the evolution of communicative coupling among living beings. (shrink)

The theoretical biology movement originating in Britain in the early 1930’s and the biosemiotics movement which took off in Europe in the 1980’s have much in common. They are both committed to replacing the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and they have both invoked theories of signs to this end. Yet, while there has been some mutual appreciation and influence, particularly in the cases of Howard Pattee, René Thom, Kalevi Kull, Anton Markoš and Stuart Kauffman, for the most part, these movements have (...) developed independently of each other. Focussing on morphogenesis understood as vegetative semiosis, in this paper I will argue that the ideas of these movements are commensurate. Furthermore, synthesising them would enable us to see life processes as proto-narratives. Doing so will involve synthesising biohermeneutics, Peircian biosemiotics with Waddington’s theoretical biology and Piagetian genetic structuralism, and this, I claim, would strengthen the challenge of these traditions to mainstream biology. At the same time, this should contribute to overcoming the opposition between the sciences and the humanities, developing a broader tradition of Schellingian thought which involves developing the humanities and then demanding of the physical and biological sciences that they are consistent with and can make intelligible the emergence of humans as conceived by the humanities. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is the synthesis of biology and semiotics, and its main purpose is to show that semiosis is a fundamental component of life, i.e., that signs and meaning exist in all living systems. This idea started circulating in the 1960s and was proposed independently from enquires taking place at both ends of the Scala Naturae. At the molecular end it was expressed by Howard Pattee’s analysis of the genetic code, whereas at the human end it took the form of Thomas (...) Sebeok’s investigation into the biological roots of culture. Other proposals appeared in the years that followed and gave origin to different theoretical frameworks, or different schools, of biosemiotics. They are: (1) the physical biosemiotics of Howard Pattee and its extension in Darwinian biosemiotics by Howard Pattee and by Terrence Deacon, (2) the zoosemiotics proposed by Thomas Sebeok and its extension in sign biosemiotics developed by Thomas Sebeok and by Jesper Hoffmeyer, (3) the code biosemiotics of Marcello Barbieri and (4) the hermeneutic biosemiotics of Anton Markoš. The differences that exist between the schools are a consequence of their different models of semiosis, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality they go much deeper and concern the very nature of the new discipline. Is biosemiotics only a new way of looking at the known facts of biology or does it predict new facts? Does biosemiotics consist of testable hypotheses? Does it add anything to the history of life and to our understanding of evolution? These are the major issues of the young discipline, and the purpose of the present paper is to illustrate them by describing the origin and the historical development of its main schools. (shrink)

In this new book, Marko Zlomislić argues that Slavoj Žižek's work does not contain any sort of radical emancipatory project, especially as it passes through the ideology of communism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The evidence for the failure of communism is vast and includes the more than six hundred mass graves recently located in Žižek's homeland of Slovenia. Zlomislić demonstrates that the way out of the capitalist dilemma is not a repetition of communism but a return to the late medieval notion (...) of haecceity or "individual thisness" that was rejected by modernity. Haecceity, or the indescribable and indefinite here and now of the person, shows that the late medieval Franciscans were already "postmodernists." It is no wonder that the totalitarianism of the modernist Hegel is embraced by thinkers such as Žižek, Badiou, Hardt, Negri, and Laclau and was already rejected by Leibnitz, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Levinas, Deleuze, and Derrida. This important book shows that Žižek's work must be rejected because it does not uphold the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of the person. (shrink)

The articles in this volume offer a fresh perspective on the important role of the concept of law (lex) in the moral and political philosophy of the 'School of Salamanca'.

O'Donnell, J. R. Anton Charles Pegis on the occasion of his retirement.--Conlan, W. J. The definition of faith according to a question of MS. Assisi 138: study and edition of text.--Spade, P. V. Five logical tracts by Richard Lavenham.--Maurer, A. Henry of Harclay's disputed question on the plurality of forms.--Brown, V. Giovanni Argiropulo on the agent intellect: an edition of Ms. Magliabecchi V 42.--Synan, E. A. The Exortacio against Peter Abelard's Dialogus inter philosophum, Iudaeum et Christianum.--Fitzgerald, W. Nugae Hyginianae.--Sheehan, (...) M. M. Marriage and family in English conciliar and synodal legislation.--Shook, L. K. Riddles relating to the Anglo-Saxon scriptorium.--Boyle, L. E. The De regno and the two powers.--Colledge, E. A Middle English Christological poem.--Gough, M. R. E. Three forgotten martyrs of Anazarbus in Cilicia.--Häring, N. Chartres and Paris revisited.--Hayes, W. Greek recentiores, (Ps.) Basil, Adversus eunomium, IV-V.--Owens, J. The physical world of Parmenides. (shrink)

It has been argued that a biomarker-informed classification system for antisocial individuals has the potential to overcome many obstacles in current conceptualizations of forensic and psychiatric constructs and promises better targeted treatments. However, some have expressed ethical worries about the social impact of the use of biological information for classification. Many have discussed the ethical and legal issues related to possibilities of using biomarkers for predicting antisocial behaviour. We argue that prediction should not raise the most pressing ethical worries. Instead, (...) issues connected with ‘biologisation’, such as stigmatization and negative effects on self-image, need more consideration. However, we conclude that also in this respect there are no principled ethical objections against the use of biomarkers to guide classification and treatment of adult antisocial individuals. (shrink)

Recently it has been argued that certain neuropsychological findings on the decision-making, instrumental learning, and moral understanding in psychopathic offenders offer reasons to consider them not criminally responsible, due to certain epistemic and volitional impairments. We reply to this family of arguments, that collectively we call the irresponsibility of the psychopath argument. This type of argument has a premise that describes or prescribes the deficiencies that grant or should grant partial or complete criminal exculpation. The other premise contends that neuropsychological (...) evidence shows that psychopaths have incapacitates that are sufficient to ascribe complete or partially exculpatory deficiencies. The focus of our criticism is this latter premise. We argue that it requires that psychopathy should correlate significantly with certain rational incapacities that manifest across contexts. We show that the available neuropsychological data do not support the claim that psychopaths have such general exculpatory incapacities. (shrink)

Effective and specifically targeted social and therapeutic responses for antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy are scarce. Some authors maintain that this scarcity should be overcome by revising current syndrome - based classifications of these conditions and devising better biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. The inspiration for the latter classifications has been embedded in the Research domain criteria approach (RDoC). RDoC - type approaches to psychiatric research aim at transforming diagnosis, provide valid measures of disorders, aid clinical practice, and improve health (...) outcomes by integrating the data on the genetic, neural, cognitive, and affective systems underlying psychiatric conditions. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the benefits of such approaches in comparison to the dominant syndrome-based ones and review recent attempts at building biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. Other researchers, how ever, have objected that biocognitive approaches in psychiatry are committed to an untenable form of explanatory. (shrink)

In their paper “Is psychopathy a mental disease?”, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that according to any plausible account of mental disorder, neural and psychological abnormalities correlated with psychopathy should be regarded as signs of a mental disorder. I oppose this conclusion by arguing that at least on a naturalistically grounded account, such as Wakefield’s ‘Harmful Dysfunction’ view, currently available empirical data and evolutionary considerations indicate that psychopathy is not a mental disorder.

Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.

This edited collection of eight original essays pursues the aim of bringing the spotlight back on Anton Marty. It does so by having leading figures in the contemporary debate confront themselves with Marty’s most significative contributions, which span from philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and ontology to meta-metaphysics and meta-philosophy. -/- The book is divided in three parts. The first part is dedicated to themes in philosophy of language, which were at the centre of Marty’s philosophical thinking throughout (...) his life. The second part focuses on the problem of the objectivity and phenomenology of time and space, upon which Marty was working in the final years of his life. The final part turns to Marty’s meta-metaphysical and meta-philosophical considerations. The intended audience of this book are primarily scholars and students interested in the relevant contemporary debates, as well as scholars working on the Austrian tradition. (shrink)

This paper spells out and discusses four assumptions of the deficit model type of thinking. The assumptions are: First, the public is ignorant of science. Second, the public has negative attitudes towards (specific instances of) science and technology. Third, ignorance is at the root of these negative attitudes. Fourth, the public’s knowledge deficit can be remedied by one-way science communication from scientists to citizens. It is argued that there is nothing wrong with ignorance-based explanations per se. Ignorance accounts at least (...) partially for many cases of opposition to specific instances of science and technology. Furthermore, more attention needs to be paid to the issue of relevance. In regard to the evaluation of a scientific experiment, a technology, or a product, the question is not only who knows best?, but also what knowledge is relevant and to what extent?. Examples are drawn primarily from the debate on genetic engineering in agriculture. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who (...) have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile. (shrink)

This textbook offers the first unified treatment of wave propagation in electronic and electromagnetic systems and introduces readers to the essentials of the transfer matrix method, a powerful analytical tool that can be used to model and study an array of problems pertaining to wave propagation in electrons and photons. It is aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students in physics, materials science, electrical and computer engineering, and mathematics, and is ideal for researchers in photonic crystals, negative index materials, left-handed (...) materials, plasmonics, nonlinear effects, and optics. Peter Markos and Costas Soukoulis begin by establishing the analogy between wave propagation in electronic systems and electromagnetic media and then show how the transfer matrix can be easily applied to any type of wave propagation, such as electromagnetic, acoustic, and elastic waves. The transfer matrix approach of the tight-binding model allows readers to understand its implementation quickly and all the concepts of solid-state physics are clearly introduced. Markos and Soukoulis then build the discussion of such topics as random systems and localized and delocalized modes around the transfer matrix, bringing remarkable clarity to the subject. Total internal reflection, Brewster angles, evanescent waves, surface waves, and resonant tunneling in left-handed materials are introduced and treated in detail, as are important new developments like photonic crystals, negative index materials, and surface plasmons. Problem sets aid students working through the subject for the first time. (shrink)

: One of the outcomes from low self-confidence of basketball is aggressive behavior. Helpless feeling caused by low self-confidence could turn an athlete using aggressive behavior as alternate behavior in the interaction with the opponent during a game. The level of the aggression can be seen in the injury rate in that particular sport. This research objective is to find out the relation between self-confidence and the appearance of the aggressive behavior in basketball player. It involves 64 athletes in West (...) Jakarta between 17 to 28 years old. Data that was measured by questionnaires has shown there is a negative association between self-confidence and aggressive behavior in basketball athlete.  . (shrink)