Biosemiotics

Opening remarks

Sebeok’s Razor and the Sign of Three: Hoffmeyer, Chomsky and Mandelbrot Paul Deshusses   This presentation will be based on historical archival research conducted at the Thomas Sebeok Archive in Bloomington Indiana, and will review four emblematic and revealing correspondence the researcher held. Sebeok’s three chosen interlocutors for this presentation are Jesper Hoffmeyer, Benoît Mandelbrot, […]

Wonder and Embodiment: On Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotic aesthetics Jamin Pelkey Among the many ideas earmarked for ongoing development in Jesper Hoffmeyer’s oeuvre, his sketches of a biosemiotic aesthetics are among the most promising for dispelling pernicious illusions of alienation between human consciousness and the natural world and for healing the untold trauma these illusions have caused. […]

The Nature of Living Being: Distinguishing Distinctions The main ideas of the recently published book in the Biosemiotics series, The Nature of Living Being: From Distinguishing Distinctions to Ethics will be presented. Living beings are distinguishing distinctions. Single cells and multicellular organisms maintain themselves distinct by drawing distinctions. This is what organisms are and what they do. From this starting point, key issues examined range across ontology, […]

Semiosis, Sense-Making and the Being of the Between: Reconciling Autopoietic Enactivism and Biosemiotics through Relational Biology Matthew McTeigue This talk will investigate the autopoietist’s theory of the continuity between life and mind under the auspices of a biosemiotic approach to enactivist philosophy of mind, with a view to resolve a deep-seated tension between the essence […]