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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________ Hartmut Böhme Ulrich Eisel, Daniela Bernard und Ludwig Trepl Susanne Hauser Susanne Hauser Jesper Hoffmeyer Gerd Jansen Winfried Nöth Dagmar Schmauks Parto Teherani-Krönner Dialectical connections in nature Jeff Bernard, Institute for Sociosemiotic Studies, Vienna Summary. The author proposes to use sociosemiotics as a theoretical basis for the
development of an ecological semiotics. He discussed the lower threshold of semiosis and
examines the sign types that must be taken into account in ecological semiotics, arguing
in favor of a more explicit treatment of the dialectical relationship of ecological and
economic processes. Hartmut Böhme, Humboldt-University Berlin Summary. Instead of the medieval doctrine of sensus spiritualis and the paradigm of the
liber naturae, the author draws attention to hippocratic medicine and its elaboration by
Paracelsus as historical predecessors for modern ecological semiotics. He pleads for a
more careful differentiation between metabolic, perceptional and sign-based processes and
between non-intentional und intentional semioses in the subject matter of ecological
semiotics. Felt theories: urban ruderal vegetation and their nature experience Ulrich Eisel, Daniela Bernard and Ludwig Trepl, Technical Universities Berlin and Munich Summary. The qualities of the feelings one has in areas of urban ruderal vegetation are
discussed from the perspective of the history of ideas. It is shown that these areas are
semantically overdetermined. They represent diverse conceptions of nature, each related to
another aspect of the meaning of "town". The ambivalence of such urban
experience of nature indicates not so much the rise of postmodernism, but rather the lack
of concepts available to postmodern interpreters. Susanne Hauser, Berlin College of Science Summary. This introductory contribution begins by outlining the historical background
of the modern debate on the "semiotization of nature". It is argued that a new
sign-theoretic analysis of this debate will help each academic discipline involved to
clarify its own foundations today. Then the reader’s attention is drawn to the
developing new field of ecological semiotics (ecosemiotics) as discussed in the first four
contributions to this thematic issue (Nöth, Böhme, Bernard, Hoffmeyer). Concerning the
remaining contributions, the author emphasizes their complementary academic origins in
human ecology (Teherani-Krönner), pedagogy (Jansen), landscape planning (Eisel, Bernard
and Trepl) and history (Hauser). Representations of nature and environmental models Susanne Hauser, Berlin College of Science Summary. This contribution analyzes the modeling of the environment by means of
representations of nature. Three recent developments show that a semiotic approach is
required for an understanding of what goes on here: (1) the growing heterogeneity of
nature conceptions, (2) the acceleration of their change, (3) their dependence on the
development of the media. Two questions arise: What nature is at stake? Which discourse
about nature do we want? In favour of semiotic reformed natural sciences Jesper Hoffmeyer, University of Copenhagen Summary. The author criticizes the dualistic methodology of present-day natural
sciences, which makes it impossible for them to integrate semioses between organisms in
their pattern of description. Instead of the usual conception of evolution as a
development of increasingly complex forms of organisms, he proposes to study evolution as
a development of increasingly complex ways of interpreting the environment which enhance
the semiotic freedom of the individual. Environmental education: a way out of the environmental one-way street? Gerd Jansen, Lüneburg Summary. The pedagogical effect that an organized experience of nature may have for
ecological education is mostly overestimated. The activation of the participant’s
attention towards nature (Uexküll) brought about by such an experience is wasted if the
accompanying pedagogical efforts only focus on the semiotic means- and object-relations
(Peirce), instead of making the participant integrate the experience in adequate
ecological considerations. Such intellectual integration would, however, be necessary to
create a persistent change in human attitudes towards nature. Winfried Nöth, University of Kassel Summary. Ecological semiotics (ecosemiotics) is the study of the semiotic
interrelations between individuals and their environment. This paper gives a survey of
approaches to this field. From the history of ecological semiotics, it investigates the
conceptions of the relationship between humans and their environment in the medieval
doctrine of sensus spiritualis as well as in the Renaissance doctrine of signatures. From
the field of theoretical semiotics, it discusses Peirce’s theory of semiosis as a
triadic interaction between organisms and their environment. Uexküll’s theory of
meaning and his umweltlehre are the ecological topics from the field of biosemiotics,
whereas the survey of ecological linguistics discusses the relations between language and
the human environment. New creation: thoughts about a pictogram poster of Juli Gudehus Dagmar Schmauks, University of the Saarland Summary. The author analyzes a poster by Juli Gudehus, which represents (part of) the
biblical process of Genesis by means of modern pictograms. She points out the disquieting
discrepancy lying in the fact that here the creation of life is expressed by signs that
have acquired their meanings in the context of a technocratic culture which is about to
extinguish life again. Uexküllian environmental theory as the origin of human and culture ecology Parto Teherani-Krönner, Humboldt-University Berlin Summary. Focusing on major traditions of environmental research in the natural and
social sciences (ecology, human ecology and cultural ecology), this paper presents various
models that account for the role which the individual plays in its environment. The
"subject-oriented doctrine of the environment" ("subjective biology")
developed by Jakob von Uexküll is of great importance in this context. Although Uexküll
was a natural scientist himself, working in biology, he was inspired by philosophy and
sociology, and he took a strong position against the epistemological conceptions of the
then dominating trends within the natural sciences. The essentially phenomenological
approach favored by him is shown to have parallels in present-day human and cultural
ecology. Thus, the paper points out how Uexküll’s subjective biology may be used to
build a bridge between the natural and the social sciences. |
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