Excerpts from the logos of the bios

pp. 731-749

in: Donald Favareau, Essential readings in biosemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

Because of the broad nature of its purview – i.e., the examination into the role of sign-processes discoverable to be operative in and between living systems – biosemiotics is a interdisciplinary reservoir of research findings and ideas that is fed by many streams. Yet the trajectory of its historical development has been such that it has barely intersected with many other trends in thought that took place during the last century, such as those taking place under the general rubric of Analytical Philosophy. Quite probably such non-intersection is the result of the self-avowed (human) "language-centric" nature of the latter project as inculcated at its outset by Bertrand Russell and the younger Ludwig Wittgenstein's work in initiating the so-called "linguistic turn" in philosophy – wherein problems of "knowing" are reduced to problems in (by necessity, exclusively human) propositional language clarity.