The first international volume on the topic of biosemiotics and linguistics. It aims to establish a new relationship between linguistics and biology as based on shared semiotic foundation.

Peirce's (1906) proposal that the universe as a whole, even if it does not consist exclusively of signs, is yet everywhere perfused with signs, is a thesis that better than any other sums up the life and work of Thomas A. Sebeok, "inventor" of semiotics as we know it today. Semiotics - the doctrine of signs - has a long and intriguing history that extends back well beyond the last century, two and a half millennia to Hippocrates of Cos. It ranges through the teachings of Augustine, Scholastic philosophy, the work of Peirce and Saussure. Yet a fully-fledged doctrine of signs, with many horizons for the future, was the result of Sebeok's work in the twentieth century. The massive influence of this work, as well as Sebeok's convening of semiotic projects and encouragement of a huge number of researchers globally, which, in turn, set in train countless research projects, is difficult to document and has not been assessed until now. This volume, using the testimonies of key witnesses and participants in the semiotic project, offers a picture of how Sebeok, through his development of knowledge of endosemiotics, phytosemiotics, biosemiotics and sociosemiotics, enabled semiotics in general to redraw the boundaries of science and the humanities as well as nature and culture.

This book presents programmatic texts on biosemiotics, written collectively by world leading scholars in the field (Deacon, Emmeche, Favareau, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Markos, Pattee, Stjernfelt). In addition, the book includes chapters which focus closely on semiotic case studies (Bruni, Kotov, Maran, Neuman, Turovski). According to the central thesis of biosemiotics, sign processes characterise all living systems and the very nature of life, and their diverse phenomena can be best explained via the dynamics and typology of sign relations. The authors are therefore presenting a deeper view on biological evolution, intentionality of organisms, the role of communication in the living world and the nature of sign systems -- all topics which are described in this volume. This has important consequences on the methodology and epistemology of biology and study of life phenomena in general, which the authors aim to help the reader better understand.

The first international volume on the topic of biosemiotics and linguistics. It aims to establish a new relationship between linguistics and biology as based on shared semiotic foundation.

During the last decade, many social scientists have sought to show that nature is not an eternal constant but an intrinsically unstable concept - a historical, cultural and social construct with powerful emotional, moral and political connotations. Imagining Nature sets out to explore some of the implications of and lacunae in this recent push to denaturalise nature. But rather than asking, What is nature? as many academic writers have been doing, the contributors here ask, How is nature established as an entity? Through what processes and practices does nature achieve reality? The editors provide a synthetic introduction to the dozen contributions which comprise the volume. Of particular interest is their account of how the dismantling of nature as an unquestioned given, echoes and was triggered by a similar dismantling of culture as an anthropological concept. The book's first half, Cosmologies, focuses on ways the practices of nature are embedded in overarching conceptual worldviews. Papers range from a sweeping critique of how neo-Darwinian biology, cognitive psychology and cultural theory have colluded to create the dominant narrative of human nature today, to an examination of Estonian wooded meadows as a mosaic of nature and culture that supports high diversity in both. Other ways to reconcile traditional and modern cosmologies emerge in comparative studies of economists and Algonquin hunter-gatherers, Danish biologists and Inuit fishermen. Chapters in the second half illustrate some of the means by which identity unfolds and becomes established in interacting with and imagining nature. The chapters examine nature and identity in the national mythologies of Scandinavia and Germany; two Fulani status groups in Burkina Faso; the confrontational Sami community of Manndalen, Norway; the spatial world of the Tsaatang nomads in Mongolia; and two neoclassic houses by Le Corbusier and Wright. While the individual contributions here will certainly interest specialists in the particular fields they represent, Imagining Nature is broadly interdisciplinary in appeal, and it is especially recommended to anyone intrigued by recent constructivist debate and the multiplying conceptions of nature in the social sciences.