Claudio J Rodríguez Higuera | Palacky University, Olomouc (original) (raw)

Papers by Claudio J Rodríguez Higuera

Re-Inventing Organic Metaphors for the Social Sciences, 2023

Solidifying our understanding of science seldom takes the shape of a unified field. Underlying co... more Solidifying our understanding of science seldom takes the shape of a unified field. Underlying conditions may or may not be relevant drivers for building metatheoretical understandings of how we operate when dealing with questions of scientific compatibility. That is, in different areas of research there may be important methodological and explanatory assets that may not always be compatible across disciplines, but these disciplines may have a certain core of ideas that make them, if anything, related.

Biological Theory, 2023

Charles S. Peirce's philosophy of signs, generally construed as the foundation of current semioti... more Charles S. Peirce's philosophy of signs, generally construed as the foundation of current semiotic theory, offers a theory of general perception with significant implications for the notion of subjectivity in organisms. In this article, we will discuss Peirce's primary claims in semiotic theory, particularly focusing on their relevance to biosemiotics. We argue that these claims align with certain areas of the philosophy of biology, specifically epistemological and ontological considerations, despite the limited formal interaction between disciplines. This article serves as a general introduction to Peircean biosemiotics as a philosophical perspective on biological subjectivity.

Approaches to Biosemiotics, 2023

In this chapter we will discuss the biosemiotic view of evolution. In order to understand the rol... more In this chapter we will discuss the biosemiotic view of evolution. In order to understand the role that sign action may play in the evolution of organisms, we attempt to provide an explanation encompassing an overview of what biosemiotics does, how its concepts play out in a naturalistic view of organisms, and what dimension these concepts open in regard to functional explanations in biology. The semiotic view of evolution is informed by the consideration that meaning-making is an essential feature of organisms with a causal role in behavior and evolution both at the individual level and in long time scales. Biosemiotic theory tries to uncover how exactly meaning-making builds and is built upon networks of relevance for organisms that act as markers for behavior, which is in turn inherited and an active participant in the long-term changes of organisms.

Tunne loodust! Knowing Nature in the Languages of Biosemiotics, 2022

Semiotics builds on notions of logic and communication to develop theories of general significati... more Semiotics builds on notions of logic and communication to develop theories of general signification. Yet, semiotics deals with learning, creativity and unexpectedness. Kalevi Kull's work takes a bold step in humbly redefining just what is possible for signs to do.

Biosemiotics, 2021

We review the organization and contents of the 20th Gatherings in Biosemiotics. As the organizers... more We review the organization and contents of the 20th Gatherings in Biosemiotics. As the organizers, we share our insights from organizing a community research project in the year where the Covid-19 pandemic halted international travel. We try to describe the challenges of putting together the yearly conference on Biosemiotics and the main content that was presented by the research community.

Linguistic Frontiers, 2021

We initiate a new section of the journal, an invited commentary on issues pertaining to the field... more We initiate a new section of the journal, an invited commentary on issues pertaining to the fields of semiotics and linguistics and personal views on what is happening in the field. In this introduction, we assess the current status of the divisions of semiotics into multiple branches and the historical overview of the semiotics/semiology debate.

(Re)Considering Jakobson, 2021

What does it mean for something in semiotics to be universal? Despite the diverse foci that coexi... more What does it mean for something in semiotics to be universal? Despite the diverse foci that coexist within semiotics, it is in general semiotics properly that the concept of (semiotic) universals has actual relevance in that we wish to talk about universals that appear throughout semiotics instead of commonalities within a specific area of semiotics. The present work will be centred around three main axes: we will start with Jakobson’s holistic assumptions about the sign, representative of a general semiotic theory that strives for unity, and one that makes the critical assumption that semiotics encompasses other areas of research into signification; this will be followed by Lotman’s perspective on semiosis and culture as general aspects; and finally, some current biosemiotic developments on these problems will be taken into consideration to bring an actualized perspective on the issue.

Biosemiotics, 2021

What do we quantify when we attempt to quantify semiotic systems and theories? How sound are pote... more What do we quantify when we attempt to quantify semiotic systems and theories? How sound are potential quantifications in terms of interpretive values within some varieties of semiotic theory? We will make a distinction between formalization and quantification in order to understand what to quantify, how to quantify it and why quantification may be a desirable outcome for semiotic theory. The implications of this stance may be relevant and philosophically interesting in light of the naturalized project of biosemiotics. In this paper we will try to understand some ideas behind the rationale of formalizing and quantifying semiotic phenomena and discuss whether this possibility can or should map to functionalized descriptions of semiosis and the sign.

Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX, 2020

What’s in a prediction of the future? A hopeful calculation or a depiction of our wishes? Making ... more What’s in a prediction of the future? A hopeful calculation or a depiction of our wishes? Making predictions about what things will look like in the future is usually quite a hard enterprise, and we are reminded of old-time depictions of what our present – their future – would look like. We usually laugh at those depictions as not just inaccurate, but bordering on the ridiculous. Flying cars, odd cones as headgear and weird beeping sounds are all familiar retrofuturistic images that help us illustrate the point: We humans shape the familiar into the unfamiliar when making general predictions about what lies ahead. Even with that in mind, we keep venturing into the future armed with possibilities and aspirations. As we commemorate the 20 years of Gatherings, we also want to peer
into the next years, even if we know the truth about flying cars. By remembering what we have been through as a biosemiotic community, we can also hope to see a what is expecting us in the coming decades, but more importantly, we can set our minds to new, important tasks to take on in order to make these aspirations more plausible.

Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX, 2020

In 2014, Jesper Hoffmeyer’s book Biosemiotics was published by Tallinn University Press in its Es... more In 2014, Jesper Hoffmeyer’s book Biosemiotics was published by Tallinn
University Press in its Estonian translation. On December 4, he gave a lecture, “Biosemiotics: Bridging the science-humanities gap” at Tallinn University, followed by the presentation of the book. During the next days, December 5–6, Jesper participated in the conference “Creative Continuity”, organized in Tartu by the Department of Semiotics. This meeting celebrated the 50th anniversary of Sign Systems Studies, the journal of semiotics published by the University of Tartu. The conference included guest lectures by Edna Andrews, Francesco Bellucci, and Jesper Hoffmeyer himself. The following interview was held on December 6, 2014, in Tartu, over a cup of coffee.

Chinese Semiotic Studies, 2020

The interdisciplinary grasp of semiotics makes it a good window into how humanities-based researc... more The interdisciplinary grasp of semiotics makes it a good window into how humanities-based research programs deal with the issues of specific theoretical commitments, raising the stakes on how to do theory in a setting of disparity of approaches and methods. The particular case of biosemiotics as a naturalized instance of semiotics is used as a specific example of an interdisciplinary combination of theory and scientific practice to address the necessity of integrating both external methodological elements and scientific discoveries with a theory capable of giving both of these a valid connotation within the discipline. The main claim of the article will be that integrating different methods in humanities-based research programs such as semiotics creates a problematic picture for metatheoretical commitments, but examining this in light of metatheory itself can produce more robust theoretical positions within the humanities.

Linguistic Frontiers, 2020

The frontiers of biosemiotics are inconspicuously blurry. This is a feature and not a bug of the ... more The frontiers of biosemiotics are inconspicuously blurry. This is a feature and not a bug of the discipline in that it allows us to ask questions beyond certain boundaries, enriching both our knowledge beyond semiotic theories and the possibility of covering new ground through them. Yet, explanatory power should be something of a concern for biosemioticians looking to plant flags around different heights. The paths cleared by backwoodsmen should hold up to scrutiny, and in order for biosemioticians to examine these paths, some of the features of semiotic theory should work as reminders of what the aim of semiotic theory is.

This paper will explore one particular issue when it comes to building biosemiotic theories, namely, the idea that the semiotic comprises a universal and basal quality in a hierarchy of elements assumed to give rise to other, more complex things. The metatheoretical problem at its core will be defined as the unnecessary expansion of semiotic attributes in order to give them enough explanatory power to either provide semiotic theories of everything or give a semiotic basis to theories that do not, in principle, require it.

Constructivist Foundations, 2020

Code biology, as an offshoot of biosemiotics, opens up avenues to explore the possible emergence ... more Code biology, as an offshoot of biosemiotics, opens up avenues to explore the possible emergence of meaning-making within a substrate of biological processes. Kravchenko’s focus on language and metaphysical baggage places a burden on code biology as a theory, but constrains philosophical dialogue because of far-reaching adjudicated implications.

Sign Systems Studies, 2019

Theory change is a slow, tortuous process. Problems associated with how we communicate ideas and ... more Theory change is a slow, tortuous process. Problems associated with how we communicate ideas and how these ideas are received by our peers become catalysts for change in how we ourselves perceive and sanction what the discipline is capable of doing. Some parts of semiotics, and particularly biosemiotics, have come under critical scrutiny because of their heavy commitment to Peircean philosophy, but at the same time, the contributions of Peircean philosophy are almost impossible to discount. The ripples of this situation are quite visible in the emergence of code biology as a post-semiotic research programme. Yet there is a general balance between those who do not put that much stock in Peircean concepts and those who cannot conceive semiotics without these. This paper will ask whether a biosemiotics after Peirce is possible at all in the sense of acknowledging Peirce's contributions to the field while also taking to heart the criticisms raised by those skeptical of the implications of Peircean semiotics. While the answer is most likely positive, it depends on what background our concept of meaning relies on and how it may bleed into the other areas of semiotics that biosemiotics may claim a stake on. Being able to discuss potential theoretical distinctions across semiotics while also allowing communication between the areas caught in this differentiation will be crucial for the health of the discipline as the gap between theories becomes more profound.

Biosemiotics, 2019

The prevalent idea that semiosis is evolutionary is a driving point for biosemiotic research, sta... more The prevalent idea that semiosis is evolutionary is a driving point for biosemiotic research, starting from the Peircean premises of continuity and including a large number of views on how signs evolve. In this paper I wish to add a small pinch of skepticism to an otherwise productive point of view. Briefly, the question to be asked is: Is there any proper and fair connection between the logical abstraction of signs, genetic expressions interpreted as signs and the animal usage of signs? And how do we go about answering this? Instead of attempting a negative account of the possibility of an evolutionary view of biosemiosis, I will attempt to make an argument in favor of skepticism as a way to make a more fine-grained distinction across the areas where biosemiotic thinking seems to have some impact. The aim is then to find philosophical strategies to overcome this skepticism when possible, while also raising some awareness about the possible limits of current biosemiotics regarding the ideal evolutionary chain of signs. Ultimately, the idea is reexamining some core assumptions of the biosemiotic point of view at its most general, accounting for some possible ways in which theory may move forward. The potential incompatibility of theoretical standpoints between some of the different approaches that may be taken is, it will be argued, a desirable outcome for biosemiotic research. That is, the way we deal with the possible theories on the evolutionary continuity of signs will also affect our different research programs, and having a nuanced philosophical discussion on it can only contribute to the expansion and clarification of where different positions within biosemiotics currently stand.

Linguistic Frontiers, 2019

Metaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics ... more Metaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics is not exempt from their influence, and an important range of semiotic theories depends on metaphors to be meaningful. In this paper, we wish to examine the place of theory-constitutive metaphors considering the interaction view and the extent to which some areas of semiotics, particularly, the semiotics of culture and biosemiotics, are enriched by having metaphors dominate the way we think about them. The intention of the paper is not to document the different metaphors that have built semiotic theory, but rather to observe through a number of examples that semiotic research contains theory-building metaphors and that these are productive means of developing semiotic thinking further, with the caveat that theory change can be unexpected based on how we build metaphors for our theories.

Revista Chilena de Semiótica, 2017

Resumen. El presente artículo intentará dar cuenta de cómo la biosemiótica actual y su pensamient... more Resumen. El presente artículo intentará dar cuenta de cómo la biosemiótica actual y su pensamiento evolutivo puede ser integrada, desde sus bases teóricas, dentro de la significación cultural. Comenzamos revisando algunos principios de la biosemiótica y de la semiótica de la cultura, haciendo particular mención a la semiótica de Tartu. Observamos la forma en que esta integración ha sido llevada a cabo, algunos de sus principales problemas y la opción entregada por la semiótica cognitiva para sentar las bases de una semiótica de la cultura naturalizada. //

Abstract. This article will attempt to outline some of the main tenets of current biosemiotics and how these try to account for cultural signification within an evolutionary framework. First we outline some of the theoretical aspects of biosemiotics that build up towards a more general understanding of signification, making particular use of some concepts developed by the Tartu school of semiotics. Then we give an overview of the integration of biosemiotics to the paradigm of cultural semiotics, what problems emerge from this and the option that opens when we use cognitive semiotics as one of the main conceptual avenues to develop a naturalized semiotics of culture.

Fulcro, 2017

Este artículo dará un breve atisbo a la biografía de Jakob von Uexküll, los puntos principales de... more Este artículo dará un breve atisbo a la biografía de Jakob von Uexküll, los puntos principales de su pensamiento y sus consecuencias e influencias en la filosofía contemporánea.

Biosemiotics in the Community: Essays in honour of Donald Favareau, 2017

That biosemiotics has a history to be narrated derives in part from the fact that biosemiotics ha... more That biosemiotics has a history to be narrated derives in part from the fact that biosemiotics has Don Favareau as one of its historians. But history itself is one messy endeavour. Favareau's contribution, then, is twofold – not only has he documented the history of biosemiotics as an institution and an enterprise, but he has made sense of it in a philosophically clear way. Biosemioticians may be forgiven for taking this for granted, but it is because of such clarity that we are able to speak of so many topics in the first place.

Biosemiotics, 2017

The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way to address common ... more The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way to address common terminology within biosemiotic research. The glossary integrates the view of the members of the biosemiotic community through a standard survey and a literature review. The concept of 'semiotic threshold' was first introduced by Umberto Eco, defining it as a boundary between semiotic and non-semiotic areas. We review here the concept of 'semiotic threshold', first describing its denotation within semiotics via an examination on the history of the concept, its synonyms, antonyms, etymology, usage in other languages and context in which it is used. Then we present a general overview of the survey among researchers, analyzing the difference in responses for the concept of 'lower semiotic threshold' and related concepts. From the answers we also review the difference between the general usage of 'semiotic threshold' versus its specific use within biosemiotics, and attempt to make a general synthesis of the concept taking into account what we have learned from the survey and the literature review.

Re-Inventing Organic Metaphors for the Social Sciences, 2023

Biological Theory, 2023

Approaches to Biosemiotics, 2023

Tunne loodust! Knowing Nature in the Languages of Biosemiotics, 2022

Biosemiotics, 2021

Linguistic Frontiers, 2021

(Re)Considering Jakobson, 2021

Biosemiotics, 2021

Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX, 2020

Chinese Semiotic Studies, 2020

Linguistic Frontiers, 2020

Constructivist Foundations, 2020

Sign Systems Studies, 2019

Biosemiotics, 2019

Linguistic Frontiers, 2019

Revista Chilena de Semiótica, 2017

Fulcro, 2017

Biosemiotics in the Community: Essays in honour of Donald Favareau, 2017

Biosemiotics, 2017

Have you ever wondered what Lotmanian and Peircean semiotics have in common, but were too afraid ... more Have you ever wondered what Lotmanian and Peircean semiotics have in common, but were too afraid to ask? Have you ever wondered what semiotics can actually do with either of them? The answer may surprise you (though probably not).

A brief overview of Charles S. Peirce's relevance for biosemiotics, intended as an introduction f... more A brief overview of Charles S. Peirce's relevance for biosemiotics, intended as an introduction for those interested in taking their first steps in the field and learn what Peirce's contributions and interpretations have done for biosemiotic theory.

Updated version

TARTU SEMIOTICS LIBRARY, 2016

Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX., 2020

Biosemiotics is the study of semiosis in the biological realm. Or, as it was written in the intro... more Biosemiotics is the study of semiosis in the biological realm. Or, as it was written in the introduction to the 17th Gatherings in Biosemiotics in Lausanne, “biosemiotics is [...] the study of meaning-making and its consequences in living systems, and much of its focus is on investigating and understanding pre-linguistic sign processes in both humans and other organisms”.
Biology, on the one hand, has an important and impressive history of studying the systematicity of nature, as it is exhibited in the analyses of the genetic, physiological and morphogenetic processes of living systems. Yet biology, at the same time, must also certainly recognize that it is likewise the study of the systematicity of freedom, in as much as its object of study is the phenomenon of life itself. And so biology, understood as biosemiotics, studies life’s capacity for aboutness, for establishing mediated and arbitrary relationships that result in the creation of novelty, for making choices, and for the ongoing exploration of possibility.
The world meetings on biosemiotics – Gatherings in Biosemiotics – have been taking place annually since 2001. The first twelve years of these conferences was described in a volume of 2012, while the current volume covers the meetings from 2012 to 2020. In addition to the accounts and programs of these events, and including over sixty contributions to the twentieth meeting, the current volume includes review articles, evaluating the work done thus far, and predicting future developments. The history and philosophy of Czech biosemiotics, in particular, receives a detailed account, and many other new ideas in biosemiotics are also discussed in this book.

(Presentation given at IcON 2015, Kaunas, Lithuania. The written version was originally intended ... more (Presentation given at IcON 2015, Kaunas, Lithuania. The written version was originally intended for the Proceedings, but nothing came out of it and so here it is.)

This presentation will deal with the idea that the different varieties of semiotics have essentially a general proposal of unity within the context of the so-called general semiotics, but that this core of ideas has not developed into a set of actual propositions arguing for the unity of semiotics as a whole. This remarkable disunity resembles the problems first found in the major and well-documented opposition between semiology and semiotics, but the nuances of its articulation may well be overcome through the effort of providing a biosemiotic account of semiotic phenomena. Yet, a general biosemiotic paradigm requires "tweaking" some more commonplace assumptions on how sign-systems work, creating a series of new problems, such as the possibility of referring to the same signification mechanisms throughout wildly dissimilar types of organisms. Bridging the gap inside the different branches of semiotics can prove to be a daunting task, but it is one that can be undertaken with the objective of a more cohesive discipline. Is cohesion, however, a value worth pursuing in semiotics? While a negative answer can be satisfactorily given, this presentation will argue for the positive approach.

MA thesis, University of Tartu

Gatherings in Biosemiotics will be held from 31 July to 4 August 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

CfP – Gatherings in Biosemiotics, 2020

Gatherings in Biosemiotics will take place in Olomouc, Czechia, november, 2020.

Semiotica, 2020

Binet's La sèptieme fonction du langage (2015) is one of the few occasions in which semiotics is ... more Binet's La sèptieme fonction du langage (2015) is one of the few occasions in which semiotics is depicted as a field instead of used as a method in literature (though the latter is also applicable to the construction of the novel), making it a special landmark in the more public sphere of this area of academic research. Binet is not a semiotician, at least not formally, and his novel is not an academic text. In the same vein, this review will not, I am glad to inform, deal with the literary, focusing instead on the usefulness of the text for semiotics as our shared academic perusal. That there is a rather sharp division between semiology and current semiotics is indisputable, partly as a description of models and width of both concepts (Nöth 1995: 14), but when it comes to figureheads on each side of the divide, there seems to be a much more exploitable romanticism in the French tradition. 1 La sèptieme fonction du langage makes use of the figure of Barthes to narrate a murder mystery and depict the tribulations of his intellectual situation at the apex of the French era of semiology, while also fictionalizing about the potential limits of applied semiotics. As the murder mystery involves Barthes's unfortunate accident (or what we may have thought of as an accident, anyway), the novel does not attempt to provide a biographical outlook of his thoughts and deeds. Instead, it sets the scene for the reader to dive into the world of deconstruction, power relation discourses, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, and so on. The canvas used by Binet is also a structuring point for the difference and relation between semiology and semiotics, the continental and the English varieties of similarly Note: Binet, Laurent. 2015. La sèptieme fonction du langage. Paris: Grasset.