Skip to main content
Log in

The Prague school of Portmannian biology

Book review of Stanislav Komarek: Nature and Culture. The world of phenomena and world of interpretations, München: LINCOM, 2009

  • Book Review
  • Published:
Acta Biotheoretica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. Originally Russian expression for self-publishing widely used among dissents of former Soviet block countries. It included typewriting, copying and distribution by hand of own texts by authors who were not permitted to publish, or of literature which was perceived by the regimes as ideologically inappropriate. This activity or possession of listed books was formally illegal and involved individuals imposed themselves to imprisonment.

  2. Mechanical copying machine which uses carbon paper as printing form.

  3. For the history of the seminar program, see http://web.natur.cuni.cz/flegr/ctvrhist.php.

References

  • Belyaev D (1979) Destabilizing selection as a factor in domestication. J Heredit 70:301–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowlby J (1983) Attachment: second edition (Attachment and Loss Series, Vol 1). Basic Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleisner K (2008a) The semantic morphology of adolf portmann: a starting point for the biosemiotics of organic form? Biosemiotics 1:207–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleisner K (2008b) Homosemiosis, mimicry, and superficial similarity: notes on the conceptualization of independent emergence of similarity in biology. Theory Biosci 127:15–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleisner K, Markos A (2005) Semetic rings: towards the new concept of mimetic resemblances. Theor Biosci 123:209–222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleisner K, Markos A (2009) Mutual understanding and misunderstanding in biological systems mediated by self-representational meaning of organisms. Sign System Stud 37:299–310

    Google Scholar 

  • Komarek S (1989) Vorkommen, morphologie und evolution der augenmuster in der flügelzeichnung der familie sphingidae. Zool Jahrb Syst 116:217–254

    Google Scholar 

  • Komarek S (1991) Die Augenmuster auf den Hinterflügeln der Gattung Smerinthus (Lepidoptera, Sphingidae) und ihre Evolution. Ann Naturhist Mus Wien 92B:99–112

    Google Scholar 

  • Komarek S (1992) Mimikry und verwandte Erscheinungen. Eur J Semiot Stud 4:693–697

    Google Scholar 

  • Komarek S (2003) Mimicry, aposematism and related phenomena: mimetism in nature and the history of its study. LINCOM, München

    Google Scholar 

  • Komarek S, Verhoog H (1994) Adolf Portmann. In: Achterhuis AJ (Ed.), Kritisch Denkers Lexicon, vol 17. Bohn, Stafleu, van Loghum, Houten, Zaventem, pp 1–15

  • Kostlan A (2010) Vedecky exil v obdobi komunistickeho rezimu. Emigrace z Ceskoslovenske akademie ved. (Exile of scientists and scholars in the era of the communist regime. Emigration from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences) DVT History. Science Technol 43:153–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Markos A, Grygar F, Hajnal L, Kleisner K, Kratochvil Z, Neubauer Z (2009) Life as its own designer: darwin’s origin and western thought. Springer, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Radl E (1930) The history of biological theories. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Stella M, Kleisner K (2010) Uexküllian umwelt as science and as ideology: the light and the dark side of a concept. Theor Biosci 129:39–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tooby J, Cosmides L (1990) The past explains the present—emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethol Sociobiol 11:375–424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson EO (1998) Consilience. The Unity of Knowledge, Knopf, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Wrangham R, Peterson D (1996) Demonic males. Houghton Mifflin, Boston

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to Jindra Havlickova and Tamsin K. Saxton for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am also indebted to Stanislav Komarek and Karel M. Kleisner for providing background information on their research. JH is supported by the Czech Science Foundation grant GACR 406/09/0647 and Czech Ministry of Education grant MSM 0021620843.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Havlicek.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Havlicek, J. The Prague school of Portmannian biology. Acta Biotheor 59, 87–92 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-011-9127-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-011-9127-z

Navigation