Abstract
On the basis of a comparative analysis of the biosemiotic work of Jakob von Uexküll and of various theories on biological holism, this article takes a look at the question: what is the status of a semiotic approach in respect to a holistic one? The period from 1920 to 1940 was the peak-time of holistic theories, despite the fact that agreement on a unified and accepted set of holistic ideas was never reached. A variety of holisms, dependent on the cultural and disciplinary contexts, is sketched here from the works of Jan Smuts, Adolf Meyer-Abich, John Scott Haldane, Kurt Goldstein, Alfred North Whitehead and Wolfgang Köhler. In contrast with his contemporary holists, who used the model of an organism as a unifying explanatory tool for all levels of reality, Jakob von Uexküll confined himself to disciplinary organicism by extending the borders of the definition of “organism” without any intention to surpass the borders of biology itself. The comparison reveals also a significant difference in the perspectives of Uexküll and his contemporary holists, a difference between a view from a subjective centre in contrast with an all-encompassing structural view. Uexküll’s theories are fairly near to J. S. Haldane’s interpretation of an organism as a coordinative centre, but even here their models do not coincide. Although biosemiotics and holistic biology have different theoretical starting points and research-goals, it is possible nonetheless to place them under one and the same doctrinal roof.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
P. Torop refers also to the works of Karl Eimermacher and Irene Portis-Winner as pointing to the significance of Lotman’s works for the holistic analysis of culture (Torop 2002: 398).
Science history works on this period’s holism usually take either an interdisciplinary (e.g. Harrington 1996; Phillips 1970), disciplinary (Ash 1995; Allen 1975) or an author-centred point of departure (e.g. Allen 2005; Brauckmann 2000; Sturdy 1988). On the basis of such a division, a combination of interdisciplinary and author-centred approaches prevails in this article.
T. A. Sebeok has given the name “cryptosemiotician” to those authors, who have contributed significantly to the development of semiotic thought, but who lived before the formation of the scientific discipline of semiotics (Sebeok 1989 [1979]: 187–207).
A significant number of articles on his philosophical and theoretical positions were published in one of the oldest European cultural journals Die neue Rundschau (established in 1890).
For example, von Uexküll (1921) has replaced the chapter “Reflex arch” with the chapter “Functional circle” in the second edition of Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere.
By Adolf Meyer-Abich, just like by Jakob von Uexküll, a development from a more reductive approach to a more organicist one can be followed. When in 1926 he is describing biology as a temporary solution to the problems that physics hasn’t so far managed to solve (Meyer-Abich 1926), the same position is not present in his works written in the 1930s and 1940s.
In the same book Smuts states that he has formulated his holistic theory already in the year 1910, referring thereby to his unpublished work An Inquiry into the Whole. He probably added the remark in order to stress his primacy in formulating a holistic theory, as A. N. Whitehead (1925) had published his Science and the Modern World in a similar vein.
What is “individuality” from the subjective perspective, is “heterogeneity” from the objective perspective, as the multiplicity of “individualities” can be observed from the objective point of view. The same heterogeneity=individuality parallel is drawn by a later holistic thinker Walter E. Elsasser. However, unlike J. Smuts, Elsasser uses it for discriminating physical and biological levels of reality (Elsasser 1998 [1987]).
At the end of the 19th century Ernst Haeckel turned Müller’s idea of specific sense energies upside down by describing them as the results of specific adaptations. At first only irritants existed according to Haeckel, and the reactions were just adaptations to those irritants (Haeckel 1899).
Meyer-Abich was Jakob von Uexküll’s colleague at Hamburg University, delivering there with him seminars on the philosophy of science (cf. Rüting 2004: 48), together with Friedrich Brock he also managed to organise the Journal “Sudhoffs Archiv” (nr 3/4 1934) to be issued as a special volume dedicated to Uexküll’s 60th birthday. The journal contained also Meyer-Abich’s and J. Smut’s articles on holism (cf. Mildenberger 2007: 164-167).
Meyer-Abich based his theory of holism on 5 axioms (cf. Meyer-Abich 1938: xxxiii-xxxiv): 1. The axiom about the wholeness (Ganzheit) of all reality. 2. The axiom about the layered structure of reality. 3. The axiom about historical reality as the all-encompassing and most complicated level of reality. 4. The axiom about the possibility for a simplification of all higher levels of reality into lower ones. 5. The axiom about the complementarity of fields that belong to the same level of reality.
August Weismann pointed out that hereditary material may be located in chromosomes, although he himself used the word Idant.
Ernst Cassirer has included also Jakob von Uexküll in the list of idealistic morphologists in the 20th century (Cassirer 1950: 199-205).
Similarities between Uexküll’s concepts of Umwelt and Innenwelt and Maturana’s and Varela’s concept of autopoiesis have been highlighted in several articles on biosemiotics (e.g. Brier 2006: 274; Kull 2004: 101-102). However, it is important to note that not Umwelt itself is the equivalent of autopoiesis, but an interplay between Planmässigkeit (the structural component) and feedback (functional component).
This is illustrated by Goethe’s famous question in the introduction to his Colour Theory (Zur Farbenlehre): “If the eye was not sun-like, how could we perceive the light?” and his statement that similar can be recognized only by a similar (nur von Gleichem werde Gleiches erkannt) (von Goethe 1810: xxxviii), von Uexküll (1940: 47) uses it to demonstrate the connections between the structure of the perceiver and the perceived in his article Bedeutungslehre.
References
Alexander S. (1920). Space, time and deity. The Gifford lectures at Glasgow 1916–1918, vol I. London: Macmillan and Co, Limited.
Allen G. E. (1967). J. S. Haldane: The development of the idea of control mechanisms in respiration. Journal of the History of Medicine, 22, 392–412.
Allen G. E. (1975). Life science in the twentieth century. New York: London etc. Wiley Sons, Inc.
Allen G. (2005). Mechanism, vitalism and organicism in late nineteenth and twentieth-century biology: the importance of historical context. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36, 261–283.
Ash, M. G. (1995). Gestalt psychology in German culture, 1890–1967. Holism and the quest for objectivity. Cambridge University Press.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. University of Chicago Press.
Bernard C. (1853). Neue Funktion der Leber als zuckerbereitendes organ des Menschen und der Thiere. Würzburg: Verlag von Paul Halm’s Buchhandlung.
Bramwell A. (1989). Ecology in the 20th century. A history. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Brauckmann S. (2000). Eine theorie für Lebendes? Die synthetische Antwort Ludwig von Bertalanffys. Dissertationsschrift: Universität Münster.
Brier S. (2006). The cybersemiotic model of communication: an evolutionary model of the threshold between semiosis and informational exchange. Semiotica, 158(1/4), 255–296.
Brock F., von Uexküll J. (1935). Vorschläge zu einer subjektbezogenen Nomenklatur in der Biologie. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Naturwissenschaft, 1(1/2), 36–47.
Cassirer E. (1950). The problem of knowledge. Philosophy, science, and history since Hegel. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cheung T. (2004). From protoplasm to Umwelt: plans and the technique of nature in Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of organismic order. Sign Systems Studies, 32(1/2), 139–167.
Chien J. A. (2005). Umweltforschung as a method of inquiry: Jakob von Uexküll’s ‘semiotics’ and its fortune home and away, 1920–2004. Dissertation: National Taiwan University.
Elsasser W. M. (1998) [1987]. Reflections on a theory of organism. Holism in Biology. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
Emmeche C. (2001). Does a robot have an Umwelt? Reflections on the qualitative biosemiotics of Jakob von Uexküll. Semiotica, 134(1/4), 653–693.
Gibson J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Goldstein K. (2000) [1934]. The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from pathological data in man. New York: Zone Books.
Haeckel E. (1899). Die Welträthsel: Gemeinverständliche Studien über monistische Philosophie. Strauss: Bonn.
Haldane J. S. (1917). Organism and environment as illustrated by the physiology of breathing. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Haldane, J. (1918). Symposium: Are physical, biological and psychological categories irreducible? In: Life and finite individuality. Two Symposia (pp. 11–28). York: Johnson.
Haldane J. (1932) [1931]. Die philosophischen Grundlagen der Biologie. Berlin: Prismen Verlag.
Haldane J. (1935). The philosophy of a biologist. Oxford: Calderon.
Harrington A. (1996). Reenchanted science: Holism in German culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler. Princeton: NJ Princeton University Press.
Helbach C. (1989). Die Umweltlehre Jakob von Uexkülls: Ein Beispiel für die Genese von Theorien in der Biologie zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts Aachen: Rheinisch-Westfalische Hochschule Aachen[Dissertationsschrift].
Hoffmeyer J. (2004). Uexküllian Planmässigkeit. Signs Systems Studies, 32(1), 73–97.
Ingold T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge.
Köchy K. (1996). Perspektiven der Welt: Vielfalt und Einheit im Weltbild der Deutschen Romantik. Philosophia Naturalis, 33, 317–342.
Köhler W. (1921). Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer.
Kull K. (1999). Biosemiotics in the twentieth century: a view from biology. Semiotica, 127(1/4), 385–414.
Kull K. (2004). Uexküll and the post-modern evolutionism. Sign Systems Studies, 32(1/2), 99–114.
Lotman M. (2002). Atomistic versus holistic semiotics. Sign Systems studies, 30.2, 513–527.
Lowe V. (1951) [1941]. The development of Whitehead’s philosophy. In P. A. Schlipp (Ed.), The philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead 15–124. New York: Tudor.
Mandelker A. (1994). Semiotizing the sphere: Organicist theory in Lotman, Bakhtin And Vernadsky. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 109/3, 385–396.
Mandelker A. (1995). Logosphere and semiosphere: Bakhtin, Russian organicism, and the Semiotics of culture. In A. Mandelker (Ed.), Bakhtin in contexts: Across the disciplines. 177–190. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Meyer-Abich A. (1926). Logik der Morphologie im Rahmen einer Logik der gesamten Biologie. Berlin: Verlag von Justus Springer.
Meyer-Abich A. (1932). Vorbemerkungen des Übersetzers. In J. S.Haldane (Ed.), Die philosophischen Grundlagen der Biologie v–x. Berlin: Prismen Verlag.
Meyer-Abich A. (1935a). Krisenepochen und Wendepunkte des Biologischen Denkens. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
Meyer-Abich A. (1935b). Zwischen Scylla und Charybdis. Holistisehe Antikritik yon Mechanislnus und Vitalisinus. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Meyer-Abich A. (1936). Nachruf auf. J. S. Haldane. In J. S. Haldane (Ed.), Die Philosophie eines Biologen vi–xvi. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
Meyer-Abich A. (1938). Geleitwort. In J. C. Smuts (Ed.), Die holistische Welt xvii-xxxix. Berlin: Alfred Metzner Verlag.
Meyer-Abich A. (1948). Naturphilosophie auf neuen Wegen Stuttgart: Hippokrates-Verlag Marquart & Cie.
Meyer-Abich A. (1964). The historico-philosophical background of the modern evolution-biology. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Mildenberger F. (2007). Umwelt als Vision: Leben und Werk Jakob von Uexkülls (1864–1944). [Sudhoffs Archiv, Heft 56]. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Morgan C. L. (1927) [1923]. Emergent evolution. London: Williams and Norgate.
Müller J. (1834). Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen. Erster Band. Coblenz: Verlag von J. Hölscher.
Phillips D. C. (1970). Organicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Journal of the History of Ideas, 31, 413–432.
Pobojewska A. (2001). New biology—Jakob von Uexküll’s Umweltlehre. Semiotica, 134(1/4), 323–339.
Reid R. G. B. (1985). Evolutionary theory: The unfinished synthesis. London & Sydney: Croom Helm.
Rüting T. (2004). History and significance of Jakob von Uexküll and of his institute in Hamburg. Signs Systems Studies, 32/1, 35–72.
Sarris E. G., von Uexküll J. (1931). Der Führhund der Blinden. Die Umschau, 35(51), 1014–1016.
Schmidt J. (1980). Die Umweltlehre Jakob von Uexkülls in ihrer Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der vergleichenden Verhaltensforschung. Marburg/Lahn: [Dissertationsschrift].
Sebeok T. A. 1989 [1979]. The sign and its masters. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Smuts J. C. 1987 [1926]. Holism and evolution. Cape Town: N & S Press.
Sturdy S. (1988). Biology as social theory: John Scott Haldane and physiological regulation. British Journal of the Hisory of Science, 21, 315–340.
Torop P. (2002). Introduction: re-reading of cultural semiotics. Sign Systems Studies, 30.2, 395–404
Torop P. (2005). Semiosphere and/as the research object of semiotics of culture. Sign Systems studies, 33.1, 159–173.
Trienes R. (1989). Type concept revisited. A survey of german idealistic morphology in the first half of the twentieth century. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 11, 23–42.
von Bertalanffy L. (1932). Theoretische Biologie. Band I. Allgemeine Theorie, Physikchemie, Aufbau und Entwicklung des Organismus. Berlin: Borntraeger.
von Goethe J. W. (1810). Zur Farbenlehre. Erster Band. Tübingen: in der J.G. Gotta’schen Buchhandlung.
von Uexküll J. (1902). Psychologie und Biologie in ihrer Stellung zur Tierseele. Ergebnisse der Physiologie, 12, 212–233.
von Uexküll J. (1909). Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: J. Springer.
von Uexküll J. (1919). Der Organismus als Staat und der Staat als Organismus. Der Leuchter 79–110. DarmstadtOtti: Reichl Verlag.
von Uexküll J. (1920a). Staatsbiologie (Anatomie-Physiologie-Pathologie des Staates). Berlin: Verlag von Gebrüder Paetel (Sonderheft der “Deutschen Rundschau”, hrg. Rudolf Pechel).
von Uexküll J. (1920b). Theoretische Biologie. Berlin: Verlag von Gebrüder Paetel.
von Uexküll J. (1921). Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. 2. verm. u. verb. Aufl. Berlin: J. Springer.
von Uexküll J. (1925). Die Biologie des Staates. Nationale Erziehung, 6(7–8), 177–181.
von Uexküll J. (1927). Die Einpassung. In A. von Bethe, G. von Bergmann, G. Embden, & A. Ellinge (Eds.), Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie: Mit Berücksichtigung der experimentellen Pharmakologie, 693–701. Berlin: J. Springer Bd. 1.
von Uexküll, J. (1973) [1928]. Theoretische Biologie. Suhrkamp.
von Uexküll J. (1931). Der Organismus und die Umwelt. In H. von Driesch, M. von Heinz Woltereck (Eds.), Das Lebensproblem im Lichte der modernen Forschung 189–224. Leipzig: Verl Quelle und Meyer.
von Uexküll J. (1932). Menschenpläne und Naturpläne. Deutsche Rundschau, 231, 96–99.
von Uexküll J. (1933a). Biologie oder Physiologie. Nova Acta Leopoldina, N.F., 1(2–3), 276–281.
von Uexküll J. (1933b). Das Führhundproblem. Zeitschrift für angewandte Psychologie, 45(1–3), 46–53.
von Uexküll J. (1940). Bedeutungslehre (=Bios, Abhandlungen zur theoretischen Biologie und ihrer Geschichte sowie zur Philosophie der organischen Naturwissenschaften Bd 10.) Leipzig: Verlag von J. A. Barth.
von Uexküll J., & Kriszat G. (1956). Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. Bedeutungslehre. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Wertheimer M. (1959). Productive thinking. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
Whitehead A. N. (1927) [1925]. Science and the modern world. Cambridge: At the University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Magnus, R. Biosemiotics Within and Without Biological Holism: A Semio-historical Analysis. Biosemiotics 1, 379–396 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-008-9021-5
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-008-9021-5