Abstract
“Almost every German university hospital has a chair of psychosomatic medicine,” noted the obituary for pioneering clinical biosemiotician Thure von Uexküll upon the occasion of his death at age 96 in 2004. “German medical students are obliged to attend courses in medical psychology, sociology, and psychosomatic medicine, and more than 7,000 beds in German rehabilitation hospitals are devoted to the treatment of patients with psychosomatic disorders,” the obituary continued, concluding that “the unique position of psychosomatic medicine in Germany – in comparison with other European countries – is largely due to the continuous engagement of Thure von Uexküll” (British Medical Journal 2004: 1047).
Thure von Uexküll (1908–2004), Werner Geigges (1953– ), and Jörg Herrmann (1944– )
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Notes
- 1.
According to Krampen (1986: 84), J. von Uexküll’s term Umwelt “means the subjective world of what is meaningful impingement for the living being in terms of its own information processing equipment, sign systems, and codes”.
- 2.
Ethnologists have coined, by analogy with the linguistic concepts of “phonetics” and “phonemics”, the terms “etic” and “ernic” to indicate two different approaches to a foreign culture. An approach from “outside” in which the observer applies the criteria of his or her own culture to foreign phenomena is called “etic”. The “emic” method implies the observer's attempt to use the criteria of the culture under observation. Adopting these ethnological concepts for semiotic purposes, we may characterize the attitude of an observer of signs who is interested only in the physical and chemical properties of the sign vehicles as “sign-etic”, In contrast, the observer’s attitude is called “sign-emic” if his or her interest is centered on the meanings of sign vehicles (see Uexküll 1990).
- 3.
We may distinguish three forms of semiosis by considering differences in the contributions of emitter and receiver: (a) Semioses of information, in which the inanimate environment acts as a “quasi-emitter”, but assumes no semiotic functions - they must be performed by the receiver alone (Bottner 1980); (b) Semioses of symptomatization, in which the emitter is a living being which sends signals through its behavior – although these signals are not directed toward any receiver, they inform the expert of the situation and/or the state of the living being; and (c) Semioses of communication, the only sign processes in which emitter and receiver share the semiotic tasks (see Uexküll 1990).
- 4.
In the original German version:
Voller Apfel, Birne und Banane,
Stachelbeere … Alles dieses spricht
Tod und Leben in den Mund … Ich ahne …
Lest es einem Kind vom Angesicht,
wenn es sie erschmeckt. Dies kommt von weit.
Wird euch langsam namenlos im Munde?
Wo sonst Worte waren, fließen Funde,
aus dem Fruchtfleisch überrascht befreit. [1936: 60]
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Favareau, D. (2009). Endosemiosis. In: Essential Readings in Biosemiotics. Biosemiotics, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9650-1_9
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