Thursday 14 April 2011

The levels of biosemiosis - revised

This is my revised sketch of what I call the levels of biosemiosis, which I will present at conferences in Lund, Sweden and in New York the next couple of months. The revision consists in replacing 'Biosemiotics' as the primary field of the somatic (sub-perceptual, microscopic) realm with 'Endosemiotics' so that Biosemiotics can be used unequivocally as an umbrella term for the study of the three layers of endosemiosis, zoosemiosis and ecosemiosis (where cultural semiosis in a super-perceptual sense is to be categorized under ecosemiosis, since society can be viewed as a superorganism). Earlier I had to distinguish between biosemiotics in a narrow and a wide sense. Now biosemiotics concerns the full movement (cycle) including all three levels. The revision was suggested by my supervisor Kalevi Kull, and is in accordance with an alternative proposed by Wendy Wheeler.

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