Abstract
Basing on the second edition of Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere and on Theoretical Biology, the chapter proposes a more in-depth analysis of the Uexküllian Umwelt. Starting from the notion of functional circle, i.e. from the interplay of operative and perceptive organs in each animal species, the chapter focuses on the role played in the constitution of the Umwelt by different kinds of signs (effect signs, moment signs, directional signs, etcetera). According to Uexküll, both perception and action are ultimately based on internally generated signs, that are then outward transposed (hinausverlegt) and thus produce the species-specific Umwelt – a conception that can be defined as transcendental biosemiotics.
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Notes
- 1.
Herbert Spencer Jennings (1868–1947). American zoologist who studied at the University of Harvard and the University of Jena, then researched at the Zoological Station in Naples (first in 1897, then in 1903–1904). His field of activity concerns the physiology and behavior of protozoan; concentrating on the reactions of individual organisms to environmental stimuli, Jennings contested the legitimacy of the Loebian concept of tropism in the animal kingdom (starting with the simplest of organisms) (Jennings 1906).
- 2.
It is interesting to note in this central step how Uexküll defines the nutritive and motor organs with the term Werkzeuge, which means instrument or utensil, seemingly underlining that they do not directly call into effect the perceptive or representative faculties of the organism.
- 3.
The mention of water as an element of the operative world (and therefore not reperceived by the animal) is clarified in these terms: “The media [Medien] where the animals live, like air or water, are not perceived in any way, although the animals’ locomotion organs are perfectly adapted to them” (von Uexküll 1913:73).
- 4.
In A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, the Wirkungsträger become “effect-mark carriers” (Wirkmalträger) (von Uexküll 2010: 48).
- 5.
In Uexküll’s work, the first appearance (although under a different denomination) of the distinction among different functional circles can already be found in Leitfaden in das Studium der experimentellen Biologie der Wassertiere, where he sets forth the idea of “separate perception organs” assigned to the carrying out of different biological functions (von Uexküll 1905: 32). This distinction will later hold significant importance, not only in Uexküll’s work, but also, as we shall see, in the use of this term in the works of Lorenz (cf. below, 217).
- 6.
- 7.
As we shall see, this problem will be studied by Lorenz – with ample use of Uexküllian categories – in his article Companions as factor in the bird’s environment (Lorenz 1935).
- 8.
On Uexküll’s concept of God see the review by Uexküll of Chamberlain’s Mensch und Gott [Man and God]; after having reaffirmed the unfathomableness of everything which is beyond the sensible experience (reread as environmental experience) of man, Uexküll assigns Plato and Jesus the status of “visionary” explorers of the sphere that precedes and follows the sensible life of man. More than the problem of the existence of God, however, Uexküll’s review focuses on the fear that modernity could lose the sense of the divine, and this is what leads to the hegemony of the mechanistic vision of man and of nature (von Uexküll 1922; Chamberlain 1921).
- 9.
If we substitute the term life with that of world, Uexküll’s reflections seem to come straight from the pages where, in “Transcendental dialectic” of Critique of Pure Reason, Kant criticizes the idea of the world (Kant 1999: 460–466); but there are also clear, perceptible echoes of the Kantian evaluation of biology as is expressed in Critique of the Power of Judgment, with its underlining of epistemological limits inherent in any inquiry into living beings (Kant 2000: 271).
- 10.
Three German editions of this work exist: the first dated 1920 (von Uexküll 1920), the second, re-elaborated, dated 1928 (von Uexküll 1928) and a reprinting in 1973 (von Uexküll 1973). Because the nature of the modifications in the second edition do not justify a comparative analysis with the first (as instead is the case with Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere), our work is based exclusively on the second edition.
- 11.
One of the passages in which the idea of the outward transposition of sensations is expressed most clearly is found in the article Psychologie und Biologie in ihrer Stellung zur Tierseele, in which Uexküll declares that he “places himself without reserve on the ground of [kantian] transcendental idealism” and states: “All that belongs to intuition is immediately, and without our help, conveyed to the outside; and it is this transfer to the outside that, from his point of view, gives us the confirmation that we are dealing with [the faculty of] intuition. […] Kant calls the overall sum of sensations transferred to the outside (the phenomena) sensitivity. […] Finally, we transform these complex orders of phenomena into objects in space. This […] phase of the global process of apperception, the configuration of the groups of phenomena in objects, deserves our special attention” (von Uexküll 1902: 216–217). As we have seen, the process of the constitution of environmental elements does not arrive in all animals at configuring objects, while the outward transposition of sensations (or rather the formation of phenomenal worlds) is a universal phenomenon: “Just as we base our world on our perceptive marks and, thanks to them, give it shape and color, it is in the same way that any subject bases its own world upon its own perceptive marks, which it transfers to the outside, thus turning them into just as many properties of its world. This is not only true for other human beings, with their world similar to ours, but also for animals, with their worlds differing from ours in more ways than one” (von Uexküll 1930: 127).
- 12.
In terms of the constitution of space, Uexküll writes: “[We should underline the fact] that we have the ability to color our space. Depending on the coloring of tactile or visual surfaces, we can divide our space of action in colored halves, respectively according to the right-left, top-bottom, front-back oppositions. The three border surfaces of the space segments colored in this way […] establish a system of coordinates” (von Uexküll 1928: 18). From an anatomical point of view, the intra-organic precondition of this system of coordinates (then transposed into the environment) consists in the presence of semi-circular canals in the ear; such a system is thus a transcendental element only in the environment of some species (von Uexküll 1928: 19). In regards to this, Uexküll’s observation here is interesting in that “we will transfer in space a system of coordinates, which is not only thought out, but also felt” (von Uexküll 1928: 18). In this observation we find an implicit critique of the intellectualism of the Kantian approach.
- 13.
We find an ambiguity in the transcendental subject model established by Uexküll: if, in relation to the content-qualities the local and temporal signs seem to be forms, in relation to pure Kantian forms they have instead the status of contents.
- 14.
The presence of the pure intuitions of space and time is required by the material a priori, which otherwise would not make sense: without time – understood as the general form of “one after another” – the moment signs would not even be placeable in a series, and the environmental experience would be made up of segments or unrelated points. This obviously does not mean that the pure forms of space and time must be included into the felt, or reperceived, experience of the organisms.
- 15.
For agreement among species we do not necessarily mean peace or harmony: nothing is more important for a predator than to move in the very same spatial-temporal context as its prey.
- 16.
Uexküll again takes up the vitalist interpretation of the formation of the amoeba and the role the protoplasm plays in it; see above, 65.
- 17.
The example cited by Uexküll for this typology is the reproductive behavior of the ichneumon fly (Megarhyssa macrurus), which “is influenced by many external perceptive marks” and nonetheless follows a definite species-specific schema (von Uexküll 1928: 207).
- 18.
- 19.
According to Uexküll, control of the action through retroactive orientation can occur in two principle modalities: through the perception of perceptive traits outside of the body (as is the case with the bullfinch who hears its own song), and through the perception of one’s own muscular movement (proprioceptivity) (von Uexküll 1928: 209).
- 20.
As Uexküll states in his articles Plan und Induktion, besides through schemata of use in man the functional circle can achieve a level of superior articulation thanks to the insertion of auxiliary mechanisms of technical character. This can happen in two key positions, that is between the receptor and the object and between the effector and the object; in the first case we speak of “perception tools [Merk-Mittel]”, and in the second “operative tools [Wirk-Mittel]” (von Uexküll 1929: 37). Unfortunately, this idea, which could have brought about further reflections on the peculiarity of the perceptive and operative environment of man in comparison with that of animals, is not studied further in Uexküll’s main works.
- 21.
The term “schema” is consciously used by Uexküll in connection not only with Kant but also with Plato: “Following in Plato's footsteps, Kant compares the schema of empirical things with a sort of monogram that was impressed on the soul and that is the starting point of the building process of things as well as of the creating process of imagination” (von Uexküll 1928: 77). On the theoretical problems generated by the presence in the schema of a formal (“Kantian”) side and a content-related (“Platonic”) one, see above, 92–93.
- 22.
Uexküll also distinguishes these two typologies of environmental entities from a terminological point of view: the first includes Objekte, the second Gegenstände; both terms translate as objects in English.
- 23.
The problematic character of Uexküll’s and other vitalists’ conception will be taken up and clearly understood by Konrad Lorenz, according to whom the scientific productivity of some of their hypotheses (for example Uexküll’s concepts of schema and the functional circle) and the validity of some of their discoveries depend on the fact that, in the concrete praxis of empirical research, they, too were mechanists (see Lorenz 1996: 231).
- 24.
Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694). Italian physician, microbiologist and anatomist, he dedicated himself to the study of embryology in the 1670s. His fundamental conviction, which would become the core of later preformist theory, is that embryogenesis consists in the primarily quantitative development of components which are already present (Malpighi 1673).
- 25.
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723). Dutch microbiologist and naturalist, he is among the first to intuit and take advantage of the potential of optical enlargement of studied objects in biology. The use of the microscope allowed him to identify the spermatazoon of many animal species; for him the discovery of spermatazoon indicated proof of the inconsistency of the Aristotelian theory of spontaneous generation. In his version of preformism, the developing structural elements that will lead to the animal adult are brought by spermatazoon and not by the ovule.
- 26.
Charles Bonnet (1720–1793). Swiss biologist, entomologist, and science historian, he worked with the phenomenon of parthenogenesis in aphids and annelids. His study in this field brought him to see parthenogenesis as proof of the preformist theory (he attributed this to the presence of ovules in organisms that regenerate).
- 27.
Cf. above, 53, n. 16.
- 28.
Cf. above, 50, n. 3.
- 29.
Cf. above, 54, n. 17.
- 30.
Jiří Procháska (1749–1820). Czech anatomist, he interpreted the formation of tissue and organs at the embryonal level as a process analogous to crystallization, a sort of “molecular attraction” (Cf. Dröscher 2008: 210) which, in repeating itself on always greater scales, eventually produces the complete organ.
- 31.
As the initial structure of embryonal cells is seen as containing – in a fundamentally unexplainable way – all the traits of the adult organism, preformism acknowledges the action of extramaterial organizing forces on the material; this is the reason why in his Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant assigns greater credit to epigenetic theories than to preformism (Kant 2000: 291–292)
- 32.
Until the revision process of Darwinism promoted primarily by Gould, however, gradual change was the type of change most widely privileged by Darwinists. Cf. for example Gould 2002: 1651.
- 33.
In support of the constancy of the characteristics of organisms Uexküll also mentions Jenning’s experiments on parameciums, which (according to Uexküll) demonstrate the invariance of phenotypes after thousands of generations (provided that reproduction of these organisms does not occur sexually).
- 34.
Wilhelm Ludwig Johannsen (1857–1927). Danish biologist, one of the founders of genetics; the first to give the name of “gene” to the basic unit assigned to the transmission of the information that determines hereditary traits and to provide a precise conceptual distinction between genotype and phenotype (Johannsen 1909).
- 35.
Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866–1945). American embryologist and geneticist, one of the founders of genetics; his studies on Drosophila melanogaster led him to understand the genetic base of the Mendelian transmission of dominant and recessive characteristics and to identify the chromosomes in which genetic information is found (Morgan 1913).
- 36.
The semiotic reading of the decoding of DNA can also avail itself of other concepts taken from modern linguistics, such as the distinction between code and message (cf. for example Jakobson 1971: 559–561). In human communication we can distinguish between code (for example Morse Code) and message (an SOS), and the same can be done in genetics: the genetic code (the system of correspondences among groups of nucleic acids and proteins, which is the same for all living organisms on earth) is distinct from single messages (the genomes of various species). And fundamental observations about the distinction between processes of code semiosis (among which the DNA decoding) and processes of hermeneutic semiosis have been recently developed by Marcello Barbieri (cf. Barbieri 2003, 2008, 2012).
- 37.
Reflecting on this quote in Versuche zu einer Philosophie des Lebens [Attempts at a Philosophy of Life], Max Scheler sees in Nietzsche a sharp critic of evolutionism, and for a very clear reason: “[[Nietzsche] saw that Darwin and Spencer had “removed” the concept of “activity” from the concept of life; Spencer defined life as the “adaptation of inner processes to outer circumstances”, which Nietzsche found unacceptable. […]. [In the] conception underlying organic nature, which was Darwin's starting point, all the growing and developing processes do not have the positive strength of primal causes as far as individual “evolution” is concerned, but they are exclusively epiphenomena of the protective processes related to what is casually useful, and are then followed by the negative activity of removal of the inadapted” (Scheler 1913: 315, 317).
- 38.
- 39.
It is interesting to note how the continuation of this quote brings the Lamarckian position back among authentic evolutionary theories: “Unlike Darwinists, Lamarckians acknowledge the action of a molding force, which produces planned structures in a planned way. This is why they can speak [for themselves] of an evolutionary theory” (von Uexküll 1928: 195).
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Brentari, C. (2015). The Structure of the Umwelt. In: Jakob von Uexküll. Biosemiotics, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9688-0_5
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