NDLI: Taking the Relational Turn: Biosemiotics and Some New Trends in Biology

Please wait, while we are loading the content...

Taking the Relational Turn: Biosemiotics and Some New Trends in Biology

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Fernández, Eliseo
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	A cluster of similar trends emerging in separate fields of science and philosophy points to new opportunities to apply biosemiotic ideas as tools for conceptual integration in theoretical biology. I characterize these developments as the outcome of a “relational turn” in these disciplines. They signal a shift of attention away from objects and things and towards relational structures and processes. Increasingly sophisticated research technologies of molecular biology have generated an enormous quantity of experimental data, sparking a need for relational approaches that could help to find recurrent patterns in the mass of data. Earlier conceptions of relational biology and cybernetics, once deemed too abstract and speculative, are now resurrected and applied by means of new computational and simulation tools. I think this receptivity should be extended to incorporate nets of semiotic relations as heuristic guides for discerning global patterns of interactions in living systems. In this article I review aspects of systems biology and new directions in evolutionary theory, focusing on the role of circular and downward causation in relational structures and dynamical networks. I also indicate promising avenues of integration of some ideas of biosemiotics with those emerging from these new currents in biology. Relational developments in biology bear a telling similarity to a parallel relational turn presently manifest in the philosophy of science, rooted in the philosophy of physics and mathematics and in different varieties of structural and informational realism. The recognition of the relational nature of reality within these disciplines entails a tacit repudiation of nominalistic biases in science that have hindered the reception of semitiotic conceptions in biology. In previous investigations I explored connections between two kinds of relational structures: the networks of self-referential circular loops that appear pervasively in living systems, and the triadic relational structures that Peircean semiotics places at the basis of all semiotic transactions. Current relational views in the sciences seem oblivious to the difference between dyadic and triadic relations. Incorporating this essential distinction from biosemiotics into other fields could be a first step in seizing the opportunities opened by the relational turn for a renewal of biology and of natural philosophy in general, across disciplinary boundaries.
Starting Page	147
Ending Page	156
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISSN	18751342
Journal	Biosemiotics
Volume Number	3
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	18751350
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2010-05-23
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Systems biology Relational turn Peirce Biosemiotics Computing Methodologies Psychology Philosophy of Science Linguistics (general) Evolutionary Biology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Communication Linguistics and Language

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Uexküll, Peirce, and Other Affinities Between Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics

Three Types of Semiosis

Meaning Matters: The Biosemiotic Basis of Bioethics

What is Biosemiotics?

What Does it Take to Produce Interpretation? Informational, Peircean and Code-Semiotic Views on Biosemiotics

For a Scientific Biosemiotics

Poetics in Schizophrenic Language: Speech, Gesture and Biosemiotics

Signs and Instruments: The Convergence of Aristotelian and Kantian Intuitions in Biosemiotics

On the Semio-Mathematical Nature of Codes

Taking the Relational Turn: Biosemiotics and Some New Trends in Biology

Similar Documents

Uexküll, Peirce, and Other Affinities Between Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics

Three Types of Semiosis

Meaning Matters: The Biosemiotic Basis of Bioethics

What is Biosemiotics?

What Does it Take to Produce Interpretation? Informational, Peircean and Code-Semiotic Views on Biosemiotics

For a Scientific Biosemiotics

Poetics in Schizophrenic Language: Speech, Gesture and Biosemiotics

Signs and Instruments: The Convergence of Aristotelian and Kantian Intuitions in Biosemiotics

On the Semio-Mathematical Nature of Codes

Taking the Relational Turn: Biosemiotics and Some New Trends in Biology