This paper attempts to put forward an aesthetic theory of nature based on a biosemiotic description of the living, which in turn is derived from an autopoietic theory of organism (F. Varela). An autopoietic system’s reaction to material constraints is the unfolding of a dimension of meaning. In the outward_ Gestalt_ of autopoietic systems, meaning appears as form, and as such it reveals itself in a sensually graspable manner. The mode of being of organisms has an irreducible aesthetic side in which this mode of being becomes visible. Nature thus displays a kind of transparency of its own functioning: in a nondiscursive way organisms show traces of their_ conditio vitae_ through their material self-presentation. Living beings hence always show a basic level of expressiveness as a necessary component of their organic mode of being. This is called the_ ecstatic_ dimension of nature (G. Böhme, R. Corrington). Autopoiesis in its full consequence then amounts to a view reminding of Paracelsus’ idea of the_ signatura rerum_ (C. Glacken, H. Böhme): nature is transparent, not because it is organized_ digitally_ as a linguistic text or code, but rather because it displays_ analogically_ the kind of intentionality engendered by autopoiesis. Nature as a whole, as “living form” (S. Langer), is a symbol for organic intentionality. The most fundamental meaning of nature protection thus is to guarantee the “real presence” of our soul.

This paper describes the semiotic approach to organism in two proto-biosemiotic thinkers, Susanne K. Langer and Hans Jonas. Both authors develop ideas that have become central terms of biosemiotics: the organism as subject, the realisation of the living as a closed circular self, the value concept, and, in the case of Langer, the concept of symbol. Langer tries to develop a theory of cultural symbolism based on a theory of organism as a self-realising entity creating meaning and value. This paper deals mainly with what both authors independently call “feeling.” Both authors describe “feeling” as a value-based perspective, established as a result of the active self interest manifested by an organic system. The findings of Jonas and Langer show the generation of a subject pole, or biosemiotic agent, under a more precise accent, as e.g. Uexküll does. Their ideas can also be affiliated to the interpretation of autopoiesis given by the late Francisco Varela (embodied cognition or “enactivism”). A synthesis of these positions might lead to insights how symbolic expression arises from biological conditions of living.

The late Chile born biologist Francisco J. Varela has been influential in theoretical biology throughout the last three decades of the 20. century. His thinking shows a marked development from a biologically founded constructivism (developed together with his fellow citizen, Humberto Maturana, with the main key word being “autopoiesis theory”) to a more phenomenological oriented standpoint, which Varela called himself the philosophy of embodiment, or “enactivism.” In this paper, I want to show that major arguments in this latter position can be fruitful for a biosemiotic approach to organism. Varela himself already applies concepts as e.g. “signification,” “relevance,” “meaning” which are de facto biosemiotic. He derives these concepts from a compact theory of organism, which he understands as the process of self-realization of a materially embodied subject. This presumption stems, though somewhat modified, from Autopoiesis theory and so attempts a quasiempirical description of the living in terms of self-organisation. Varela’s thinking might count as an exemplary model for a biosemiotic approach in a theory of organism. In particular, Varela’s link to down-to-earth biological research offers means to associate biosemiotics with the ongoing debate about the status of a biological system within genetics and proteomics research.

Key words: Varela, Maturana, identity, self

In this paper I pursue the influences of Jakob von Uexküll’s biosemiotics on the anthropology of Ernst Cassirer. I propose that Cassirer in his Philosophy of the Symbolic Forms has written a cultural semiotics which in certain core ideas is grounded on biosemiotic presuppositions, some explicit (as the “emotive basic ground” of experience), some more implicit. I try to trace the connecting lines to a biosemiotic approach with the goal of formulating a comprehensive semiotic anthropology which understands man as embodied being and culture as a phenomenon of general semioses.

Open peer commentary on the article “Anchoring in Lived Experience as an Act of Resistance” by Claire Petitmengin. Abstract: Lived experience can be viewed as the unfolding of “poetic space.” This is neither “just” matter nor experience, but the collective exploration of felt embodied meanings by individuals, which co-create as transformations of a fecund whole. Denying poetic space could be detrimental to life.

This paper proposes a basic revision of the understanding of teleology in biological sciences. Since Kant, it has become customary to view purposiveness in organisms as a bias added by the observer, the recent notion of teleonomy expresses well this “as-if” character of natural purposes. In recent developments in science, however, notions such as selforganization (or complex systems) and the autopoiesis viewpoint, have displaced emergence and circular self-production as central features of life. Contrary to an often superficial reading, Kant gives a multi-faceted account of the living, and anticipates this modern reading of the organism, even introducing the term “self-organization” for the first time. Our re-reading of Kant in this light is strengthened by a group of philosophers of biology, with Hans Jonas as the central figure, who put back on center stage an organism-centered view of the living, an autonomous center of concern capable of providing an interior perspective. Thus, what is present in nuce in Kant, finds a convergent development from this current of philosophy of biology and the scientific ideas around autopoeisis, two independent but parallel developments culminating in the 1970s. Instead of viewing meaning or value as artifacts or illusions, both agree on a new understanding of a form of immanent teleology as truly biological features, inevitably intertwined with the self-establishment of an identity which is the living process.