Alexandra V. VolodinaThe Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences
12/1 Goncharnaya Str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 109240
Junior Research Fellow
Ph. D. in Philosophy
e-mail: sasha.volodina@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0002-8685-321X
“Inside the Universes of the Mind”: The Legacy of Y.M. Lotman and BiosemioticsAbstract: The article examines the theoretical ideas presented in the works of Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman on semiosis and semiosphere and revealing the semiotic aspects of interactions in the environment (whether it is a cultural space or a biological system), formed by the participants of communication and their joint experience. The ideas of the semiosphere, which includes not only cultural, but also technological and biological signs, and of semiosis as a sphere of material and spaced interactions, which are always multiple and multidirectional (inside the system and outside), are revealed in such texts by Lotman as “Culture and Explosion”, “Inside Thinking Worlds”, etc. These notions have served as the conceptual basis for modern biosemiotic research, in particular, for the works of Jesper Hoffmeyer. The article reveals the problem of the boundary in semiotic space in Lotman's interpretation and traces the development of this concept in biosemiotic studies, and also considers two key conditions for the production of signs postulated by Lotman (which are binarity and the untranslatability of codes) and their significance for biosemiotics. Within the framework of the presented approach, the article shows that the material substrate of the semiosphere, which shares the functions of choice and discrimination with the agents of sign exchange, turns out to be another important condition for semiosis in living systems.
Key words: sign, semiosis, boundary, biosemiotics, Y. Lotman, Ch.S. Peirce, J. von Uexkühl, J. Hoffmeyer.
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For Citation: Volodina, A. “Inside the Universes of the Mind”: The Legacy of Y.M. Lotman and Biosemiotics. International Journal of Cultural Research, 4 (45). 35–46. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2021_4_35
DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2021_4_35
