A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with A Theory of Meaning (Volume 12)

by Jakob Johann von Uexküll, Joseph D. O'Neil

Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject? With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has called Uexküll "a high point of modern antihumanism."

A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans advances Uexküll's revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species' morphology and behavior. A Theory of Meaning extends his thinking on the umwelt, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll's work for the first time will find that his concept of the umwelt holds out new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the whole framework of biopolitics itself.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Biology, Nonfiction, Semiotics, Ecology, Nature

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Jakob Johann Baron von Uexküll was a German biologist.

He was the father of Thure von Uexküll, M.D. and grandfather of Jakob von Uexküll.

Reviews

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balto-nemačka plemićka porodica Uekskul ima svoj grb već od 15. veka. Za sve te vekove, dala je mnoge političare, pisce, naučnike, lekare, aktiviste. Ima tu neke neobične istrajnosti u izuzetnosti u svakoj generaciji. Uekskuli očigledno nisu pripadali (samo) tromoj, hedonističkoj aristokratiji, već su i nešto podarili svetu.
Jakob Johan fon Uekskul je jedno čudo od čoveka – biolog, filozof, etolog, biokibernetičar i utemeljivač biosemiotike. Tvorac je čuvenog koncepta Umwelt-a, koji podrazumeva posebno perecptivno-životno polje koje organizam emituje da bi pojmilo svoje okruženje. Za razliku od biheviorista, koji su proučavali ponašanje i njegove (iskoristljive) posledice, Uekskul se pitao kako svet iznutra doživljavaju živa bića, prema sopstvenim perceptivnim kapacitetima. Njegov odgovor je dečački uzbuđen i raspričan – treba odbaciti uvreženo mišljenje o mehanicizmu živog sveta (biosfera kao ogromna fabrika gde se reaguje na nadražaja) i prirodu doživljavati kroz Umwelt – koji treba da zamislimo kao splet mehurića koji obuhvataju postojanje svakog živog stvora, isprepletanog u mreži bivstvujućeg.

Svako biće ima svoj Umwelt i što je biće složenije, složeniji je i mehurić. Tako Uekskul detaljno govori o krpeljima, puževima, školjkama i crvima, koje i eksperimentalno proučava. Zaključak je da svako biće može da poima svet onim što ima – krpelji imaju samo čulo mirisa (i to samo za jedan miris – buternu kiselinu) i osećaj za toplo, na osnovu koga se kače na ostale sisare. Školjke poimaju svet dodirom, crvi ukusom, a puževima je vreme, spram ritma i veličine, odgovarajuće usitnjeno. Uekskul štaviše, u slučaju puževa, tvrdi da ima dokaz za to što me je uvek intrigiralo – kako različitim bićima prolazi vreme u odnosu na dužinu života? Svima je poznata priča o psećim ili mačijim godinama u odnosu na ljudske – ali da li je doživljaj vremena povezan sa nužnim trajanjem života?

Svi spomenuti primeri deo su šire slike, koja se tiče fenomenologije percepcije – jeste, svet kao svet postoji, nije solipsistički igrokaz. Međutim, prikaz sveta moguć je jedino u okvirima individualnih subjektivnosti, odnosno, Umwelt-a. Tako će svet za krticu biti (što Uekskul i grafički prikazuje) taktilan – splet zemlje i kanala u kojima se može kretati. Za neku vrstu, što je nama nezamislivo jer smo pre svega vizuelna bića, svet će biti splet mirisa, a nekom mikroorganizmu ili biljci – svet je svetlost i voda.

To je i dalje isti svet, ali gotovo zastrašujuće različit spram svih mogućnosti njegovog poimanja.
U kontekstu proučavanja poimanja sveta životinja, zanimljivo je kako psi mogu biti izuzetno efikasni kao vodiči slepim ljudima, dok neke zahteve nikad neće moći razumeti. Razlog je što ne mogu da poimaju ono što ne opažaju – kao što pčele i mnogi insekti razilikuju otvorene i zatvorene objekte, ali ne i njihove detalje.

Posebnog čovekovog Umwelta je što ima sposobnost samoprevazilaženja. Ta njegova težnja ka samoprevazilaženjem je fenomenalna, kako u kolokvijalnom, tako i u filozofskom smislu – dolazak do teleskopa/mikroskopa dovodi do proširenja Umwelt-a. (Povodom ovoga pročitati jednu od meni najdražih pesama Šimborske – „Mikrokosmos”.)

Kada govorimo o čovekovom Umweltu, zanimljivo je da je Uekskul začuđujuće direktan kad su u pitanju neke polemički podložne stvari – tvrdi npr. da je za čoveka osnova vremena trenutak, a da trenutak, po njegovom računanju u odnosu na prirodu filma (!) iznosi jednu osamnaestinu sekunde. Onda, u odnosu na tu, za čoveka, osnovnu jedinicu razmišlja o slow motion-u i time laps-u. I pomislih – dobro. I setih se da je ova knjiga objavljena 30-ih godina XX veka!

Uekskul usput govori o suživotu bića – jednom bukavcu koji se zaljubio u upravnika zoo-vrta, teoriji konstituisanja značenja, kritici instrumentalizacije darvinizma (nije tačno da najjači opstaju već opstaju oni koji doprinose suživotu, koji su u odnosu na sopstveni Umwelt, održivi), magičnim Umwelt-ima (jedan od njih je urođen put koji mora da prođe životinjska vrsta, poput lososa – ona je duboko instinktivna) i metodologiji istraživanja biologije (priroda NE uči – a teorije samo generalizuju pravila).

I pre svega, o samom životu kao čudu. Čudu koje stalno predstavlja kroz muzičke metafore – svako biće titra za džinovsku simfoniju sveta.

Neverovatan je uticaj Uekskulovih ideja, iako se, nakon razdraganih deonica, čini kako je sam svestan kako nema mnogo poklonika. Od Rilkea sa kim je imao ličan kontakt, preko Merlo-Pontija (ekofenomenolgoija), Hajdegera (ekoontologija), Fukoa (biopolitika), Sloterdijka (sferologija), Vaclavika (komunikacija-šum), Delaza&Gatarija, do savremenih studija životinja, ali i popularnih pisaca (Ziskind, Peter Heg), koji dirketno referišu na njega.

Jakob fon Uekskul umire 1944. Njegov sin Ture, živeće još 60 godina, baviće se medicinom i razradiće očeve biosemiotičke ideje. Neki Uekskuli koji nisu Jakobovi direktni potomci, poslanici su zelenih stranaka, a jedan je predsednik institucije koja se zove World Future Council.

Za roman!
I to genealoški.
Metagenealoški.
Metabiogenealoški.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird book, which is, I suppose, two books put into one volume, one being A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans and A Theory of Meaning. Jakob Johann von Uexkull was a biologist in the late 19th-early 20th century who made a couple of major contributions to the field. But in addition to his contribution, he also had some views that would not be accepted in mainstream biology or mainstream science today.

One of his major contributions was his concept Umwelt. Uexkull went to great lengths to show that even though we commonly think of ourselves as living in one 'world' with other animals, in fact humans and animals inhabit starkly different worlds and worlds within those worlds. It's not nearly as mysterious as it sounds. A go-to example of his is the tic. A tic can climb onto a blade of grass and went for years to draw blood. A tic's sole purpose in life is to draw blood that will feed its children. So it climbs onto a blade of grass and waits until an animal comes by. Then it attaches to the animal, draws blood, and dies. The tic is not designed to see or feel but to sense butyric acid in its environment. In ordinary life, the presence of butyric acid corresponds to the presence of a larger animal. In the presence of a body with butyric acid, the tic attaches, feeds, and that's all she wrote.

That is just one example of the kind of narrow worlds that animals live within. The animal interacts with the environment in a special way, in a way in which the animal perceives the environment as tailored to him/her/it. Humans do too. And you can even break it down to the individual organism. Any individual organism (tic, human, what have you) perceives the world slightly different that any of its conspecifics. This is the world-within-worlds aspect.

The reason this is a meaningful contribution to biology, or was in Uexkull's time, is that a more mechanistic view of biology was once dominant. Under the spell of a simplified version of interaction with the environment, mainstream science took for granted the complicated way in which organisms were designed to interact with the environment and that each environment was perceived as different for different organisms.

Which brings us to the next major contribution of Uexkull's. If it's true that organisms have a particular Umwelt, that is, a particular world tailored to that organism and individual, then it seems to follow that each organism/individual is designed with special rules that unfold inside of it according to biological laws. One way to illustrate this is a human embryo. A human embryo transforms into a human being because there are biological laws that make that embryo unfold as a human rather than a bacterium, a worm, a donkey, et cetera. Were it not for these built-in principles, there would be no particular development.

This is where Uexkull got a little weird, though. In modern terms, we would refer to this unfolding as something to do with biological laws. Uexkull spoke of this unfolding in magical or spiritualist terms. He would describe it, for example, as the playing out of a natural symphony, and it's not clear if the reader is supposed to take this as metaphor or something else. Regardless, this guy was on the right track.

The book is written really loosely and not very fun to read straight through. Oddly enough, it would make a pretty good bathroom book, something you can just pick up, read some passages from, and put back down. If you do that, you won't miss much.

[Zeynep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitabı Norgunk'un şahane baskısından Türkçe çeviri olarak okudum. Ama kitabın o baskısını bulup da işaretleyemedim GR'de.

Naif bir bilim insanı izlenimi yaratıyor yazar. Hoş bir dil kullanmış açık ve ağır olmayan. Sevecen bir doğa/yaşam gözlemcisi...

[Tim Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is truly one of the most unusual books that I have ever read. After reading, I'm left with one overall impression: "quirky."

I'm presently taking a course broadly focused on the "phenomenology of life," and this was required reading. Von Uexküll had a clear influence on several phenomenologists, most explicitly Heidegger (cf. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics), Merleau-Ponty (cf. The Structure of Behaviour and the "Nature" Course Notes), and Hans Jonas (The Phenomenon of Life). Of these, Uexküll appears most closely related to Jonas, for whom "mechanistic" or materialist interpretations of life were drastically incomplete, since such interpretations leave out the interiority that is essential to living things. While Uexküll's idea is similar to Jonas' (whose argument is certainly thought-provoking), the former's choice of terminology and overuse of musical metaphors makes his theory appear much less sophisticated in comparison.

[Montriblood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly easy to read and understand for a profane (as I am), this book builds interesting bridges with philosophy, especially in relocating the animal as a conscious subject, capable of subjective decisions, rather than a primitive and instinctive creature.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

“we must first blow, in fancy, a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with the perceptions which it alone knows. When we ourselves step into one of these bubbles, the familiar meadow is transformed. Many of its colorful features disappear, others no longer belong together but appear in new relationships. A new world comes into being. Through the bubble […] we see the world as it appears to the animals themselves, not as it appears to us.”

“The sphere is the interior, disclosed, shared realm inhabited by humans – insofar as they succeed in becoming humans. Because living always means building spheres, both on a small and a large scale, humans are the beings that establish globes and look out on to horizons. Living in spheres means creating the dimension in which humans can be contained. Spheres are immune-systemically effective space creations for ecstatic beings that are operated upon by the outside.”

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique book about animals bumping around in meaning-bubbles.

"At least for me, no imperfection was apparent even in the simplest animals. As far as I could judge, the material available for construction was always used in the best possible way. Every animal had its own life stage, populated with all the things and all the fellow players that were meaningful for its life. The characteristics of the animal and those of its fellow players harmonized everywhere with assurance, like the points and counterpoints of a many-voiced chorus. It was as if the same masterful hand were gliding across the keys of life since time immemorial. One composition followed the other, endlessly many, serious and light, majestic and terrible: (p.195).

[Ami Iida · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's philosophy and scientific.

[M D · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Uexküll is a Kantian he is a very naughty one. Reminded me more of a (barely) naturalized Leibniz. Great historicization in the Afterword by Winthrop-Young.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

La Teoría de la significación de von Uexküll -publicada por Cactus- o cómo fundar la biosemiótica y dar la mejor metáfora hasta el día de un ecosistema. Constantemente anda Jakob al borde de la locura, y una y otra vez lo evita. A pesar de admitir no saber cómo se produce, y estar bordeando la necesidad de un ente trascendental -Naturaleza o Dios-, consigue mostrarnos de qué modo la significación, la melodía del mundo, une cuerpos. A título de curiosidad, D&G hablan de esto en Mil mesetas -la transcodificación.

[Burcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Öğretici, yeni bir bakış açısı kazandıran, Umwelt kavramını hayatıma sokan harika bir kitaptı. Fakat çeviride hatalar var.

[Jack Lyell · Rating 3 out of 5]

[20/166]

Read partially for class, since I'd already paid an obscene amount for it, figured I should read whole book at some point. Verdict: ehhhhh? I really like Uexkull's primary ideas about perception from non-human perspectives, and the "soap bubble" metaphor and his views on time are fascinating. The entire tome is well-researched, and the general system he sets up allows for animal autonomy and predictable behavior. Great introduction to naturalism and an interesting point of view from right around the time biology became invested in genetics-- it's a paper caught in a weird transitional state for the field, but some of the ideas it proposes will later go on to be important in post-humanism, which I can deeply appreciate. It helps that it's well-written.

Admittedly though something still rubs me the wrong way about his almost-Lamarckian-kind-of-religious quarrel with Darwinism and you know, German philosopher in the 1940s, had some... had some bad ideas. Okay, so maybe that rubs me a lot the wrong way. This book comes with some great critiques for and against his works, discussions of non-animate "machine operators" in thermodynamic systems, and all sorts of history. Just an absolute treat of a volume to partake in alongside Uexkull's work.

[Hussain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read a few chapters for a class, plan on finishing it as soon as I get the time. Uexküll has a hatred for Darwin based on a misinterpretation of his work. He posits a theory far weaker than Darwin's of natural selection. That said, he writes beautifully and the analogies he makes in this book to illustrate his points are truly exhilarating

[AvianBuddha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just read A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans with A Theory of Meaning (trans. Joseph D. O’Neil) by Jakob von Uexküll. Working within a Kantian framework, Uexküll asks how a subject's a priori capacities structure what it can know and do (36). He opposes the modern reduction of life to mechanism or reflex, arguing against behaviorism’s dismissal of inner experience as "mere noise" (42). His project also belongs to a German holist "naturism" that tried to counter industrial modernity by reorienting life toward nature (216–17). From this vantage he criticizes Darwinism for stripping nature of plan and score, "dumbing down the world," insisting instead on a methodical unity of meaning in nature (210–11). Throughout, he writes biology as counterpoint and “score,” not as clockwork, and even questions grand narratives of "progress" (239-241).

The book's core tools are semiotic: perception marks, effect signs, and the functional cycle; every action begins in a perception mark and culminates in an effect mark on the same carrier of meaning (145–47). For example, consider his classic tick example: a four-cue duet between tick and "any mammal" (butyric-acid odor, hair, warmth, and blood) composed as points and counterpoints under a single "common meaning rule: recognizing and attacking the prey, taking blood" (178–79). For Uexküll, an Umwelt is a fitted-together middle realm, organism and medium bound by rules of meaning, pictured as soap-bubble worlds closing off each creature’s visual space (69–70) and joined by contrapuntal arrangements of organs to obstacles (174–75). This stance quietly rebukes human exceptionalism: each subject inhabits a world of subjective realities (126), and the human–animal gulf is bridged when we attend to species-specific Umwelten rather than deny inner subjectivity (222–24).

Uexküll’s most memorable pages stage nature as a symphony of meanings. A spider's web is a "faithful rendering" of the fly, and the bee-flower pairing shows how colors are perception features composed "contrapuntally" between partners (158–59, 186). The hermit crab’s gripping tail fits the snail shell just as a rowing tail fits water; form and medium answer one another like voices in a duet (179–80). Uexküll crowns this with Goethe’s inversion as shared below:

Therein, the fundamental principle of the whole technology of Nature is enunciated. We recognize in it Goethe's wise saying:

'Were the eye not sunlike,
It could never gaze upon the sun.'

But we can also complete Goethe's pronouncement by saying:

'Were the sun not eyelike,
It could not shine in any sky.'

The sun is a light in the sky. The sky is, however, a product of the eye, which constructs here its farthest plane, which includes all of environmental space. Eyeless living beings know neither a sky nor a sun (190).

Thus, Uexküll shows that worlds arise in the meeting of carrier and recipient of meaning (190). Because organisms are sign-using subjects, “meaning” must take priority in biological explanation and the living animal is more than its physical mechanism (151, 157); this is why the book has been influential for later biosemiotics (165, 186–87) and resonates with contemporary “Third Way” emphases on organismal agency and form.

[Further Elaboration]:

In Uexküll’s terms, an animal (the recipient of meaning, i.e., the subject) inhabits an Umwelt where things show up as carriers of meaning with two sides: perception marks (what the subject’s senses pick out) and effect signs/marks (what the subject’s actions stamp back onto the thing); each act is a functional cycle that begins with a perception mark and ends by imprinting an effect mark on that same carrier (145-47). A simple way to remember it: action "completes" or cancels the initial cue, plucking turns a flower into a decoration in the girl’s world; the ant’s feet make the stem a path; the cow’s chewing makes it feed (145–46). When we are searching, an internal search image (or function-first search tone) guides what we notice, so strongly it can hide what's in plain sight until it matches the template (113–14); a dog, for instance, treats any sitable object as a "chair" because it fits the sitting act (94, 117). The famous tick example shows all this at once: the tick (recipient of meaning) has four “points” - a smell receptor for butyric acid, tactile hairs for exiting fur, a warmth sensor, and a stinger/pump - matched by the mammal’s "counterpoints": sweat’s butyric acid, hair, warm skin, and blood; the common rule is "recognize and attack the prey, take blood," and the life-sequence is smell → drop → crawl through hair → seek warmth → pierce and pump (178–79). This "mammal" is not a picture of a species but a minimal feature-bundle precisely fitted to the tick’s abilities (178–79). In short, Uexküll’s biology is a choreography of perception–effect duets: subjects (recipients/utilizers of meaning) and carriers are composed contrapuntally, organ to environment, like voices in a duet (173–75).

[Rahim Hashim · Rating 4 out of 5]

von Uexkull is arguably the most underrated biologist in humanity's history. Rather than being forced to memorize the Krebs Cycle or chemical reactions in high school, we should be teaching younger students about the concepts proposed in this book, most notability the concept of Umwelt – or the fact that perception relies on the senses of the organism. For example, primate Umwelts are most often dominated by colorful visual scenes specifically because of our trichromacy and particular composition of cones and rods in our retina allowing our visually-dominated brains to integrate rich visual information, which is in stark contrast to say a shark, who's perception of their environment is likely dominated by smell (i.e. sensing tiny volumes of blood from hundreds of miles away) with brains committing ~2/3 of its neurons for smell-processing. The fact that this book came out in 1934, before we were able to record neural activity to parse these perceptual signals in the brain confirming some of his observations, just gives more evidence as to how prescient he was. Overall a dense read given his level of detail in observation, not unlike Charles Darwin's works, but as a biologist, an important one to complete nonetheless.

[Aljoša Toplak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lep prevod Uexküllove slikanice, ki nam z ilustracijami in dostopno razlago odpira pogled v zaznavni svet raznih živali. Kar pa je najbolj zanimivo, je ravno povratni del raziskave, ko se vrnemo k človeku ter obogateni z razumevanjem živalskih svetov načnemo refleksijo.

"Sleherni subjekt svoj odnos kot niti pajčevine prede k točno določenim lastnostim sveta in te niti razprede v trdno mrežo, ki nosi njegovo bivanje."

Knjiga napoveduje številne ideje kasnejšega gibanja fenomenologije, še posebej nas nagovarja ideja t. i. "delovanjskega prizvoka", kar potem na ključnem mestu Heideggerjeve ontologije postane "priročnost". Ne živimo namreč v svetu "opažanjskih podob", kjer bi naseljevali enoznačni in že definiran svet, temveč se ta svet šele vzpostavlja skozi delovanje v njem; med obešanjem slike se nenadoma nemo orodje iz periferije moje pozornosti prelevi v "tisto-za-zabijanje-žeblja".

Knjiga Brett Buchanana z naslovom "Onto-Ethologies" se osredotoča na povezave Uexkülla z Heideggerjem, Merleau-Pontyjem ter Delezuejem na precej dostopen način. Čeprav z zadnjim nisem podrobno seznanjen, so podobnosti s prvima dvema ob prebiranju slikanice precej očitne.

[Slava Skobeloff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of repetition but a multitude of fun and interesting examples here too. Establishing the theory of the Umwelt and the compositional theory of Nature. The musical metaphors get a bit overbearing at times and can make the book seem a little bit vague but overall it's a rather clear, straightforward and layman-friendly read. Was sort of hoping for more a Deleuzo-Guattarian 'motif', though.

The introduction and afterword are both extremely helpful in contextualising Uexküll and describing some of his other works/theories as well as the reception that follower after. Pretty good material to read.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each living organism carries a unique light of life as a signal, formed by the resonance of various DNA components, creating what I felt is their "Umwelt"—their perceptual world. From a bee falling onto a flower and pollinating it, to the flower becoming a tree, photosynthesizing, and contributing to the cycle of light and genes in the animal and human worlds, this interconnected web of life flows endlessly. Each life signal is precious, beautiful, and fleeting. This is what I learned from this book—it was a truly touching and profound experience.

[xenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Everywhere there was a progression, but nowhere progress"

cute wee book about flowers and bees and the ecologically specific yet pluripotent constitution of meaning through transformative labour (by all living things!)

posthumanism before posthumanism was cool; meaning for all living beings before all living beings were considered meaningful enough to be meaning generating; extremely important forgotten tome

[Luiza Salek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esse livro definitivamente não é pra um público comum, escrita abstrata praticamente impenetrável em alguns momentos, mas muito poético e importante para tempos atuais. Uexküll era biólogo o que torna a perspectiva dos argumentos filosóficos ainda mais interessantes pra mim. Li pra faculdade, mas espero reler com mais paciência quando não tiver que me preocupar com uma análise crítica ou com a academia em si.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent edition of a fascinating work, combining another illuminating treatise by the author, along with thoughtful, informative essays by other scholars, this is an important publication that aroused equal parts interest and concern regarding the influence of this long-overlooked ethologist.

[Swarm Feral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good like perspective shifter with pretty intense implications for "life." Won't be able to shake the tick's temporality and its world and the worlding concept and the machine-operator. I need to come back to this.

[Hannnah Hansen]

Everybody’s just living in their own world

[Sanket Hota · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to become an animal?

[Melvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book elaborating von Uexkull's concept of umwelt.

[Magister · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Geoffrey Winthrop-Young included in this volume is indispensible.

[Jeremy Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book! It will transform how you perceive nature and the environment, as well as the ways they are inextricably interwoven!

[Julia Farkasch 🐱 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for my ethics and the environment course! Love von üexkull such an inspiring book that tells us to care about all the little beings on earth

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

It will never not be a delight to think about Uexküll's description of living beings bumping around in bubbles, their meaning changing when those bubbles intersect, reform, and then part ways again.

[Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The creator of biosemiotic approach to nature leads you to the wonderful world of animals. (First) Jakob von Uexkull (1864-1944) offers a fresh perspective and treats animals as subjects, philosophical subjects, not objects. Revolutionary!