CFP for special issue on the Extended Synthesis

CALL FOR PAPERS

For a Special Issue of the journal Biosemiotics: Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” guest-edited by Andrew M. Winters. While the field of biosemiotics is concerned with the origin and development of natural semiotic systems, much of the discussion has been framed in terms of Darwinian frameworks, including the Modern Synthesis. Non-Darwinian views were held by Uexküll and, more recently, Darwinian views have been supplemented in important ways by Kull, Hoffmeyer, and Barbieri. Many biological phenomena, such as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, have yet to be explained in terms of these evolutionary theories. In the 1980s, biologists aimed to develop an Extended Synthesis to build upon and replace parts of the Modern Synthesis to better accommodate and explain these observed phenomenon. Given recent discussions of the Extended Synthesis, this Special Issue aims to understand the extent to which biosemiotics is commensurate with burgeoning developments in contemporary biology by exploring how core features of biosemiotics are either consistent or at odds with those accommodated by the Extended Synthesis.  

The Special Issue of “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” welcomes papers that analyze specific semiotic processes within the Extended Synthesis, assess the general tenability of understanding biosemiotics in terms of the Extended Synthesis, or explore the relationship between biosemiotics and the Extended Synthesis. Papers in the form of theoretical works, empirical findings, or metatheoretical considerations are welcome.  

Some potential questions to be explored in this Special Issue include: 

• How does the extended synthesis differ from Darwinian evolution and the modern synthesis in its impact on biosemiotics? 

• Does niche construction involve the construction of signs? 

• How does semiotics contribute to evolutionary-developmental biology? 

• Do signs further enhance plasticity and accommodation? 

• Are signs replicable? 

• Do signs and semiotic systems evolve? 

• Are signs capable of emerging and contributing to multilevel selection? 

• To what extent are candidate signs (e.g., genes) involved in genomic evolution? 

Technical Details and Timeline:

• Paper Proposals (Title and Abstract) Due January 31st, 2017

• Notification of Acceptance February 28th, 2017 

• Paper Submissions Due September 30th, 2017

• Final Drafts Due January 31st, 2018

• Electronic Publication February 2018

• Print Version Issue #2 August 2018

• Papers should be no more than 7,000 words (minus abstract and references)

• Instructions for authors can be found here

• Submit abstracts and contact the editor at andrew.winters@sru.edu

CFP: Special Issue of Biosemiotics: Constructive biosemiotics

Call for Papers

Special Issue of Biosemiotics (Springer): Constructive biosemiotics.

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Constructive biosemiotics” guest-edited by Tommi Vehkavaara and Alexei Sharov. By the epithet “constructive“ we are referring to a naturalized approach to agency, normativity, and knowledge that emphasizes the primacy of activity and real construction of the cognitive agents themselves as opposed to the view to agents as mainly passively or mechanically reacting. The aim of the Special Issue is to integrate such constructive approach with biosemiotics so that organisms and perhaps other types of living systems are considered as agents that construct their “knowledge”, i.e. their habits of interpreting signs, their own functional structure, and their environment (that typically includes other agents) they are interacting with. Such constructive perspective is present to some extent in the works of theoretical classics of biosemiotics, especially of Jakob von Uexküll (concepts of functional circle and Umwelt), Gregory Bateson (cybernetics and information), and C.S. Peirce (meaning of sign as constructed by its interpreter). In this special issue we welcome also other constructive starting points – not so often employed in biosemiotics – like Jean Piaget’s constructivism, Richard Lewontin’s emphasis on construction over adaptationism, autopoietic approaches, cybernetics, General systems theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy), evolutionary epistemology, and interactivism (Mark Bickhard) as far as they are somehow applied to biosemiotic problematics.

Independently on the chosen semiotic terminology (e.g., sign, representation, meaning, or information), constructive biosemiotics understands the referents of these terms as being constructed by biosemiotic agents. Either these referents are materially constructed (composed) by the agent, or some already existing and available material items are identified and taken into service by the agent so that only their semiotic roles are constructed. In both cases, material items are merely vehicles of their semiotic functioning that are picked up for use according to the actual needs of the agent. That would mean to take the organism or agent point of view in its interaction with the world. The activity of agents is controlled by their subsystems that are goal-directed or embodying some normative functional criteria, which in some cases enables the agent to judge and detect the success of its semiotic operations. Although the developmental or short-term time scale is more natural in constructive view, we suggest that constructive biosemiotics should expand to the evolutionary dynamics, evolvability and (re)construction of receptor and effector subsystems of agents, and the whole evo-devo problematic. E.g. what is the role of agential constructions in longer term time scales (e.g. Baldwin effect) and whether or in which sense there can be said to be evolutionary agents (lineages, populations, etc.) capable of learning (evolutionary epistemology, vertical biosemiosis).

The special issue of Constructive biosemiotics welcomes papers that emphasize the constructive perspective in biosemiotic processes at functional and evolutionary time scales. The central question is how biosemiotic agents or systems are constructed and are constructing their semiotic behaviors like 

1. cognitive interactions (meaning formation and communication),

2. navigation in the environment (functional or intentional movements),

3. functional reconstruction of the environment (e.g. niche construction, moulding the other agents),

4. self-maintenance, self-modification, and (recursive) self-production of (semiotically) functional structures or scaffoldings (e.g., constructive development of full-scale competence), and

5. self-identification and -determination (e.g. the normative functioning of immune systems).

A further question concerns the criteria of agency. While organisms are usually understood as the prototype of biosemiotic agents, it can also be considered whether (or in which sense) it would be reasonable to consider also some other kind of biological unities – individual cells, organs, or populations, species, lineages, etc. – as agents capable of these behaviors. The special issue welcomes theoretical works, empirical findings, and metatheoretical considerations that employ constructive perspective biosemiotically relevant way.

Timetable and technical requirements:

- Deadline for submitting tentative titles and abstracts: January 2016

- Deadline for paper submission: September 2016

- Electronic publication ahead of print: January-February 2017

- Paper version, Issue #2, August 2017.

- Recommended length 7,000 words. Figures and tables are welcome (if possible).

- Instructions for Authors

- Contact with editors by e-mail: tommi.vehkavaara@uta.fi or sharoval@mail.nih.gov

Message on the editorial board of Biosemiotics (Springer)

We are in the process of reorganizing the Editorial Board (EB) for the Biosemiotics journal, as we have explained at the recent 14th Gathering in Biosemiotics in London (June 30 - July 4). Please note that the new and revised editorial board will have fewer members than the current one.

The duties of the EB members are:

(1) To support Biosemiotics as the main journal of the International Society for Biosemiotics Studies (ISBS) and contribute to ensure its quality.

(2) To provide help in reviewing papers submitted to Biosemiotics and comply with journal guidelines and standards.

(3) To facilitate submission of high-quality papers to Biosemiotics, e.g. by writing reviews on topics of special interest, organizing Special Issues, or promoting the journal at various academic meetings and in communication with relevant scholars.

The main benefits of being a member of the EB are possibility to contribute to the development of biosemiotics as a discipline and free access to the electronic version of Biosemiotics.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the new EB, please, send us a message indicating your interest, with your CV in attachment. Please note that the Editors-in-Chief will jointly decide on the membership of the EB, and that we cannot guarantee any particular candidate a spot in the EB based on motivation alone. Our decision will in the main be based on the merit and competence of the candidates in core biosemiotics.

Our best,

Alexei Sharov

Timo Maran

Morten Tønnessen (mortentoennessen@gmail.com)

(Editors-in-Chief)

SI 'Semiotics of nature' published

HORTUS SEMIOTICUS (no. 6)
SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE SEMIOTICS OF NATURE
Guest editors: Riin Magnus, Nelly Mäekivi and Morten Tønnessen

Dear readers,

We are delighted to announce that the journal Hortus Semioticus has now published a special issue on the semiotics of nature. All together with 7 papers, a foreword, an interview, Meditationes Semioticae and 2 overview articles, this issue is almost exclusively in English. The papers of contributing MA and PhD students are all original papers written within a scientific framework which encapsuls the topics of meaning, value, communication, signification, representation, and cognition in and of nature.
1) Nelly Mäekivi, Riin Magnus and Morten Tønnessen: Editors foreword to the Special Issue Semiotics of Nature
2) Remo Gramigna: Augustine’s legacy for the history of zoosemiotics
3) John Haglund and Johan Blomberg: The meaning-sharing network
4) Silver Rattasepp: The idea of the extended organism in the 20th century history of ideas
5) Sara Cannizzaro: On form, function and meaning: working out the foundations of biosemiotics
6) Svitlana Biedarieva: Reflections in the Umwelten
7) Arlene Tucker: A metaphor is a metaphor
8) Patrick Masius: What are elephants doing in a Nazi concentration camp? The meaning of nature in the human catastrophe
9) Riin Magnus and Morten Tønnessen: The bio-translator. Interview with professor in biosemiotics Kalevi Kull (with his complete biosemiotic bibliography)
10) Meditationes Semioticae – this time by Kaie Kotov: Do you mind? Does it matter? Semiotics as a science of noosphere
11) Ülevaade: Acta Semiotica Estica VII

We hope that for our readers and contributors, these papers will encourage even more interest in the field, and open yet new horizons.

More special issues

The online Tartu journal Hortus Semioticus will later this year publish a special issue on various forms of semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics). Guest editors: Nelly Mäekivi, Riin Magnus and myself. The issue will feature an English language interview with Kalevi Kull.

About to appear right now is the Sign Systems Studies special issue on zoosemiotics (guest editors: Dario Martinelli and Otto Lehto).