NOW OUT in Biosemiotics

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s12304-025-09613-1

Abstract. The paper advances a proposal for binding together the insights of biosemiotics and those of semiophysics. The task of achieving an intelligible ontology, in opposition to both mechanical reductionism and metaphysical vitalism, is shared by these two approaches. Yet, there are architectural differences between the two theories. The paper reviews such a differendum, focusing in particular on the difference between Thom’s two-fold construction of saliences and pregnances, and Peircean three-fold categorial construction encompassing firstness, secondness and thirdness. An integrated semiophysical-biosemiotic graph thus encompasses five key categories. This paper suggests to arrange them as a “W” shape to chart their possible dynamical interactions.

Keywords: semiophysics; biosemiotics; theory of meaning; salience/pregnance; firstness/secondness/thirdness

 pdf version

Gaston Bachelard

h.15-17 on

April 8 Carlo Brentari & Andrea Mubi Brighenti (Unitn, organisers) – Introduction & Glossary
April 15 Timo Maran (University of Tartu) – Biomimicry
April 22 Christian Borch (Copenhagen Business School)– Mimesis and Society
April 29 Petra Gruber (University of Akron) – Biomimesis and Biornametics in Architecture

Abstract. This piece sets out an exploration of the relations between the city, the body, and the face, seeking to understand in particular how the city and the face could be articulated with reference to an image of the body. It is suggested that the face and the city entertain a kind of privileged affinity. Just as the face unsettles the head and the bodily system to which it belongs, projecting the latter into an intersubjective social system of interaction and signification, so the city unsettles the land where it is located, projecting it into long-distance connections with similar entities scattered across the continent, and beyond. The piece evolves into the twin exploration of, on the one hand, “the city of the face” and, on the other, “the face of the city”. In the first half of the essay, the city is conceptualised as politeía, or polity, whereas in the second half it is characterised through its possible encounter with the experience of “facing”. The piece stresses the animistic attitude and the qualitatively distinct moments generated by the animistic operation as important to develop the city-face notion.

Keywords: face; head; city; landscape; identity; territoriology; Deleuze

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“The Reactive” chapter now published in the Volume edited by Christian Borch (2019) Imitation, Contagion, Suggestion: On Mimesis and Society. (Routledge, 2019) https://www.crcpress.com/Imitation-Contagion-Suggestion-On-Mimesis-and-Society/Borch/p/book/9781138490642

PDF brighenti-2019-the-reactive

(( Based on a speech I gave at this 2015 conference in Copenhagen: http://www.capacitedaffect.net/?p=771 ))