Conference of the Nordic Society for Phenomenology, 2010

I have submitted the following...

Contribution to the 8th annual conference of
THE NORDIC SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY
(Nordisk Selskab for Fænomenologi)

under the general theme

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NEW ORIENTATIONS: IN PHENOMENOLOGY
to be arranged at Södertörn University College
in Stockholm, April 22-24, 2010

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Individual presentation
by Morten Tønnessen

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Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics, University of Tartu
Vindmøllegangen 1, 4631 Kristiansand, NORWAY
Kuu 39-64, 50 104 Tartu, ESTONIA
Academic homepage: http://utopianrealism.blogspot.com/

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Suggested title:
Semiotics of Being and Uexküllian Phenomenology
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German-Baltic biologist Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944) did not regard himself as a phenomenologist. Neither did he conceive of himself as a semiotician. Nevertheless, his Umwelt terminology has of late been utilized and further developed within the framework of semiotics and various other disciplines - and, as I will argue, essential points in his work can fruitfully be taken to represent a distinctive Uexküllian phenomenology, characterized not least by an assumption of the (in the realm of life) universal existence of a genuine first person perspective, i.e., of experienced worlds.

In the course of the presentation, I will briefly relate Uexküllian phenomenology to
a) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
b) the eco-existentialism of Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990)
c) eco-phenomenology (including David Abram and Ted Toadvine),
d) and semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics)