Today I have agreed to participate in a roundtable on agency chaired by Kalevi Kull tomorrow Tuesday July 1st at 11.30-12.50 at the ongoing 14th Gathering in Biosemiotics (London, June 30 - July 4), along with him and Alexei Sharov. I will first of all present findings in the first survey in the biosemiotic community conducted in preparation of the first review article in the biosemiotic glossary project.
Monday, 30 June 2014
Phenomenology and the environment collection not to feature Uexküllian phenomenology
Today I was notified by Bryan Bannon that my book chapter proposal "Uexküllian phenomenology" will not be included in his edited collection Phenomenology and the environment.
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Thursday, 26 June 2014
Gunnar Kvåle cites research ethics chronicle
In a commentary article entitled "Er norsk petroleumsforskning etisk forsvarlig?" [Is Norwegian petroleum research ethically justifiable?], published in the online magazine Energi og Klima, Professor emeritus Gunnar Kvåle (University of Bergen) cites what "Haugan og fem andre forskere fra universitetene i Bergen,
Stavanger, Oslo, NTNU og Tromsø" [Peter M. Haugan and five other researchers from the universities of Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo, Tromsø and Norwegian University of Science and Technology] wrote in a recent chronicle. This refers to "Forskning for klimavennlig omstilling" [Research for climate-friendly restructuring], which I co-wrote along with Kvåle and others.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Descartes paper scheduled for presentation at 14th Gathering in biosemiotics (London)
My forthcoming presentation "Descartes’ dualisms and the epistemology of
biosemiotics", to be given at the 14th Gathering in Biosemiotics (London June 30 - July 4), has been scheduled for presentation on Thursday July 3rd at 12.10-12.50, in a session chaired by Jesper Hoffmeyer and also including a presentation by John Deely.
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Cited in grandparent climate change action group article
I am cited in an article published online by Besteforeldreaksjonen [The grandparent action], a Norwegian climate change action group. The article is titled "Debatt om olje og forskningsetikk" [Debate on oil and research ethics], and the citation derives from the interview with me by Forskerforum in their frontpage story "Strid om oljeforsking" [Conflict on oil research], published December 2nd 2013. Besteforeldreaksjonen's article was published December 4th 2013.
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Grading explained (UiO)
Today I have communicated our explanations of grading of two master degree theses defended at University of Oslo (UiO) - 1 p. each.
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Updated abstract for IACS conference: "Will the agents of nature please rise: What is agency?"
A couple of days ago I updated my abstract for the upcoming conference First International Association for
Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) Conference (Lund, Sweden, September 25-27th).
Will the agents of nature please rise: What is agency?
Morten Tønnessen
Associate professor at Department of health studies/Department of social studies, University of Stavanger
In this presentation I present Tønnessen, forthcoming, the first in a series of review articles addressing biosemiotic terminology, which is meant to establish the format of the series. In contrast to the five existing biosemiotic glossaries compiled by individual authors (one or a few), this project is inclusive and designed to integrate views of a representative group of members within the biosemiotic community based on a standard survey and related publications. The methodology section describes the format of the survey conducted in November–December 2013 in preparation of the current review and targeted on the two terms ‘agent’ and ‘agency’. Next, I summarize denotation, synonyms and antonyms, with special emphasis on the denotation of these terms in current biosemiotic usage. On this point the survey findings include ratings of nine citations defining or making use of the two terms. I provide a summary of respondents’ own definitions of the terms and suggested usage. Further sections address etymology, connotations, and related terms in English and other languages. A section on the notions’ mainstream meaning vs. their meaning in biosemiotics is then followed by attempt at synthesis and conclusions.
While some other fields, such as medical and veterinary science, has a pragmatic interest in the notion of agency qua causal, biosemiotics has an ontological interest in the occurrence of agency in the living realm at large. Although there is currently no consensus in the biosemiotic community on what constitutes a semiotic agent, i.e. an agent in the context of semiosis (the action of signs), most respondents agree that core attributes of an agent include goal-directedness, self-governed activity, processing of semiosis and choice of action, with these features being vital for the functioning of the living system in question. I agree that these four features are constitutive of biosemiotic agents, and further suggest to define ‘semiotic agency’ as the capacity a living system has of affecting the course of events in which it is involved by relating to sign relationships. Finally, I stipulate that biosemiotic agents fall within three major categories, namely 1) sub-organismic biosemiotic agents, 2) organismic biosemiotic agents and 3) super-organismic biosemiotic agents.
Acknowledgements
This work has been carried out thanks to the support of the research project Animals in Changing Environments: Cultural Mediation and Semiotic Analysis (EEA Norway Grants/Norway Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 under project contract no EMP151).
Reference
Tønnessen, Morten, forthcoming. The biosemiotic glossary project: Agent, agency. To appear in Biosemiotics 7(3), December 2014See also:
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