Jesper Hoffmeyer
Encyclopedia
Jesper Hoffmeyer is emeritus professor at the University of Copenhagen
Institute of Biology, and is a leading figure in the emerging field of Biosemiotics
.
President of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS)
, and co-editor of the journal Biosemiotics
and of the Springer Book series in Biosemiotics, Hoffmeyer is also the author of Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs, Signs of Meaning in the Universe and the editor of A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics.
from the University of Copenhagen
in 1967, and from 1967-1968 was Science Fellow at the Institut de Biochemie Génerale et Comparée of the Collège de France, Paris.
He began his teaching career in 1968 as an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Institute for Biological Chemistry
, where he became an associate professor in 1972, and served as the Head of the Institute from 1978-1980. Hoffmeyer was the recipient of the Poul Henningsen Award in 1985, the 1991 Mouton d’Or Award, and named a Thomas Sebeok Fellow by the Semiotic Society of America
on the occasion of its 25th annual meeting in 2000.
Hoffmeyer was awarded a doctorate in philosophy (Dr. Phil.) at Aarhus University in 2005, and since 2007, has served as President of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
.
He is now, since 2009, a professor emeritus at the University of Copenhagen
.
At the same time, Hoffmeyer also embarked upon a parallel track of inquiry, based on a growing awareness that the reductionist tendencies of modern biology and science systematically legitimized and guided the technological horizon towards developments that were inherently damaging to natural systems, including that of human health. This inquiry led him towards questions of theoretical biology and philosophy. Eventually these two research tracks ran together, when, in a collaboration with Claus Emmeche
, he initiated an analysis of the concepts of information in both its bio-ontological dimension, as well as in its applied contexts dealing with biological (e.g. genetic) and cultural information, and the then-upcoming 'smart' information and biotechnologies
Hoffmeyer traces much of the development of his thinking during this period to the semiotic traditions of the late 1980s, as well as to such scientific systems theorists as Gregory Bateson
, Michael Polanyi
, Anthony Wilden
, Howard Pattee and Peder Voetmann Christiansen. Eventually making the acquaintance of Thomas Sebeok
in the USA, Thure von Uexküll
in Germany
and Kalevi Kull
in Estonia
, by the beginning of the 1990s, Hoffmeyer had formulated a new programme for a scientific biology that would define life as a signbased phenomenon. Hoffmeyer's first comprehensive essay outlining this of biosemiotics
and its implication for a non-dualist understanding of the embodied self was his Signs of Meaning in the Universe (in Danish, En snegl på vejen, 1993).
Since 2001, when the yearly annual international ‘Gatherings in Biosemiotics’ conferences began, Hoffmeyer has been a central figure in establishing biosemiotics
as a scientific cross-disciplinary field, assembling scientists and humanities scholars to jointly investigate how a semiotic analysis can inform current biological thinking, and how the findings
of biology provide general semiotics with a firmer ground for the naturalization of 'meaning'.
In 2005, Hoffmeyer was conferred with a Danish doctoral degree for his treatise Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. Translated into an English-language edition in 2008, this work examines the semiotics of living nature, from the origin of life with its self-organizing code-duality in evolution and development, to the complex endosemiosis of living bodies, to the ‘semiotic niches’ in ecosystems, and the species-specific peculiarities of human semiosis, such as language.
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
Institute of Biology, and is a leading figure in the emerging field of Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...
.
President of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS)
International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
The International Society for Biosemiotic Studies is an academic society for the researchers in semiotic biology. The Society was established in 2005...
, and co-editor of the journal Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...
and of the Springer Book series in Biosemiotics, Hoffmeyer is also the author of Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs, Signs of Meaning in the Universe and the editor of A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics.
Biography
Jesper Hoffmeyer was born in Slangerup, Denmark in 1942. He received his Cand. Scient. in biochemistryBiochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
from the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
in 1967, and from 1967-1968 was Science Fellow at the Institut de Biochemie Génerale et Comparée of the Collège de France, Paris.
He began his teaching career in 1968 as an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Institute for Biological Chemistry
University of Copenhagen Department of Chemistry
Research and education in chemistry has been conducted at the University of Copenhagen Department of Chemistry since 1778, when the first Laboratorium Chymicum was established. Since then, the chemists have moved several times, usually to better surroundings. In 1962, Universitetets Kemiske...
, where he became an associate professor in 1972, and served as the Head of the Institute from 1978-1980. Hoffmeyer was the recipient of the Poul Henningsen Award in 1985, the 1991 Mouton d’Or Award, and named a Thomas Sebeok Fellow by the Semiotic Society of America
Semiotic Society of America
The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the United States and Canada. Its official journal is The...
on the occasion of its 25th annual meeting in 2000.
Hoffmeyer was awarded a doctorate in philosophy (Dr. Phil.) at Aarhus University in 2005, and since 2007, has served as President of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
The International Society for Biosemiotic Studies is an academic society for the researchers in semiotic biology. The Society was established in 2005...
.
He is now, since 2009, a professor emeritus at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
.
Life & Work
Jesper Hoffmeyer's research interests have changed considerably through the years. An early engagement in the social and political consequences of his own discipline, biochemistry, led him in the 1970s to take up studies of the technological, ecological and historical dimensions of science. The results of these investigations can be found in his 1982 book Samfundets naturhistorie (The Natural History of Society).At the same time, Hoffmeyer also embarked upon a parallel track of inquiry, based on a growing awareness that the reductionist tendencies of modern biology and science systematically legitimized and guided the technological horizon towards developments that were inherently damaging to natural systems, including that of human health. This inquiry led him towards questions of theoretical biology and philosophy. Eventually these two research tracks ran together, when, in a collaboration with Claus Emmeche
Claus Emmeche
Claus Emmeche is a Danish theoretical biologist and philosopher. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and is head of the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies at the Faculty of Science .His research interests are in philosophy of science, especially...
, he initiated an analysis of the concepts of information in both its bio-ontological dimension, as well as in its applied contexts dealing with biological (e.g. genetic) and cultural information, and the then-upcoming 'smart' information and biotechnologies
Hoffmeyer traces much of the development of his thinking during this period to the semiotic traditions of the late 1980s, as well as to such scientific systems theorists as Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
, Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, FRS was a Hungarian–British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and the theory of knowledge...
, Anthony Wilden
Anthony Wilden
Anthony Wilden is a writer, social theorist, college lecturer, and consultant. Wilden has published numerous books and articles which intersect a number of fields, including systems theory, film theory, structuralism, cybernetics, psychiatry, anthropological theory, water control projects, urban...
, Howard Pattee and Peder Voetmann Christiansen. Eventually making the acquaintance of Thomas Sebeok
Thomas Sebeok
Thomas Albert Sebeok was a polymathic American semiotician and linguist.- Life and work :...
in the USA, Thure von Uexküll
Thure von Uexküll
Thure von Uexküll was a German scholar of psychosomatic medicine and biosemiotics. He has developed the approach of his father, Jakob von Uexküll, in the study of living systems and applied it in medicine.-Life:1955-1965: Director of the Medical Outpatient Department at the University of...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Kalevi Kull
Kalevi Kull
Kalevi Kull is an eminent biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia.He was the president of the Estonian Naturalists' Society in 1991–1994.Ecologist Olevi Kull was his younger brother.-Publications:...
in Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, by the beginning of the 1990s, Hoffmeyer had formulated a new programme for a scientific biology that would define life as a signbased phenomenon. Hoffmeyer's first comprehensive essay outlining this of biosemiotics
Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...
and its implication for a non-dualist understanding of the embodied self was his Signs of Meaning in the Universe (in Danish, En snegl på vejen, 1993).
Since 2001, when the yearly annual international ‘Gatherings in Biosemiotics’ conferences began, Hoffmeyer has been a central figure in establishing biosemiotics
Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...
as a scientific cross-disciplinary field, assembling scientists and humanities scholars to jointly investigate how a semiotic analysis can inform current biological thinking, and how the findings
of biology provide general semiotics with a firmer ground for the naturalization of 'meaning'.
In 2005, Hoffmeyer was conferred with a Danish doctoral degree for his treatise Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. Translated into an English-language edition in 2008, this work examines the semiotics of living nature, from the origin of life with its self-organizing code-duality in evolution and development, to the complex endosemiosis of living bodies, to the ‘semiotic niches’ in ecosystems, and the species-specific peculiarities of human semiosis, such as language.
Selected publications
- Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Indiana University Press, USA, 1996.
- A Special Issue of SemioticaSemioticaSemiotica is an academic journal covering semiotics. It is the official journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies.-Publication:Since 2000, the journal publishes five issues per year. It is published in English and French....
vol. 120 (no.3-4), 1998 devoted to the release of Signs of Meaning, includes 13 reviews of the book and a rejoinder by the author. - Biosemiotics. An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs, University of Scranton Press, Scranton PA, USA, 2008.
- A Legacy for Living Systems. Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics. Dordrecht, Springer 2008.
- Semiotic Freedom: an Emerging Force in Davis, Paul and Gregersen, Niels Henrik (eds.): Information and the Nature of Reality. From Physics to Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 185-204, 2010
- Baldwin and Biosemiotics: What Intelligence Is For. In: Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew (eds.): Evolution and Learning - The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered'. The MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 2003. (co-authored by Kalevi Kull)
External links
- Jesper Hoffmeyer's homepage
- Introduction and Commentary: Jesper Hoffmeyer. Essential Readings in Biosemiotics: Anthology and Commentary. Donald Favareau, ed. (2010) pp. 583–586.
- The IASS Roundtable on Biosemiotics: A Seminar Discussion with Some of the Founders of the Field. Emmeche, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Markos and Stjernfelt. The American Journal of SemioticsThe American Journal of SemioticsThe American Journal of Semiotics is a peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on the general subject of semiotics. It was established in 1981 and is the official journal of the Semiotic Society of America. The journal publishes articles, responses or comments, and critical reviews...
24.1-3, (2008) pp 15–42.
See also
- BiosemioticsBiosemioticsBiosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...
- Claus EmmecheClaus EmmecheClaus Emmeche is a Danish theoretical biologist and philosopher. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and is head of the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies at the Faculty of Science .His research interests are in philosophy of science, especially...
- Kalevi KullKalevi KullKalevi Kull is an eminent biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia.He was the president of the Estonian Naturalists' Society in 1991–1994.Ecologist Olevi Kull was his younger brother.-Publications:...