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Emergence of Culture

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C HA P TE R

Roots of Culture in the Umwelt

29
Riin Magnus and Kalevi Kull

Abstract
This chapter begins by introducing the background, basic constituents and principles of the umwelt model
and theory developed by the Baltic German biologist Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) in the first decades
of the twentieth century. This is followed by a discussion of the features of the umwelt concept that
has provided the impetus for interpretations of human activities and cultural processes. The once
biology-bound model has by now found its way into very diverse traditions of thought. We concentrate
on four major trends in interpreting cultural phenomena with the help of umwelt theory: (1) the
Uexküllian functional circle model of perception and action as a predecessor of models that couple
human forms of impression and expression; (2) the mediated versus immediate character of human in
contrast with animal worlds; (3) the bridging of natural and cultural phenomena via semiotic processes;
(4) the integration of the cognitive and the social interpretations of (human) mind via two facets of
umwelt. The chapter includes some hints on the aspects of the umwelt model that could be elaborated
further in the analysis of culture.
Keywords: functional circle, impression and expression, modeling systems, semiosphere, Uexküll,
umwelt

Culture, Semiosphere, Umwelt interweaving in a common semiotic space is named

According to the semiotician and culturolo-
gist Juri Lotman, cultures have a structure that is
analogous to individual human minds in several
of its fundamental features. In some of their gen-
eral structural aspects, as well as in some rules of
their dynamics, these complex semiotic systems are
isomorphic to each other (Lotman, 1984,1990).
Both a culture and an individual world are fields
of sign processes. Both entail many codes, several
sign systems, translation processes, heterogeneity,
asymmetry, borders, center, and periphery, continu-
ity and discreetness, unpredictability, and a certain
processual logic. Both are embedded and molded
by communication and dialogue, which are primary
in respect with individual languages. The general
model Lotman proposed for describing personali-
ties, texts, and cultures as semiotic systems and their
the semiosphere (Lotman 2005).
The semiosphere is a necessary medium for all
sign processes as well as the totality of sign processes
itself. Like the biosphere, which is the organic totality
of living matter as well as the precondition for the
persistence of life, the semiosphere is the result as well
as the precondition for the development of culture
(Lotman, 2000, p. 125). Departing from Thomas
A. Sebeok’s (1920–2001) thesis, according to which
the origin of semiosis (sign process) coincides with
the origin of life, we can assume that sign processes
(as the basis of recognition, discrimination, signifi-
cation) characterize human minds as well as animal
minds. We can therefore describe the semiosphere
of the worlds of organisms, all living organisms
included. This is how the concept of semiosphere
is used in contemporary biosemiotics—the branch

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of semiotics dealing with the organic part of the food and the destroyer of food, enemy and prey, and
semiosphere (Cobley, 2010; Hoffmeyer, 2008). above all, male and female in astonishing variations.
A predecessor of such a semiotic view in biology
That semiosic systems are simultaneously
was the Baltic German biologist Jakob von Uexküll
modeling systems was also emphasized in the 1960s
(1864–1944) with his concept of umwelt. Umwelt
by the Tartu-Moscow School of semiotics (Lotman,
is the world an organism creates, in which it lives. It
1967; Levchenko & Salupere 1999; Kull, 2010a).
is the meaningful world based on sign relations. A
Here modeling systems (which encompassed
quite common definition states that umwelt is the
languages as well as arts) were understood as the
personal world of an organism, or a self-centered
structure of elements and the rules of their com-
world, “the world as known or modelled” (Cobley,
bination that stood in an analogical relationship to
2010,p. 348). This definition, although correct
some object of cognition (Lotman, 1967, p. 130).
in itself, may not emphasize the relational aspect
Modeling systems provide the means for com-
of the umwelt concept enough. Therefore we can
prehending the outside world and yet, they are
also complementarily define umwelt as a set of sign
themselves the primary sources of world formation.
relations an organism has in an ecosystem (as in a
Connecting the ideas of Jakob von Uexküll and
semiosphere) (Kull, 2010b).
Juri Lotman, we could also say that culture is contin-
Thus, if umwelt is made of relations, of semiosic
uously created via human umwelt making. Cultural
bonds, we can conclude that organisms are deriva-
modeling as umwelt making includes all of the
tives of (sign) relations. Umwelt (as a relational, i.e.,
building, shaping, and design humans do in their
a meaningful world) exists even prior to the capacity
surroundings (i.e., besides “texts” in a narrow sense,
to use representations, since organisms can often be
also clothes, tools, technologies, architecture, and
involved in sign processes without building repre-
landscape). The umwelt-based semiotic approach to
sentations. Conversely, of course, there cannot be
culture may further widen the understanding of the
an umwelt without life. Life is centered on orga-
borders of culture by including semiosic processes
nisms, in their agency; therefore, umwelten are also
of an ecosystem into a single whole with human
individual and individualized.
culture proper. This means widening the basis of
All organisms participate in the construction
culture from language to semiosis.
of their umwelten. Organisms participate in
A semiotic interpretation, to which we will come
making their umwelten because this is generally a
back later, is just one way of linking the idea of umwelt
communication (including autocommunication)
with culture-specific constructions. In order to bring
process that modifies and constructs umwelten.
forth the variety of those links, we will further sketch
Building and modifying one’s umwelt is simulta-
the chief impetuses the umwelt idea has provided for
neously a communicative process and a modeling
interpretations of human activities and cultural pro-
process.
cesses. We shall demonstrate how different interpreta-
As Thomas Sebeok has pointed out regarding
tions of the umwelt concept allow the integration of
the scientific use of the term “umwelt,” “the closest
otherwise contradictory approaches to culture.
equivalent in English is manifestly “model”“
(Sebeok, 2001, p. 75). The description of a particular
Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt Model and Its
umwelt will mean the demonstration of how the
Constituents
organism maps the world, and what, for that orga-
Although the common German word “umwelt”
nism, the meanings of the objects are within it. How
is traditionally translated into English as “environ-
the formation of individual worlds entails meaning-
ment,” its use as a loanword refers to the specific
ful operations was likewise described by Jakob von
concept worked out by Jakob von Uexküll in the
Uexküll in his Theory of Meaning (Bedeutungslehre)
first decades of the twentieth century.1
(Uexküll, 1982 [1940], pp. 64, 69):
Umwelt is the world as accessed and formed
Meaning in nature’s score serves as a connecting link, by the organism via its specific sensory and motor
or rather as a bridge, and takes the place of harmony devices. The section of reality that a biologist should
in a musical score; it joins two of nature’s factors. [ . . . ] describe, according to Uexküll, is thus of the organ-
Each meaning-carrier was always confronted with ism’s own making. In other words, umwelt is the set
a meaning-receiver, even in [ . . . ] earlier umwelten. of perceptual and action-based distinctions, shared
Meaning ruled them all. Meaning tied changing in a large extent by the members of one species and
organs to a changing medium. Meaning connected described by an external observer.

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Umwelt as the world of meaningful objects, is
always paired by its intraorganismic counterpart—
Innenwelt (inner world). If umwelt denotes the
outside world as it appears to the animal via its
perceptual and motor apparatus, then Innenwelt
refers to the experience side of the phenomena as
experienced by the organism. However, the organ-
ism never feels itself as such. What is felt is some
object of the umwelt, which indirectly refers to the
subjective center of world formation via the mean-
ing it carries to the animal. It is also the external
object that serves as a ground for the species-specific
coordination between the perceptual and motor
apparatus. “Just like the factors of umwelt are
objective, also the effects that they bring about in
the nervous system have to be treated in the same
manner. These effects are also organized and regu-
lated by the building plan. They together form the
Innenwelt of the animal”2 (Uexküll, 1909, p. 6).
The overarching principle that binds umwelt with
Innenwelt is mentioned here as Bauplan (building
plan)–—the specific anatomical and physiologi-
cal structure of the animal. The Bauplan concept
encompasses both the developmental pathways of
the organism as well as the functional aspect of the
organism’s perceptions and actions. Although the
focus for this umwelt concept is on the operation of
sense organs and motor systems, when the forma-
tion of the umwelt is described, these systems are
always to be seen as embedded in the totality of the
organism itself. The key elements and characteristics
of the umwelt formation process were modeled by
Uexküll as a schema, which he called a functional
circle (Funktionskreis) (see an adaptation of Uexküll’s
schema in Figure 29.1).
Perceptual sign Perceptual cue
Subject Object
Effector sign Effector cue
Innenwelt Umwelt
Figure 29.1 An adaptation of Jakob von Uexküll’s functional
circle model.
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 651
When in contact with some object, a particular
perceptual sign (e.g., a sweet taste) is first received
by the organism and then projected to the outside
world as a perceptual cue of that object (the sweet-
ness of a fruit). The complex of the perceptual sign
and perceptual cue further induces the formation
of an effector sign. The effector sign is the image of
the action that is to be carried out in respect with
the object (e.g., biting the fruit). Like the percep-
tual sign, also the effector sign is projected outside
as a cue or property of the object (the “bitability” of
the fruit). If the necessary action is accomplished,
a new perceptual sign can emerge and a new circle
will begin. The circles of perception and action fol-
low one another until the need that initiated them
has been satisfied (e.g., until the animal has satisfied
its hunger).
The model can also be seen as a hybrid of reflex
arc schemes from biology and later communica-
tion models. At first glance, the Innenwelt part of
Uexküll’s model could be interpreted as a unifica-
tion of the afferent and efferent pathways of the
reflex arc. The perceptual and motor cues, in turn,
could be termed as equivalents of stimuli, initia-
tors of irritation. As a remarkable difference from
the reflex arc scheme, linear logic models do not
work here. The explanation needed is therefore
closer to the one used by complex systems theory,
where downward and upward causation have to be
accounted for simultaneously (see Gilbert & Sarkar,
2000). Incorporating all elements of the functional
circle under the word welt denotes that the depar-
ture point for the observer of the animal’s behavior
should be the whole set of meanings with all the
characteristic relationships between them just as
well as particular acts of perception and action.
Individual causes and effects, and the extraction of
single stimulus and response pairs, can be derived
only from an already understood set of possible
meanings, but the world-formation is itself observ-
able and accessible only via the individual acts. We
will return to this principle of part-whole mutual
conditioning when describing the Romantic
philosophical roots of Uexküll’s umwelt theory.
Comparing the functional circle model with
classical models of communication3, may allow us
to see the subject as both a sender of messages about
its physiological state to the outside world and as a
receiver of responses to those states by the object-as-
a-sender. However, the functional circle model does
not articulate the difference between the active and
passive object in the process. It does not therefore
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permit a distinction between the acts of perception
and communication.
From Reflections to Coordination: How the
Umwelt Concept Emerged
In order to track the road from umwelt to cul-
ture and to explain how some principles of cultural
existence are to be viewed if umwelt is seen as their
predecessor, we need to visualize the road leading to
the basic model of umwelt theory itself. Jakob von
Uexküll started his career by researching the physi-
ology of marine invertebrates. While working in the
physiology laboratories in Heidelberg and Naples,
he concentrated on the muscular movements of
sea urchins, brittle stars, octopuses, etc. (cf. Rüting
2004, p. 39; Mildenberger, 2007). It is exactly here
that the empirical grounds of the developed umwelt
theory are to be found: in those early works on
muscular tonus accompanied by research on reflex
movements and the nearly 200 years of debate about
the exact mechanisms behind them.
The eighteenth-century explanations of invol-
untary movement that preceded the nineteenth-
century reflex concept, exhibited disagreements
on several grounds. One set of disagreements con-
cerned the (in)applicability of optical theories of
reflection to the biological relations of irritation
and movement. Georges Canguilhem has dem-
onstrated how the period encountered on the one
hand convictions that the irritation-movement pair
functions according to the mirror law.4 According
to this principle, the texture of the medulla serves
as a “mirror” upon which the incident irritation
falls and reflects back to the motor nerves. Those
claims were countered by authors (e.g., George
Prochaska and Robert Whytt) who denied the suf-
ficiency of optical parallels for explaining medullar
mediation of irritation and movement and who
asked for the formulation of specific biological laws
in order to clarify the issue (Canguilhem, 1994, pp.
179–202).
Several classical models of a reflex arc in the
second half of the nineteenth century followed the
physicalist line of thought while explaining the
organism as a thing among things, comparable to
a physical body by which the same impulses always
result in the same reaction. Reflex arc models,
which depicted the nervous system as a mecha-
nism of simple motion transfer (cf. Bains, 2006,
p. 61), received significant criticism already at the
time of their wider distribution. The earlier critical
fronts came not just from physiology, but also from
652 roots of culture in the umwelt
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 652
psychology and philosophy (esp. pragmatism) (cf.
Phillips, 1971; Bredo, 1998).
John Dewey’s 1896 article “The reflex arc con-
cept in psychology” identified the persistence of two
kinds of older dualisms in the dominant models of
the reflex arc: (1) the dualism between sensation and
idea—as being repeated in the dualism of peripheral
and central structures, and (2) the dualism of body
and soul—as still present in the dualism of stimulus
and response (Dewey, 1896). Dewey argued against
the separation of stimulus-response as two distinct
physical absolutes, tied to sensation and reaction
respectively.
What shall we term that which is not sensation-
followed-by-movement, but which is primary;
which is, as it were, the psychical organism of which
sensation, idea and movement are the chief organs?
Stated on the physiological side, this reality may most
conveniently be termed coordination.
(Dewey, 1972 [1896], p. 97)
Coordination is always present in each act of sen-
sation or reaction as an “ideal” from which the two
have deviated as conflicting parties and try to regain
the initial state of coordination. Coordination is
thus presented by Dewey as a process whereby the
dynamic stability of the organism is achieved.
Jakob von Uexküll and his colleagues Theodor
Beer and Albert Bethe published in 1899 an article
where they suggest a new objective nomenclature
for physiology. In the article they claim that physi-
ology should be purified from the ambiguous terms
like “light” or “sound” and terms indicating the
physical origin and properties of objective stimuli
should be used instead (Beer, Bethe, & Uexküll,
1899). Here they seem to identify themselves with
the tradition of a physics-bound physiology rather
than with the more organism-specific perspective.
Solely because of the position presented in this arti-
cle, Uexküll’s research was received as a representa-
tive of the mechanistic-behaviorist physiology, even
in his later career when he distanced himself from
his earlier theoretical grounds (see Mildenberger,
2006; Mildenberger, 2007, p. 58).
Closer examination reveals that even this objec-
tivist manifesto already contains ontological threads
leading to the later umweltlehre. What is lacking in
the latter and saliently present in the manifesto is
a significant discrepancy between the ontological
and the epistemological standpoints. While propos-
ing a new nomenclature for sensory physiology, the
authors differentiate between the objective stimulus,
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the physiological proceeding, and the eventual sen-
sation. The footnote to the objective stimulus, how-
ever, states:
We admit that the stimulus is nothing but an
objectified sensation, but we stay by the conviction
that natural scientists, in order to retain a stable
ground, should take an unbiased standpoint, from
where one could observe the outwards projected
Erscheinungswelt5 as materially present. (Beer, Bethe,
& Uexküll, 1899, p. 517)
The new nomenclature is therefore suggested
because of merely heuristic reasons; the authors
attempt to deny asserting any reality to the objec-
tive stimulus. Uexküll’s later writing on umweltlehre
resolved this former discrepancy by adjusting the
theoretical framework according to his ontological
axioms.
How could such a step be taken? What enabled
the initially self-determined scientific methodology
to be attuned to the “demands” of biological
reality?
Above all, this leap in Uexküll’s ontological com-
mitments is caused by the synthesis of philosophical
and scientific standpoints. The philosophical per-
spective, traditionally bracketed out from strictly
scientific investigations, was brought in to take part
in the explorations of the living world. Only through
the coordination and integration of ideas belonging
to different realms of human knowledge (either
to scientific, philosophical, or artistic) could orga-
nisms be understood as entities who themselves base
their existence on coordination and integration.6
This synthetic understanding of human knowl-
edge, which formed the epistemological founda-
tion of the umwelt idea, was the legacy of Romantic
theories of human mind. First, it followed the
Romantic ideals of the entwined architectonics of
human comprehension. Secondly, it considered the
principle of the isomorphic relations between the
object and the tools of research. Goethe figuratively
expressed the latter in the introduction to his Colour
Theory (Zur Farbenlehre), quoted also by Uexküll:
“If the eye were not sun-like, it could never behold
the sun. If the sun were not eye-like, it could not
shine in any sky,”7 and in his statement that “simi-
lar can be recognized only by a similar” (nur von
Gleichem werde Gleiches erkannt) (Goethe, 1810,
p. xxxviii). The structural principles of the object
and the descriptive system have to match with each
other. Such matching and likeness of the observer
and the observed does not require an overlap or
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 653
superimposition of one of the systems on the other.
On the contrary, the central concept for describing
these relations is punctus contra punctum—they have
to match like two notes in a chord. The principle
of responsive, counterpoint-like correspondence is
central for understanding how it is possible to pro-
ceed from the perceptual systems to the commu-
nicative, dialogical ones. This key factor also opens
up the possibility for umwelt-based research to serve
not just as a descriptive system, but also as a tool for
understanding. The animal in this case is not merely
an object of scientific observation but a response
to the research question posed by the researcher’s
own perceptual and cognitive schemes. Partaking
in the communicative act provides the researcher
with as much knowledge about his own mind as it
does about the communicatively observed animal.
And the more conscious one becomes of one’s own
perceptual restrictions, clarifying thus the structure
of one’s own research tools, the more the under-
standing of the other will correspond to the features
of the other. Scientific truth in this case does not
need to choose sides between idealistic or realistic
premises—it is formed only while participating in
the mutual exchange of information, where the
object explicates the subject’s characteristics and
vice versa.
Umwelt Theory as a Springboard for Models
of Culture
Uexküll himself did not provide significant
reflections on how his umwelt theory could be
applied particularly to human beings (setting aside
his constant reminder that all researchers are bound
with their own perceptual boundaries, even when
talking about the umwelt of another species, and
his rather loose transfer of the umwelt concept to
describe the characters of his friends). But Uexküll’s
writings on the umwelt concept have served as an
impetus for later philosophers and representatives of
other humanities to delve on the issue of its applica-
bility to human beings.
For the sake of conciseness, we are not aiming at
describing all directions of influence, as the idea has
found its way into very diverse traditions of thought
(for overviews see Kull, 2001; Mildenberger, 2007; on
the additional aspects, see Berthoz & Christen, 2009;
Chang, 2009; Kliková & Kleisner, 2006; Magnus,
2008). We therefore focus on four kinds of topics
in umwelt theory that have triggered discussions
on the question of specifically human umwelten:
(1) the perception-action pairing as a fundamental
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property of “being alive” and as a source for the fur-
ther developments of human-specific impressions
and expressions; (2) the immediacy vs. mediated-
ness of animal and human action; (3) the semiotic
embeddedness of all living beings, which leads to
the view of life as the primary threshold of semiotic
activity; (4) the integration of the perspective of the
subject and the perspective of the system.
The Principle of Counterpoints:
Relating Impression with Expression
Let us first examine the first of those four—to
what extent is the basic model of the functional cir-
cle applicable to human sensations and expressions?
According to Uexküll, all objects enter the animal’s
umwelt via their perceptual as well as effector cues
by inducing clearly distinguished perceptual and
effector responses. Such a twofold process of receiv-
ing information followed by returning it reworked
in an organism-specific form is characteristic for all
living beings. Although there is a long evolution-
ary distance between the recognitions carried out
by the cellular receptor proteins and signaling mol-
ecules (as perception), and corresponding genetic
expressions, metabolic changes, or apoptotic beha-
vior (as effects), and the orientation of vertebrates
via highly differentiated sense organs (as receptors)
and the limbic system (as effectors), both systems
involve the establishment of a coded correspon-
dence between the receptor and effector activities as
their basis. This does not amount to stating that the
same impulse always results in the same response.
The organism with its specific form and current
physiological state serves as a translation matrix that
uses the correspondence between the perceptual
and the motor systems in order to preserve its own
organic form with each object-oriented functional
circle. The coded duality of perception and action is
simply a device via which the organism encounters
meanings essential for its specific form of existence.
Interpreting the organism as a translational matrix
means that it provides an interpretational frame-
work, in which all perceived objects are approached
as actionable and actioned objects as perceivable.
We may thus infer from this that the specific
linkage between what the organism perceives about
the environment and how it responds can be formed
only via a common meaningful framework between
the two. Further, it is important to note that once
such a relation has been established, its functioning
becomes a necessity for preserving the meaningful
framework itself. Thus the particular form, as well as
654 roots of culture in the umwelt
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 654
activities of an organism, rely on the encoded differ-
ence between its perception and action, impression
and expression. The latter principle—the necessity
of twofold activities for the preservation of complex
phenomena or forms—is a topic that has provided
common discussion ground for the philosophy
of biology on the one hand and phenomenology
of perception and philosophy of art on the other.
One of the central authors uniting those two fields
is Maurice Merleau-Ponty who also found a strong
impetus from Uexküll’s umwelt theory, particularly
for his courses on nature held at the Collège de
France from 1956 to 1958.
Merleau-Ponty’s idea about the compulsory two-
fold nature of the body as a perceiver and as per-
ceived can be summed up with his central motive of
the “double sensation,” when my one hand touches
my other hand (see Merleau-Ponty, 2002 [1945], p.
106, 1968 [1964], p. 141, 2003 [1995], pp. 74–75).
It explains how one and the same body serves as a
ground for acting and being acted upon and yet can
never be in the two positions simultaneously. This
temporal hiatus between the always reversible states
of touching and being touched, seeing and being
visible, as Merleau-Ponty explains, does not result
in an ontological void between the two states, but
“is spanned by the total being of my body, and by
that of the world, it is the zero of pressure between
two solids that makes them adhere to one another”
(Merleau-Ponty, 1968 [1964], p. 148). Merleau-
Ponty further postulated that the principle of
reversibility does not reside just in one’s own body,
but also among different organisms, which he des-
ignated with the word intercorporeity. By perceiving
we thus also perceive the others as perceiving, as far
as sensibility is unbound from its belonging to one
and the same consciousness. This sort of a possibil-
ity for the perception of the other as a perceiving
subject is absent in the Uexküllian umwelt model.
Here, the reversibility of umwelt and Innenwelt, of
the perceived objects and the perceiving subject, is
not possible, as the subject’s identity is solely based
on the specific contacts with the objects as counter-
structures. All objects in the world of an animal
are directed toward its own existence; there is no
object for another. Uexküll thereby remained true
to the Kantian treatment of the subject, where “I
can grasp the unity of the I only through its pro-
ductions” (Merleau-Ponty, 2003 [1995], p. 22). In
the Uexküllian approach, there is a correspondence
between the different umwelten, but it is not caused
by the subject’s perception of the other as a subject
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and an object simultaneously, but it is caused by a
general, supra-subjective plan of nature.
The function of presenting oneself as a perceiv-
able object can be elaborated by special organs
which exteriorize the organism in the same manner
as the sense organs interiorize the world. This is
the manner in which the Swiss zoologist Adolf
Portmann discussed the function of the skin and
other body surfaces as phenomena that have devel-
oped with the potential of being perceived by
someone else (Portmann, 1990; cf. Kleisner, 2008).
Firstly, the merely physiological function of several
morphological traits has been enriched with a com-
municative function during evolution. The hair and
plumage of warm-blooded animals became organs
of communication besides their initial role of fix-
ing stable body temperature; the skin’s capillary
network intensifies the color of the skin and thus
serves as a sign for the psychosomatic state of the
animal (Portmann, 1961, pp. 77–97). Secondly,
there are multiple examples of morphological
features that have never served any specific physio-
logical function for the organism at all and to which
Portmann attributes the role of the “self-expression/
or presentation” of the organism. Those traits may
also attain a communicative function in the course
of time, as is the case with some color patterns
that acquire a mimetic value or begin to operate as
warning signals.
Yet another variation on the topic of the antici-
pation of action in perception (and vice versa) as a
binding phenomenon of humans and other living
beings is provided by the American philosopher of
art, Susanne Langer. Like Merleau-Ponty, Langer
turned to biophilosophical questions in her later
works while also integrating critical accounts of the
umwelt theory (Langer, 1986 [1967]). The central
notion upon which Langer builds her theory of the
rootedness of artistic expression in the biological
experience is “feeling.” As for an organism, what is
felt is an action in the organism, either in the form
of an impact or as autogenic action (Langer, 1986
[1967] pp. 23–24). Prior to the arousal of feelings,
the simpler organisms already based their exis-
tence on perception containing “values for action.”
With the development of the nervous system, feel-
ing arises not as a property, but as a phase of vital
activity (like ice is a phase of water), providing thus
several physiological processes with the new status
of “being felt.” The arousal of the domain of feeling
is necessarily accompanied by its transfiguration
into an expression. Thus if the organism’s condition
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 655
prior to feeling adhered perception to action, feeling
then becomes attached to its reverse in the form of
expression. This kind of a “felt life” unites and serves
as a foundation both for biological expressions such
as gestures, postures, etc., as well as for artistic pre-
sentational symbols (see Weber, 2002). The latter
are distinguished from discursive symbols, as they
express not merely ideas, providing access to the
more basic levels of organic existence.
Biological expressions as well as presentational
symbols both express a certain significance and value
that impressions have for the particular form of life.
By filtering and sorting out only those bits of infor-
mation that are meaningful for the particular living
being, the peripheral organs already act toward the
preservation of the form of which they constitute a
part. Langer (1988 [1972], p. 55) has noted:
[ . . . ] The primary characteristics which animals see
are values, and all the qualities of form, color, shape,
sound, warmth, and even smell, by which we would
naturally expect them to recognize things, enter into
their perceptual acts only as they enter into their
overt behaviour as values for action.
Susanne Langer’s philosophy of presentational forms
highlights the role of perception in opening up the
world for signs, taking sense-data as receptacles of
meaning (Langer, 1956 [1942]). “Eyes that did not
see forms could never furnish it [the human mind]
with images; ears that did not hear articulated
sounds could never open it to words” (Langer, 1956
[1942], p. 73). However, in the Uexküllian umwelt,
the meanings occur always together with forms. As
far as all forms are functional and function is based
on meaning, there is no before or after the meaning,
as those categories are already abstractions unattain-
able to the animal itself.
Poor Animals and Deficient Humans
Both Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Susanne
Langer had explicated a particular organism-centric
mode of existence that opens the organism up for
the world and yet, at the same time, encloses the
organism in its specific modes of appearance. Both
had stressed the importance of seeing the anticipa-
tion of action in even the most primitive perceptual
contacts with the world; perception was understood
as already being attuned to the behavioral setting
and to the set of possible actions, (Merleau-Ponty,
2002 [1945]; cf. also Harney, 2007) or carrying
values for the subsequent activities (Langer, 1988
[1972]; cf. Weber, 2002).
magnus, kull 655
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The umwelt theory provided quite a different
impetus for two other thinkers—Martin Heidegger
and Arnold Gehlen. Although using different argu-
ments and bodies of knowledge, they both main-
tained the impossibility of departing from the
notion of umwelt while tackling any of the essen-
tial questions concerning human beings. They both
appreciate Uexküll’s contribution to the descrip-
tion of the fundamental conditions of “being an
animal,” but demand a new contrastive principle for
the explication of human conduct.
Gehlen found that human imperfection (der
Mensch als Mängelwesen) in relation to any specific
environmental condition is striking when compar-
ing it with the perfect matching of the animal and
its environment.8 He traced the idea of the deficient
human being, lacking all means that would allow
him to attach, to fix himself to any environmental
affordances, back to J. G. Herder’s reflections on the
origin of culture (Gehlen, 1997 [1940]). Inapt to
face any demands of the environment by means of
specialized organs, humans had to choose a different
strategy for getting by. Culture was thus established
as a compensatory mechanism for biological insuf-
ficiencies. In the biological sense, man is not yet
ready, according to Gehlen; he is a task for himself.
Unlike Arnold Gehlen, Max Scheler, and Adolf
Portmann, philosophers Martin Heidegger and
Ernst Cassirer9 did not take specific morphological
traits of man nor the adaptive inaptness accom-
panying them as a departure point for describing
man’s exceptional position among other living
beings. Both Cassirer and Heidegger focused more
strictly on man’s specific mental modes of relating
to the outer world. In broad terms, they both dis-
closed the semiotic or symbolic hiatus between man
and animal, the human escape from the restraints
of immediate physiological reactions. In his “An
Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy
of Human Culture,” Cassirer, when discussing the
human entrance to the world of symbolic forms,
also considers the new coercion that is thereby set
on man (Cassirer, 1944). Once the novel sphere of
symbolic interactions is opened up, man becomes
fully enmeshed and enclosed in it. From then on,
symbolic filtering becomes the single pathway
leading from the self to the world, although, in
essence, it always results in auto-communication,
with man being caught in the forms of knowledge
that establish his own identity.
Martin Heidegger’s concern with the human
world, free from the captivity of the immediacy that
656 roots of culture in the umwelt
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 656
is characteristic to all nonhuman worlds (Heidegger,
1983), is echoed also in the work of his other-
wise critical student, Czech phenomenologist Jan
Patočka (Patočka, 1998 [1995]). Patočka contrasts
the animal, embedded in the relations of immedi-
ate relevancy, forced into the constraints of constant
presence, with the human, who is open not just to
the domains of past and future, but also to all pos-
sible forms of past and future, which he calls quasi-
structures (quasi-future, quasi-present) (Patočka,
1998 [1995], p. 32).
Excluding the aspects of past and future from the
activity of any living being is highly problematic if
the preservation of organic form is to be explained.
Each act and activity of an organism already antici-
pates some further biological state, thus contribut-
ing to the presence of the specific organic form in
the future. Each value and meaning that an animal
encounters in the objects of its environment is at
the same time an encounter with a possible future
state. The “not yet” of the organism is touched
upon with each perceptual act, giving way to the
continuation of the self without reducing duration
to an extracted present. A living being, therefore, is
never a point in space, but an ontogenetic as well as
phylogenetic extension, without a fixed moment of
beginning and end, but with definite choices for the
self-specific persistence.
All interpretations of Uexküll’s umwelt concept
introduced in this chapter, refer to it as a model that
explicates the strict adaptations and deterministic,
although species-specific, attachment of animal to
its environment. In the next chapter, we return to
the semiotic interpretations and see how the above-
mentioned versions were challenged by a number
of authors who questioned the claim that mediated
access to the world is a privilege of humankind.
Across the Semiotic Pass
A new merging of umweltlehre and the humani-
ties in the form of a semiotic synthesis took place
in the mid-1970s. It was a time when the language-
and culture-bound discipline of semiotics started to
seriously question its scope and extent. The coming
years featured intensive discussions on the need to
lower the semiotic threshold, i.e., to realize that the
human mind and language are not the first instances
of semiotic activity, but that animals, plants and in
fact the whole living domain is based on the use of
signs and the functioning of sign processes. Those
new questions and research perspectives led to the
establishment of a field called biosemiotics, which
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 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST-PROOF, 11/24/11, NEWGEN
concentrates specifically on the semiotic character
of various biological processes (from immunological
recognition to animal communication).
As the establishment of any new field is accom-
panied by the awakening and construction of its
dormant historic background, so was the case for
biosemiotics. After clarifying its basic principles,
biosemiotics began with a search for the confir-
mational past. One of the founders of biosemiot-
ics, Thomas A. Sebeok, with his primary interest in
animal cognition and communication, found his
predecessors mostly from ethological circles (Heini
Hediger, Jakob von Uexküll) (Sebeok, 1999, 2001).
The list of forefathers grew with the expansion of
the field itself to include scientists from a number
of subfields of biology; for example the embryolo-
gist Karl Ernst von Baer and the psychologist James
Mark Baldwin. This biosemiotic quest for ancestors
stemming from biology ran parallel with the reread-
ings of the classical authors of semiotics. Although
American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce was to become the historical mentor for a
significant part of biosemiotic research (Thomas
Sebeok had called him the loadstar of semiotics (cf.
Deely, 2004)), it is perhaps even more interesting
to see how authors strictly bound to the humanities
were linked to discussions of biosemiotics and to
biological umwelt models.
Thus Jakob von Uexküll’s son, Thure von Uexküll
(1908–2004), who related the umwelt theory to
very different models of semiotic processes, linked
it even with a theory that is otherwise considered
to be in opposition with biosemiotic principles. He
explicated a homomorphic relationship between the
principles of Jakob von Uexküll’s umweltlehre and
the structural semiotics of Ferdinand de Saussure.10
According to T. von Uexküll, Saussure’s distinc-
tion between the abstract language system (langue)
and the concrete speech acts (parole) (Saussure,
1998 [1916]) might be seen as corresponding to
Jakob von Uexküll’s differentiation between plan
of nature and its concrete realizations in life activ-
ity (T. v. Uexküll, 1992, pp. 4–6). T. von Uexküll
made an important distinction between biological
and linguistic sign systems, however, naming the
former perceptual or monological systems (based on
innate codes) and the latter dialogical systems (based
on learned cultural codes). The classical authors of
semiotics whose ideas Thure von Uexküll integrated
with those of Jakob von Uexküll, included Charles
Morris, Gottlob Frege and C. S. Peirce (T. von
Uexküll, 1982, 1992, 1999).
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 657
The Integration of Two Meanings of Umwelt
Despite centuries of debate, contemporary
sciences of man still find themselves in what have
been called the “turf wars between sociology and
psychology” (Watson & Coulter, 2008, p. 2), i.e.,
the debates between the social versus cognitive
interpretations of the human mind. Whereas the
contradiction inside the humanities has gained
further support from a corresponding institutional
segregation, a number of philosophical endeavors,
from phenomenology to pragmatism, have aimed
at undermining the battleground. Extending and
contextualizing the problem of mind, incorporating
knowledge from areas separated by disciplinary bor-
ders, and inventing fully novel research arenas have
all granted some assuagement, to a certain extent at
least. Seen in the light of these developments, the
theory of umwelt and its later cultural theoretical
adaptations also face two alternatives—to join the
debaters on either side of the cognitive-social divide
or to adhere to the challenging efforts.
The umwelt concept could contribute to either
one of the sides, if suitable threads of thought are
extracted from the full web of the theory. Thus
the cognitive enclosure of an animal (including
humans) results in fully one-sided construction of
all objects, unless the organism itself is simultane-
ously explained as a product of the constitutive
ecological or social relations. On the other hand,
the (biological) subject’s meaning-initiated activity
dissolves into a chain of causal reactions to envi-
ronmental stimuli, unless the role of the organism
as an active center of meaning formation is taken
into account. In order to not thereby tear apart the
subject-as-meaning-provider and subject-as-rela-
tions-induced, it is essential to find a framework of
analysis that would maintain the two meanings of
umwelt: as a world initiated and comprehended by
the subject and as a node in the set of ecological
relations encompassing the whole biosphere. Those
two could also be referred to as the phenomeno-
logical and ecological facets of the theory of the
umwelt. Only the simultaneous presence and usage
of the two can guarantee a steady position outside
the above-mentioned dilemma.
The essential question therefore is whether we
could indicate some primary integrative mechanism
that guarantees and produces the coherence of the
two, and that logically explains their simultaneous
presence? Uexküll himself has suggested what he
called planmässigkeit, as a ground for the synthesis
(Uexküll, 1927, 1973 [1928]). As the word seems
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 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST-PROOF, 11/24/11, NEWGEN
to hint to a metaphysical grounding based on a pre-
established harmony, preformationism, teleology,
and an idealized state of affairs, it has not found
many elaborations by later authors (although see
Hoffmeyer, 2004, 2008, pp. 172–173; Cheung,
2004). However, several additional processes have
been suggested for what could also ground the
integration of the phenomenal and the ecological
in umwelt theory, irrespective of whether planmäs-
sigkeit is accepted or not. They can all be seen as
mechanisms capable of establishing the relative
autonomy of some entity, applicable at the same
time to a number of natural and cultural phenomena
(thus the phenomena of mind just as well as cells,
organisms, and whole ecosystems can be included).
Frederick Stjernfelt, for example, has used subject-
dependent categorical perception as a bonding
mechanism between different species-specific phe-
nomenal worlds:
[ . . . ] the condition of possibility for nature to link
up in these strange ‘harmonies’ between different
species’ umwelten depends precisely on categorical
perception: the perceptual categories form the tones
in the metaphor, and it is their categoricity only that
permits them to enter into counterpoint between the
single umwelten. (Stjernfelt, 2007, p. 236)
The traces of categorization and the complemen-
tarity of the categories of different species are
observable by any kind of spatial and temporal
discreteness. Unless the form and expressions of
one species and the perception of another—e.g.,
the movement speed of the prey animal and the
predator animal’s perceptual time-sectioning, the
resolution of the insect’s eye and the size of its food
object, the sound range of the male bird’s voice
organs and the female’s hearing range—correspond
to each other, the two species or organisms lack the
means to enter one another’s umwelt. The depen-
dence of ecological relations on perceptual units
and categories appears thereby evident.
Individual percepts and categories never operate
as individual units, as though demanding some
extra mechanism for their integration. They never
appear outside of the regulative and homeostatic
self-maintenance process of the whole organism.
Although the latter terms are mostly used for
describing how the ontogenetic continuity of one
organism is preserved in the fixed limits of certain
parameters, self-regulation of the individual orga-
nism would not be possible unless it is supported
by the coupled constancy of the environment, the
658 roots of culture in the umwelt
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 658
two constancies calling forth one another. The self-
regulative and self-maintaining capacities of the
organism had been a research interest of physiolo-
gists at least since the works of Claude Bernard in
the mid-nineteenth century. Observations and dis-
cussions about the corresponding properties of eco-
systems, however, were just emerging in the 1920s
and 1930s (in the works of, e.g., Frederic Clements,
John F. V. Phillips, Victor Shelford), at the time
Uexküll wrote his major works. As the theories of
the self-regulation of ecosystems were still in their
outset in the first decades of the twentieth century,
it may have been one of the reasons why Uexküll,
in an organicist manner, used at some occasions the
metaphor of the organism for describing the regu-
larities in whole ecosystems, instead of discussing
the characteristics of the ecosystems proper (cf.
Uexküll, 1909, p. 196).
Conclusion
We indicated a variety of ways in which Jakob
von Uexküll’s theory of the species-specific umwelt
has been thus far applied to the analysis of culture
and the human mind. These concrete derivations
have departed from different aspects of the theory
while using it as a springboard for inferences con-
cerning man. The following associations between
umwelt theory and its cultural implications can
hence be brought out:
1. If umwelt theory is interpreted as a
demonstration of how biological form and
behavior expose the sensory impressions an
organism is capable of receiving, it may also
draw attention to questions of the coupling of
artistic forms of expression and the underlying
impressions;
2. If umwelt theory is read as a theory of ideal
biological adaptations and specialization of all
living beings, except man, then culture appears to
be an extension of the same vital need to cope with
the environment, although of a different kind than
all the previous morphological and physiological
ones;
3. If we direct attention to the questions of
meaning and sign-relations as expressed in the
concept of umwelt, then research on the common
semiotic footing of all living beings is to follow;
4. If umwelt theory is seen as a way of
integrating the subjective and the systemic
perspectives, then a possible solution to the
cognitive-social divide in humanities may be
suggested.
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 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST-PROOF, 11/24/11, NEWGEN
All this has given umwelt theory a remarkable
place in several approaches to culture. The funda-
ments of umwelt theory have passed through signif-
icant transformations every time they have entered
a new cultural theoretical paradigm. In the face of
this, we don’t see a reason to strive for a purified
essence of the theory, independent of all its inter-
pretations and therefore suggest that umwelt theory
itself can be seen as a good indicator of cultural
theoretical change. It offers a number of culture-
bound elaborations, the character and concrete
realization of which is specified by the cultural and
philosophical environment where it finds itself.
Future Directions
Bearing in mind what we inferred in the con-
clusion, we can only rather generally suppose, what
could further be the culture-bound questions,
whereby umwelt theory can be employed.
First, there is still enough work for cultural
studies to be done on how language itself func-
tions as a system of perception and action and what
are its relations to other sign systems that humans
possess. A number of studies belonging to the field
of embodied cognition, situated cognition, enactiv-
ism that have in the past decades demonstrated the
sensorimotoric embeddedness of linguistic catego-
ries provide a strong foothold for further studies
that might also encompass the principles Jakob von
Uexküll delineated in respect with sensorimotoric
coupling and its role in the formation of meanings.
All those theories have paid attention to how the
symbolic domain of language is strongly tied with
the human bodily reactions and perceptions and
Uexküll’s contribution might help to clarify how
the connections of the latter are brought about in
the first place.
Another possible future investigation thread may
lead to the questions about the transitions from per-
ception to communication. Is Jakob von Uexküll’s
model of the functional circle still applicable, when
the two interconnected entities are mutually “talk-
ative,” both carrying their own values and mean-
ings? To think that there is always another who has
a say toward a subject’s actions, does not concern
only situations where two or more living beings are
directly involved. It comprises any situations where
interests are in play. The other may therefore be
present only indirectly, through the claim he may
have for the same thing the subject is striving for.
This means while making a choice (whether it’s a
living place, a piece of food or something else) taking
30_Valsiner_Chap-29.indd 659
into consideration for whom else may the object in
question be valuable. The acknowledgement of the
interest fields that surround the objects should not
be seen as a source of competition, though. That
might rather lead to the establishment of shared
interests and to a search for creative solutions for
how the interest fields could further accommo-
date the diversity of subjects that they attract. That
would also mean seeing other subjects behind one-
self ’s actions, to the recognition that no activity can
be only self-directed.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the European Union through
the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence
CECT) and by the Estonian Science Foundation Grants ETF
8403 and SF0182748s06.
Notes
1. The term “umwelt,” if used as a loanword in English,
may also refer to the milieu concept of the French philosopher
and historian Hippolyte Taine (as the outer world that affects
the organisms) and to the modern common-sense meaning of
umwelt in German (Sutrop, 2001, p. 458). For the historic over-
view of the development of the terms “milieu,” “environment,”
and “umwelt” see, e.g., Canguilhem (2001 [1948]) and Chien
(2005).
2. “Ebenso objektiv wie die Faktoren der Umwelt sind, müs-
sen die von ihnen hervorgerufenen Wirkungen im Nervensystem
aufgefaßt werden. Diese Wirkungen sind ebenfalls durch
den Bauplan gesichtet und geregelt. Sie bilden zusammen die
Innenwelt der Tiere.”
3. Under the classical models we understand here the linear
models of communication (e.g., Wilbur-Shramm’s, Shannon-
Weaver’s, and Jakobson’s communication models). Although we
are aware of the differences between them, such differences may
be discarded in the context they are used here.
4. The mirror law or the law of reflection in physics charac-
terises specular reflection, where the angle of incidence equals the
angle of reflection.
5. Erscheinungswelt (the world of appearances) is the world of
meaningful objects as it appears to the subject. Unlike umwelt, it
is not accessible to the external observer.
6. From Uexküll’s legacy, we find a significant number of
articles and essays on philosophical issues in science. These writ-
ings touch first and foremost on the differences in the physi-
ologist’s and the biologist’s approaches to living phenomena. As
Uexküll described the physiological approach as a mechanical
one, he identified his own position with the one of biologist.
7. Wär’ nicht das Auge sonnenhaft / Wie könnten wir das
Licht erblicken? (Goethe, 1810, p. xxxviii).
8. Max Scheler (1874–1928), who like Gehlen, belonged
to the circles of German philosophical anthropology, reflected
upon the same principle of nonadaptation as a biological
impetus for the evolution of human species. Scheler called the
latter an organological dilettantism (organologische Dilettantismus).
He relied hereby on the evolutionary theories of the German
physical anthropologist Hermann Klaatsch (1863–1916)
(Scheler, 2001).
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9. For in-depth studies on the relations of Uexküll’s umwelt
theory and Cassirer’s philosophy see Chien (2006), Krois (2004),
Heusden (2001), Weber (2004); for the relations of Uexküll and
Heidegger, see Buchanan (2008), Chien (2006).
10. Thure von Uexküll defines homomorphic relations as
based on “[ . . . ] a fundamental conformity repeated on various
levels of complexity, each time in a different way, but basically
always in the same form [ . . . ]” (T. v. Uexküll, 1982, p. 5).
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