Abstract
The article addresses the topics of body and corporeality within zoosemiotics, particularly in the light of the discussion on the mind-body dualism. The thesis defended is that of the continuity between the two dimensions, and therefore of the lack of a proper “dualism”. The arguments provided in support of this statement include methodological questions such as the etic-emic debate, and theoretical issues of interdisciplinary type, such as contributions from phenomenology and ethology. Specific examples and case-studies are borrowed from the field of zoomusicology.
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Notes
“Among other things, if Nagel was right, not only we could not understand a bat, but other humans either, since we could not interpret their personal perspective anyway. However, it seems that we do understand each other—at least sometimes, so how can Nagel be right?” (Cimatti 2001, personal communication; my translation)
Semiotically speaking, to have a mind implies at least the capacity to 1) guide one’s own behaviour from the ‘inside’, on the basis of projects not directly connected with what happens outside; and 2) elaborate and transform such representations.
The issue of anthropomorphism is highly problematic, and connected (albeit indirectly) with the topics discussed in the present article. My most recent formulation of the problem appears in Martinelli and Bankov 2008, pp.412-418.
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Martinelli, D. Let’s Get Physical!—On the Zoosemiotics of Corporeality. Biosemiotics 4, 259–279 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9098-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-010-9098-5