Umwelt

Umwelt (from the German umwelt, "environment") according to Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal." The term is usually translated as "subjective universe". Uexküll theorized that organisms can have different Umwelts, even though they share the same environment.

Each component of a Umwelt has a meaning which is fuctional for a particular organism. Thus it can be water, food, shelter, potential threats, or points of reference for navigation. An organism creates its own Umwelt when it interacts with the world, and at the same time the organism reshapes it. This is termed a 'functional circle'. The Umwelt theory states that the mind and the world are inseparable, because it is the mind that inteprets the world for the organism.

Umwelt is the organism's model of the world.

External link

• Umwelt by John Deely.
• Pragmatism and Umwelt-theory by Alexei Sharov.