Chapter 5: Zoösemiotics and Anthroposemiotics
Chapter 5: Zoösemiotics and Anthroposemiotics

Summary/Abstract: Classical philosophy had much to say about Aristotle’s definition of the human being as a “ rational animal”. The problem was that, in this definition, the term “animal” was somehow never quite taken seriously, and most of the discussion centered on showing how “being rational” contrasted with “being animal” in such a way as to render animality unimportant. In the extreme case — the work of Descartes1 — the contrast was emphasized to the extent of being transformed into an outright opposition, and a new definition of the human as a “ thinking thing” was proposed to replace the old definition entirely.

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