Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Biology and particularly ethology or behavioral research owe a signicant discovery to the important biologist and Baltic Baron Jakob von
Uexkull. It consists in the empirically founded insight that every living
being, due to its physical organization and sensory apparatus, can only
perceive a certain section of the world, a section which is characteristic of the species. The creature is, in Uexkull's words, embedded in
an Umwelt which corresponds exactly to its vital needs. Its senses reveal
to it a certain `perceptual world', which determines its grasp of the
world, and this `perceptual world' corresponds with an `operational
world', which delimits its range of possible actions in the world. The
animal and its Umwelt are closely interrelated; the animal is an
integral part of the functional circles of its medium (water, earth, or
air), of its nourishment, of its enemy, and of its sex. It ts its Umwelt
like the key ts the lock and the lock ts the door. These interrelations
are impressively corroborated by numerous examples. Insects and
owers, spiders and ies, starshes and mussels, parasites and hosts,
moths and bats are clearly made to t. Uexkull was looking for
appropriate terms to describe these relations, and, being a person with
a well-developed sense of art, he liked to make use of musical
terminology. Thus, he spoke of `contrapuntal relations', of a `theory of
composition of nature', and he felt that it was the task of biology to
record the `score' for the `symphony of nature' with its immense
systematic regularity.
Understandably, these new views triggered discussions. The unfamiliar
and unusual terms and comparisons with art alone did not t in with
the framework of the prevailing schools of thought. On the one hand, the
relations which Uexkull had shown to exist between animals and their
Umwelten were quite comprehensible, and it did seem quite possible
to accept his thoughts and views as far as the world of animals was
concerned, but, on the other hand, there were serious objections to his
claim that they were applicable to mankind as well.
Semiotica 1341/4 (2001), 463479
00371998/01/0134 0463
# Walter de Gruyter
464 H. Gipper
This is where he himself oered unnecessary points of attack by
portraying some of his friends, who lived under the inuence of certain
subjective ideas, incapable of crossing the borders of their self-established
worlds. Even though it was with a very observant eye and with his usual
stylistic mastery that Uexkull described how individual people, scholars
not excluded, were imprisoned, as it were, under a dome of glass, these
depictions, published as memoirs with the title Nie geschaute Welten
(Uexkull 1957), moved him a long way from the premises he himself
had drawn up in his theory of Umwelt (Umweltlehre), for these
had always referred to entire species, never to individual animals.
A closer investigation of the matter and of the subsequent debate
shows that it is mainly the term Umwelt, suggested by Uexkull, which
lies at the root of the quarrels and which proved to be particularly
unclear and misleading. For by Umwelt, we generally understand the
environment (Umgebung) every human being and every animal lives in,
and our growing awareness of the necessity to protect and conserve our
environment, our Umwelt, is directed towards the whole of nature.
Environmental protection means the protection of nature. Considering
that part of the world in which the individual person lives, one can
also use the French term milieu, which the philosopher and historian
Hippolyte Taine used in this context. In this connection, cultural and
societal conditions must also be taken into account.
If all of this is taken into consideration, this disapproval becomes
understandable, since now the objection could be raised that animals
are indeed restricted to certain habitats in certain terrestrial regions
and, in fact, even would have to perish in others. Humans, however, can
live and survive anywhere on earth, because they are able to adjust, by
means of clothing and housing, to the various climatic zones.
Thus, the discussion about Uexkull's theory of Umwelt reached a point
at which animals were attributed an Umwelt, in the sense that they
are restricted to a certain milieu, whereas human beings were ascribed
Weltoenheit, a certain openness towards the world, which means
that, due to their physique, they can adjust to all surroundings and
live anywhere on earth.
In the chapter `Eigenwelt und Sprachwelt: Ausbaumoglichkeiten der
inhaltsbezogenen Sprachtheorie im Anschlu an die Lehre Jakob vonUexkulls'
in Gipper (1969 [1963]),1 which also forms the basis of this article, there
is a survey of the positions of several researchers which support what has
been stated above.2 It shall be sucient to mention their names.
Biology: Otto Storck, Karl Friederichs, Adolf Portmann, Friedrich
Brock, Konrad Lorenz.
466 H. Gipper
determine what is visible, the organs of hearing determine what is
audible, and the organs of locomotion determine how and where
a subject can move. For humans, the hands are of primary importance.
Man's ability to walk erect made it possible for them to become tools
par excellence, and it was only through his hands that man was able to
create culture, but this was only possible because they were controlled
by the central nervous system. This control organ needs further stimuli
which presupposes the ability to think and hence the ability to plan.
Finally, the ability to think does not reach a human level, either, unless
the ability to speak is added, for thought and language are very closely
connected it is even possible to say that the ability to think develops
through language during language acquisition. It is thus that the physically and sensually experienced world can be broadened by a mental
world, which completes the self-world typical of humans. However,
Uexkull did not or could not take this into account adequately, and
even the critics who attribute Weltoenheit to man but not to animals,
have considered these factors either insuciently or not at all.
Be that as it may, it is certain that Uexkull's theory has been harmed
by these misunderstandings.
And yet, Uexkull was a thinker exceptionally aware of problems. The
way he carefully considered the epistemological presuppositions of his
research shows this very clearly. For instance, he rightfully asked the
question whether it is at all possible for a human subject to gain an
insight into the self-worlds of other beings through observation. Is this
access possible and explicable through observation alone? One possible
presupposition is that the self-world of a human subject is undoubtedly
considerably wider and much more extensive than that of all other
beings. Numerous animals may well be superior to humans in certain
respects. Some may be able to see and hear a good deal better, but
their seeing and hearing is directed at and restricted to something
very particular, such as their prey or certain dangers they have to avoid
in time.
The physique, too, of some species allows them higher performance,
but again this is only the case for isolated elds. Some can run and swim
faster, jump higher and farther, and climb better than a human subject.
This is why some have called man a `defective being' (Mangelwesen).
Those who did so neglected the fact that man compensates for these
defects and is, on the whole, much more versatile than any animal.
No animal could ever come near the physical performance of a decathlete. Furthermore, a circus artiste performs acrobatic feats which the
human physique hardly seems capable of. Hence, it is even justiable to
call man a `luxurious being', which, in fact, has been done. Konrad Lorenz
468 H. Gipper
suck any liquid, as long as it has the right temperature. If, after noticing the
smell of butyric acid, the tick falls onto something cold, it has missed its host
and has to climb back onto its look-out. This substantial meal of blood is the
tick's last meal at the same time. There is nothing left for it than to fall to the
ground, to lay its eggs, and to die. (Uexkull and Kriszat 1970 [1934]: 78)
This correlation is amplied by the schematic representation of a functional circle, which is now comprehensible without further comment.3
A few self-coined technical terms have been added to some of the
expressions.
The following text contains important indications for the self-world
of man, which have to be considered on account of their fundamental
importance: the prerequisites for our perception of time and space. From
an early age, we nd it self-evident that we live in a three-dimensional
space, and we rarely think about where we get this certainty from. Even
with our eyes closed or by night we can tell up from down, front from
back, and left from right. It is not easy to dene the center of this
coordinate system, but it can be proved that the structure of our body
and its central axis are of a certain relevance. If one moves one's hands
up and down in a horizontal position in front of one's face, one can easily
determine the borderline between what we feel is `up' and what we feel
is `down', and our body, viewed with our own eyes, shows us what is
`front' and what is `back'. The position of our arms, nally, tells us what
`left' and `right' mean. Every person thus has a coordinate system composed of three planes, which determines his sense of space. Further
precise research has revealed that this three-dimensionality can be traced
back to a sense organ located in the inner ear, namely to the semicircular
canals, which at the same time function as our organ of equilibrium
(Uexkull and Kriszat 1970 [1934]: 16, Der Wirkraum). It is unnecessary
to explain in detail how this works, for it is explained and depicted in
every handbook on anatomy.
What is important is the conclusion drawn from this fact: It is justiable to say that every animal which has such semicircular canals perceives
space as being three-dimensional, which conrms Immanuel Kant's
claim of time and space being a priori forms of perception, i.e., prior
to experience, with time being the form of perception of the outer and
space being that of the inner sense. One should add, though, that the
infant still has to learn what is obvious to an adult. It goes without saying that animals without semicircular canals perceive space dierently.
There are many explanatory statements by Uexkull about this.
It is much more dicult to determine what the experience of time,
Kant's a priori inner sense, is based on. It is necessary to consider the
470 H. Gipper
were condensed into eight hours. He would see plants grow and the sun
chase across the sky. Slowed down another thousand times he would
no longer perceive the dierence between night and day, and he would
see the `orbiting sun' as a shining ring. To him, the rotation of seasons
would seem to be a matter of seconds.
These ideas may be daring, but they can give us a rst idea of how
much our perception of the world would dier from what we are used to
if the premises were extremely dierent. Jakob von Uexkull has come
to the important realization that there are, in fact, animals which, due to
the way their sensual organs operate, perceive the world, including time
and space, in a manner which diers considerably from ours (Uexkull
and Kriszat 1970 [1934]: 34f ).
In order to allow further insights into the self-worlds of humans and
animals and in order to illustrate the dierences, Uexkull gives further
instructive examples in his book (Streifzuge durch die Umwelten von
Tieren und Menschen. Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten). By doing this,
he proves to be a great researcher, for he develops an amazing imagination, which is characteristic of all discoverers. He also includes the ndings
of others in his system.
An exceptionally original example shall be given at this point in order
to illustrate how dierently humans and animals perceive the same
objects (Uexkull and Kriszat 1970 [1934]: 65, Merkbild und Wirkbild).
Uexkull demonstrates this by means of a colorful drawing of a room
containing various pieces of furniture, a table with dinner service, chairs
and other seating-accommodations, a bookshelf, a desk, and a lamp. He
then indicates the meaning and signicance of these furnishings for
a human being, a dog, and a y. Those properties which are most
important for each subject Uexkull calls `qualities' (Tone). For the human
subject, there are numerous qualities: the chair has a `sitting-quality'
(Sitzton), the table and the dinner service have an `eating quality'
(Speiseton), the bookshelf has a `reading-quality' (Leseton), the desk
a `writing-quality' (Schreibton), the lamp can be said to have a `lightquality' (Lichtton), and the oor a `walking-quality' (Gehton). The room
has been designed for a human subject and furnished according to his
needs. All this must look very dierent to a dog. All he is interested in
are those objects with a `sitting-' or a `lying-quality', which would include
the oor, and also those objects which have, for him, an `eating-quality'.
The cupboards and the other pieces of furniture, however, are nothing
but obstacles to moving around freely. The room has an essentially
dierent appearance for the y: every single object has a `sitting-quality',
even the lamp and the ceiling, for it can land anywhere. Many of those
things which are nourishment for the human subject will also have an
472 H. Gipper
1970 [1934]: 94100, Das gleiche Subjekt als Objekt in verschiedenen
Umwelten). Every woodland creature, however, experiences the forest in
a manner specic to its species.
Thus, through his skilled descriptions, Uexkull presents the whole
score of the symphony of nature very convincingly to the reader and
oers him varied and really thrilling reading.
And yet, however impressive everything Uexkull wrote about the
human self-world may be, it is still mainly restricted to physical and
sensual endowments. Even though he did mention certain factors going
beyond those, he apparently failed to notice them on the whole and
hence took them into account rather insuciently.
All of this is a matter of specically human achievement Homo sapiens
is capable of due to the way his brain is structured. The ability to think
enables man to analyze and utilize to an undreamt-of extent what is
sensually perceptible. The extension of the perceived world by a more
dierentiated mental world is only possible due to and by means of
language. Without it, man's ability to think would not develop either.
With language, however, man goes far beyond the animal kingdom,
and it is the task of the human sciences to investigate and prove this.
At this point I shall, even though I am not a biologist, engage in the
discussion in my capacity as a general linguist and try to demonstrate
the prime importance of Uexkull's theory of self-world for integrational
linguistic research, for it enables us to view the mental self-world of man
which is conditioned by language.
`Integrational' (Ganzheitlich) means that language is not only viewed
rst and foremost as a means of communication, but rather as a means
of cognition and as a mental gateway to the world. What determines this
type of linguistics is what is meaningful for man. The content of language
is the decisive factor. For all animals communicate unicellular organisms as well as higher species. The English biologist Earl W. Count
reduced this to the formula `To live is to communicate' (cf. Count 1969:
71), but it remains unsolved what it is that has to be communicated in the
individual case, which ought to be the prerequisite of any communication. It may be easier to nd out what animals communicate. Their
communication is about choosing a partner or searching for food.
Human communication, however, is almost fathomless. And yet it is
limited by what is possible in the individual languages. As this varies
from language to language, it is dicult to generalize it.
It is essential to realize that the world which the speakers of a language
experience and perceive is `worded' or put into words in a manner
characteristic of the language in question. Here, the close interrelation
between language and thought has to be taken into account. The great
474 H. Gipper
shifts obviously took place in such a regular manner that it seemed well
justied to refer to them as sound laws. Special attention was drawn to
the exceptions to these laws, and a long ght ared up whether or not
there were any exceptions to these laws at all. It is obvious that this
historic, vertical, or diachronic approach could not lead anywhere near
Humboldt's linguistic views of the world, for these can only emerge
through a horizontal or synchronic view of the whole speech organism,
which must not be restricted to the sound level but has to include the
meaning and content of language.
A synchronic turn in linguistics did not take place until the rst half of
the twentieth century and is mainly the achievement of the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1978). Also, Wilhelm von Humboldt was rediscovered. It is much to the credit of the Bonn linguist Johann Leo
Weisgerber that the concept of a linguistic view of the world was taken
notice of again. Weisgerber himself began his career in the Indo-Germanic
tradition, but he became so dissatised with this approach to language
that he started seeking other methods. By reading the rst volume of
Ernst Cassirer's Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (1956 [1923]), he
took notice of Wilhelm von Humboldt where he nally found what he
had been looking for. He then made it his business to actually test and
verify, by studying a concrete language, Humboldt's pioneering concept
of a linguistic view of the world, which Humboldt himself had advanced
but not proved. Weisgerber chose his mother tongue as an example, and
published his rst results in the book Vom Weltbild der deutschen Sprache
(1950). He then expanded on this approach and increased it to two
volumes which he included in the four-volume work Von den Kraften der
deutschen Sprache (Weisgerber 1953, 1954). Weisgerber preferred the
expression Weltbild (picture of the world) to Weltansicht (view of the
world), which he felt to be too static. With the German word Bild (picture)
being akin to the verb bilden (to form, to shape), he wanted to draw nearer
to Humboldt's view of language as energeia (action) rather than ergon
(work/achievement). His readers, however, found this hard to follow.
And yet, this inconspicuous change from Ansicht to Bild had unforeseen
consequences, for some critics confused Weltbild with Weltanschauung.
In conjunction with `German', this placed Weisgerber's views somewhere near Nazi ideology, which brought his justied eorts into great
discredit.
Humboldt himself spoke of Weltanschauung at times, but in those days,
this was completely harmless. Nowadays, however, it is imperative to
draw a clear distinction between the terms Weltbild and Weltanschauung
and also to distinguish from it the linguistic picture of the world or
rather to speak of a linguistic view of the world. It is easy to explain the
476 H. Gipper
Leo Weisgerber immediately took up the idea and used it to describe the
picture of the world of German. In the meantime, numerous pictures of
the world have been examined and described, and it has also been shown
how they have changed over the years. In the comparative analysis of
languages, dierences have been proved. At least the eld of color words,
of kinship terminology, of terms of mind and reason, and of expressions
characterizing the dying of man and beast shall be mentioned here. But
there is a similar structure in the eld of syntax. What is important here
is the idea of sentence construction. There is only a limited number of
phrase structures available in each language which can be used to make
statements concerning states and events.
These explanations should have claried further why Uexkull's theory
of self-world is so important for Humboldt's idea of Weltbild and the
integrational view of language based on it. It was my intention to show
that the focus is on a necessary supplementing of the biological premises
by the mental component, which is decisive for man. This is the only way
of fully grasping the human self-world.
It has also been stressed that there are certain dierences between
both components. The physical and sensual component is valid for all
humans, for the whole species of Homo sapiens. In principle, the mental
component, too, holds for all humans, but, because of the dierent
worlds of language due to dierent cultures, there are varied realizations
of it. In a way one can say, following Humboldt, that all humans share
one language, that is a language characteristic of humans, but that every
language has its characteristics and that, furthermore, every human
makes individual use of his language.
It should be stressed that no man is a prisoner of his mother tongue,
but can learn any other language and can also acquire its picture of the
world. But he can only leave his own language by changing to another
one. He is not capable of reaching an entirely extralingual, `objective'
point of view.
The following reection is utopian, but it can indicate what is imaginable: If a person were granted the privilege to have an overall view of
all languages including their views of the world, he would gain an overall
view of all humanly possible views of the world at the same time. Just
like the picture seen through the compound eye of an insect is composed of many individual parts, here, too, many individual parts make
a whole. Even the mastery of only a few languages can give an insight
into this.
If one wants to gauge these dierences, one must look for a touchstone
rst. One possible measure is the translatability of one language into
another. The translation of this article, which was originally written in
478 H. Gipper
Wilhelm von Humboldt pointed out the special features of the second,
the mental lter with his integrational language research. In order to
understand all of this, one has to consider the close interrelation between
language and thought, the discovery and eect of which can be followed not only in phylogeny, but can be rediscovered even today during
the process of language acquisition in any child and can also be well
described linguistically.
This is from where I derive my thesis that it is not possible to judge
and assess the nature of man as a creature of speech without Uexkull's
great achievement or without the view of the philosophy of language
based on Humboldt.
The Baltic baron was a very original researcher, a pronounced
`noticer' (Merkling), which is how he himself used to identify this type
of person. Because of his new ideas, he had to ght against resistance
from within his own ranks throughout his life. Even though he was
given several honorary doctorates and awarded various other honors,
he was never appointed to a chair at a university, which is a disgrace. His
Institute for Umwelt Research in Hamburg, which he had established
with great diculty, was continually faced with nancial problems. His
life was full of ghts and disappointments. He lost all his Baltic possessions. His last place of refuge was the beautiful Isle of Capri where
he had to live through the advance of the American and British troops,
which occupied the island. This is where he died in solitude, lovingly
cared for only by his wife Gudrun, after a brief illness, on 25 July 1944,
aged 79. His grave is situated, under pine trees and cypresses, on
a mountain slope covered with vineyards, which inclines towards the
Gulf of Naples.
Notes
1. Includes a detailed bibliography.
2. See chapter 6, `Eigenwelt und Sprachwelt. Ausbaumoglichkeiten der inhaltsbezogenen
Sprachtheorie im Anschlu an die Lehre Jakob von Uexkulls', in Gipper (1969 [1963]:
389426). See also the section on the problem of Umwelt (Das Umweltproblem), in
Plessner (1952: 333353), with contributions by F. Brock, P. Feldkeller, K. Friederich,
H. Kunz, A. Metzger, W. E. Muhlmann, H. Plessner, O. Storck, J. Thyssen, and
H. Weber. Participants in the discussion were: W. Brugger, A. Gehlen, M. Hartmann,
E. v. Holst, K. Lorenz, S. Moser, and E. Rothacker. Further articles on biological selfworld research by F. Brock, R. Bilz, K. Friederichs, K. Lorenz, H. Plessner, H. Schalsky,
and F. Stump, see in Studium Generale: Zeitschrift fur interdisziplinare Studien 3 (2/3),
1950.
3. See Uexkull's gure of the functional cycle at the beginning of this volume.
4. There are numerous examples in the works of Leo Weisgerber.