1

MAVE Dissertation,
Lancaster University
2001

Hermeneutics and Animal Being:

The Question of Animal Interpretation

Peter Scheers
 ---
Abstract
---

Interpretation functions as a radical anthropological concept, certainly

in the field where it is explicitly studied: hermeneutic philosophy.
There is no point in denying human excellence of interpretation, but
this doesn't mean we should resist life of interpretation beyond the
human realm. This essay attempts to give a concrete face to the idea
of animal interpretation, in dialogue with but also beyond the 'official'
tradition of hermeneutic thought. In a first step I clarify anthropo-
hermeneutics. In a second step I trace and describe certain earlier
hermeneutic 'exceptions' where there seems to be an opening toward
the idea of animal interpretation: the metaphor of the book of nature,
Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutic philosophy of life and Martin
Heidegger's words on animal being in Die Grundbegriffe der
Metaphysik. I will conclude that only the last moment provides some
voice to animal interpretation, albeit an ambiguous and rather
inhibited voice. In a third step I will indeed go beyond the 'official'
tradition of hermeneutics and consult the Umweltlehre of Jakob von
Uexküll. Uexküll will be proposed as an implicit, but highly fertile
contribution in zoohermeneutics, on which we can build further. I
will conclude this essay with some remarks on the further
development of zoo-hermeneutics after Uexkull.
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Contents
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Introduction (p. 4)

1. Anthropo-hermeneutics: some remarks (p. 6)

1.1. Text-hermeneutics (p. 6)

1.2. Existential hermeneutics (p. 8)
1.3. One version of a hermeneutics of animal being (p. 10)

2. Animal interpretation: three 'hermeneutic' moments (p. 11)

2.1. The book of nature (p. 11)

2.2. Dilthey's philosophy of life (p. 14)
2.3. Heidegger on animal being (p. 17)

3. Toward a full theory of animal interpretation (p. 19)

3.1. Uexküll's Umweltlehre (p. 20)

3.2. Conclusion (p. 24)

Notes (p. 27)

List of references (p. 32)

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Introduction
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Many students of hermeneutics are radical textualists. At one time I have myself been
a hermeneutical textualist, reading books about interpretation in relation to theory of
literary criticism which itself dealt with learned responses to literary texts. I did not
care so much for the novels as such, but was all the more thrilled about the
complexity and eminence of those books about books about books. In this period I
was of course not involved with something like philosophy of nature - I was an
unambiguous case of 'city philosophy'. Since that time, however, I gradually came to
issues beyond text and interpretation, namely perfectionism and philosophy of work.
And much later, I decided to get more involved with issues of nature and
environmental philosophy. Quite unexpectedly perhaps, this concern for nature
pushed me back to the problematics of signs and interpretations, but this time in
quite another sense. The human project of finding meaning in nature is itself a
fundamental hermeneutic issue, not only in the sense that we are confronted with
complexities of human interpretation, but also because there may be original
processes of interpretation (and semiosis) beyond human selves.
This interpretational beyond is exactly what interests me in this essay, notably
in connection to the realm of animal being.
 One of my main convictions is that there are specific lives of meaning within the
realm of animal being, and that we should attempt to give human expression to this
non-human creation of original meaning. There is in fact moral urgency to do so. The
way one talks about varieties of otherness deeply influences the moral/immoral
character of one's action toward these varieties. The denial of meaning gives free play
to destruction or transformation of otherness. Once 'meaning' is acknowledged (not
our sense of meaning, but meaning beyond us) then it suddenly becomes much more
difficult (albeit of course not impossible) not to turn toward moral reception and
action. Perhaps we can say that the willingness to recognize original meaning in
otherness is itself already an essential part of being moral.
The process of finding meaning in animals is not only a structural moral issue, it
is also automatically a hermeneutic question. I would go so far as to say that every
process of meaning in animals, as it is the case in humans, is interpretationally
constituted. Without considering animals as interpreters, we would simply be left
with an empty box: animal meaning would then mean nothing at all. Animals make
their way in the 'world'. Their experience of being is exactly a collection of points of
meaning constructed by way of interpretational action. This is the claim to which this
essay attempts to give some (historical) content.
I do not have the ambition to come up with a full story, but to offer at least a
serious response to radical humanist hermeneutics. I hope to walk a few steps into
the direction of a zoo-hermeneutics.(1) These steps are as follows: After a general
articulation of the main points of human hermeneutics and some of its fundamental
extensions (an articulation which will provide the reader with some insight into
interpretation in its common anthropological context), I will tune in with some
possibilities for extension beyond the human realm as they seem to be available
within the hermeneutical tradition as officially conceived.(2) At least three moments
of extension offer themselves for further study: the metaphor of the book of nature,
hermeneutics as Lebensphilosophie (Wilhelm Dilthey), and last but not least Martin
Heidegger's words on animal being. The central question here is whether the
hermeneutical tradition is capable in these moments of going beyond humanity and
culture. I think only Heidegger, quite ambiguously, leads us toward animal
interpretation. To give animal interpretation better chances and more benevolent
appreciation it is necessary to step outside the field of official hermeneutics and to
visit the Umweltlehre of Jakob von Uexküll. Uexküll develops a theory which, I
believe, very fairly can be characterized as zoo-hermeneutics (at least, this will be my
claim). Subsequently, with an eye on Uexküll in combination with the already
received hermeneutical themes, basic points of zoo-hermeneutics can be given more
explicit formulation. I will propose Uexküll as a fertile opportunity to start up a
systematic hermeneutics of animal being. The conclusion of this essay will bring me
to some suggestions for further exploration of zoo-hermeneutics.

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Chapter I - Anthropo-hermeneutics
---
To be able to discuss animal interpretation as it may be suggested or not suggested in
official hermeneutic moments, it is quite necessary first to understand the basics of
interpretation as an anthropological concept. This basics will already involve us in a
politics of extension(remaining, however, in the human realm). Only afterwards is it
appropriate to read through certain hermeneutic moments where animal
interpretation appears to be implied. It is clear, namely, that animal interpretation
involves a specific extension of the concept of interpretation as it functions in the
realm of human beings. To understand the validity and quality of that extension
involves structural awareness about human interpretation.
In a first step, it is indeed important to clarify the concept of interpretation in its
basic anthropological setting, at least as it is conceived within the hermeneutical
tradition. Anthropo-hermeneutics can be divided in two fields. On the one hand we
have hermeneutics of texts - the most intense version of anthropo-hermeneutics. On
the other, there is existential hermeneutics - a broadened, and in that sense more
reaxed, form of anthropo-hermeneutics which takes us beyond the 'library', so to
speak.

1.1. Text-hermeneutics

Interpretation is a plurivocal word. It etymologically relates to 'in between' (inter)

and 'saying' or 'showing' (pres, a Latin term going back to the Greek term phrazo -
think of the word 'phrase' in English). An interpreter is a 'between-speaker', a
mediator of messages, like a translator who mediates between an original source and
its articulation to someone else. In the German language - the language in which
most of modern and contemporary hermeneutics has been conceived -
'interpretieren' can be connected with related words such as 'deuten' (to provide
accurate meaning and significance to something, to interpret) and 'verstehen'
(understanding, like in understanding a craft, or seeing a certain connection between
issues; 'Verstand' is the ability to understand or comprehend). We could say that
interpretation as a word underlines the aspect of indirectness and mediation, that
understanding as a word underlines the aspect of result (through interpretation, we
actually know - understand - how something works or what are its rules; when we
speak of a process of understanding we are refering to interpretation, to have actual
understanding implies success and immediacy - once something is understood, we
do not have to go through an insecure and longer process of interpretation again, the
confirmation of understanding in future times is direct and spontaneous). 'Deuten'
underlines the aspect of finding or creating meaning (which is the aim of
interpretation and what is accomplished in actual understanding). 'Deuten' therefore
is interpretation with the purpose of receiving something in its meaning. But this is
the point of every interpretation: 'interpretieren' is 'deuten' is 'attempting to
understand'. Hermeneutics, going back to the Greek word 'hermeneuo' (to express,
to translate, to interpret), is theory of interpretation - interpretation in whatever form
and function.
However whatever the possibilities of non-textual and non-linguistic
interpretieren or deuten or verstehen - possibilities which I will clarify some time
later in this essay - and whatever the more universal ambitious of hermeneutics as a
modern philosophical perspective, it is undoubtedly so that the fate of interpretation
is in hermeneutic literature (as it has been developed in our civilization) intimately
and primarily linked to the reading of texts (notably classical, Biblical and juridicial
texts). Let us therefore catch a glimpse of text-hermeneutics.
 Text-hermeneutics leads to a twofold scheme. First, the fate of interpretation is
intimately linked with the medium of the text. Texts need interpretion and whatever
we interpret is a text (or is treated as a text). Second, the complexity of text-
interpretation is celebrated as one of the highest capacities of being human. To live
without text-interpretation is almost to make oneself a lesser being.
The key concept is that of the hermeneutical circle.(3) Reading a text implies a
productive process of interaction between prejudgements and confirmations/
revisions, between parts and wholes. Reading is a coloured, selective and temporal
activity. We read a few lines (parts). These lines mean something to us by virtue of
our already acquired stock of beliefs and schemes. Subsequently, we develop a
provisional sense of the whole. This sense of the whole in its turn steers our
interpretation of the next parts, which again influence our sense of the whole,
and so on. This circular structure of reading is what interpretation is all about.
Without this circularity we cannot speak of interpretation.
Some (text-)hermeneuticists leave interpretational truth behind. Driven by
particular inclinations and prejudgements, texts are constructed by the reader in
personal ways. The 'personal creation of meaning’- theory underlines the relation
between interpretation and personal orientation. We select and receive what is
important to us, and we see it in a certain way because of our tendencies and needs
which bring us to interpret things in specific ways. Other interpretational theorists
still defend truthful interpretation. According to them the interpretational circle of
mediation and interaction is not necessarily negative. When the reader is patient and
allows him or herself to be well informed about words, textual coventions and
authorial intentions, his interpretation of a text may be fairly appropriate. We still
arive at interpretations of texts which may in later stages need revision, but the
process of reading is not a boundless game. The 'rational interpretation' - theory
underlines the human capacity to break through one's own limitations and
orientations by way of dialogue, confrontation, critique, doubt and comparison.

1.2. Existential hermeneutics

We certainly do injustice to the hermeneutical tradition if we portray it as only being

involved with interpretation of texts. Next to this intense concern for textuality
hermeneutics has extended itself toward the field of existential hermeneutics, notably
in the nineteenth and twentieth century.(4) Interpretation is proposed as the
fundamental human way of being. We do not only interpret texts, but basically
everything - textless and wordless realities included. What 'is' for us, is interpreted
being. We interpret ourselves, others, actions, history, art works, dreams, houses,
streets, trees, animals, entities, aspects of being. Existential hermeneutics or
hermeneutical anthropology is, consequently, a philosophical study of the different
processes of interpretation at work in human lives as such. The 'little' problematics of
literary interpretation is now situated within a broader frame. We can leave the
library and be concerned with interpretation as full creation of existential meaning,
wherever we are and whatever we do.
How to appreciate interpretation in its existential hermeneutics version?
Existential hermeneutics remains, expectedly perhaps, determined by the originally
textual definition of interpretation. Certain human non-textual (and non-linguistic)
realities and happenings - namely (parts of) life histories and histories - are
considered as text-analogues.(5) Interpretation of ourselves, for example, is always
interpretation of a personal past. This past is a complex sequence of elements (is
interpreted as such a sequence) Self-knowledge, subsequently, is the provisional
effect of interpreting elements and connections between elements. And this play of
connection is significantly similar - so existential hermeneutics stresses - to the
interaction of parts and wholes in text-interpretation.
We also meet again the debate on subjective and rational interpretation.
Existential hermeneuticists are inclined to opt for the theory of personal creation,
certainly when interpretation of oneself is on the line.(6) A text in a sense is already
there as a stable form of otherness. It is more visible when a text is 'misread'. But an
interpretation of ourselves is based on an existence in development. It is much less
clear what is and what is not. Furthermore, to some extent we invent ourselves
through our interpretations (at least so it is argued). To interpret one's efforts in the
past as a sign that one has the potentiality to become an artist may actually
constructively serve one's striving toward becoming an actual artist; What is the truth
of this interpretation? Obviously, some real things have to be there in the past (acts of
drawing and so on), but to take these things as a confirming part of a larger whole
that is yet to come (namely artisthood) is not exactly a reading of what is, but of what
one dreams of becoming true. 'Personal truth' often is personal prophecy.
The model of the text strikes back in existential hermeneutics in yet another
manner. The reading of texts (literature, poetry, the classics) is unambiguously
proposed as the central experience of being human. We may leave the library but
should continue to read, otherwise self-development will be below standard
perfection. Paul Ricoeur's philosophy, for example, is a monumental defense of the
existential value of reading. Not incidently, he proposes the figure of a humble self
(which is not self-sufficient in his or her strive for meaning) as a 'disciple du texte'.(7)
However, there is one structural difference between text-interpretation and life
history/history-interpretation. Although lingual and textual expressions - and earlier
interpretations - are elements with which we may have to deal in self-interpretation,
many elements of our past are simply wordless (feelings, actions, objects, events). Of
course, also the wordless is humanly interpreted through the medium of language -
the interpretation of the wordless is itself linguistically expressed, and in any case
influenced by the many concepts and words which have infiltrated our cognitive
being. But - and this is important - interpretation does not make the wordless and
textless as such a sequence of words, sentences and narratives. This point should
teach us to be rather prudent in applying the model of the text beyond its literal (and
literary) reality.
Some will want to limit the breadth of existential hermeneutics. To be sure,
histories and life histories are complex human realities and we can easily consider
the interpretation of these realities as a temporal, perspectival and coloured process.
To be sure, the relations between the different parts of histories/life histories to some
extent match the relations between words and lines in texts. And words and texts are
anyway persistent in histories/life histories, as we already know. But can we
automatically say the same about other forms of interpretation to which existential
hermeneutics wishes to refer, notably the activity of seeing objects? Is the immediacy
and spontaneity of vision, as we experience this every day, not epistemological
opposed to the mediation and extendedness of interpretation as a circular
movement?
However, we should not be fooled by the so-called immediacy of seeing - this is
also the warning of existential hermeneutics, notably in its cognitive hermeneutics-
version.(8) To perceive an object is to see it 'as' something. Language and culture
clearly influence what we see. It is for humans practically impossible not to see a
chair 'as' chair and not to name it as a chair. Furthermore, beyond all culture and
language even, it is not at all irrelevant to see a hermeneutical circle in action in the
human perception of things as such. This serves as an analytical remark, in reality we
immediately see an object as something, but what we know about the cognitive
constitution of eyes and brain does theoretically support a hermeneutics of
perception. This is the way our cognitive system works. We do not see objects in their
immediate totality, but rather a complexity of sides which are received in
togetherness by way of a temporal process, but which we do not notice as process
due to earlier habits of succesful understanding. When I see a box, I immediately
define it as a whole box - and as a box in the first place - by virtue of the workings of
earlier experience and informed prejudgement. After reflection, however, it should
be clear that I see parts of the box which by virtue of my sense of the whole ‘turn’
into the togetherness of a box. If temporal process is admitted, then the
hermeneutical circle can in priniciple be introduced as analytic description of what in
real life will not be experienced as hermeneutically circular. The drama of these
perceptional circles, obviously, must be different from the one involved in text-
interpretation and interpretation of the personal past. It is, so to speak, not a 'long-
term interpretational adventure', but a radical 'miniature short story'. Moreover, the
interpretation of my past may suddenly change - after crisis or tragic event I may
come to see a new (possible) self with a differently interpreted past - but my
perceptual interpretation of an object - a stone or a tree - is in most normal cases
highly stable, is in fact to large extent immobile and unfree. The self is able to revise
self-interpretation drastically, but is determined (simply by being human) to see
forms, colours and objects in certain ways.

1.3. One version of a hermeneutics of animal being

One should not fail to remark that existential hermeneutics as such already implies a
preliminary version of hermeneutics of animal being, namely insofar such a
hermeneutics could be considered a theory about human interpretation of animals. If
indeed everything we see is interpreted, then our observations of animals are of
course also interpretational, according to rules already outlined (hermeneutical circle,
model of the text). In this general and perhaps thin sense existential hermeneutics can
immediately harbor a hermeneutics of animal being (which would then be a
'regional' hermeneutical study of the particularities of human interpretation of
animals). Of course, most hermeneuticists - existential or textual - do not really care
about this animal realm. While offering an extension of the field of interpretation
beyond strict textualism, existential hermeneutics remains focussed on affairs of
human expression and meaning. There is virtually no conception of animals as being
themselves interpreters, even if there is a certain logic in this extension (If we
interpret objects in the world beyond textualism, why would animals not have
something like this? Do they not have to find their way in situations and experiences?
Can one think animal life without a process of 'finding a way'? And can one
subsequently define this process as something non-interpretational?)
However, it is fruitful to take with us the problematics of human interpretation
of animals as a first, incomplete hermeneutics of animal being. The next step is to see
whether hermeneutics of animal being could here and there imply or suggest animal
interpretation next to human interpretation of animals. This is what I will analyse in
the next chapter.

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2. Animal interpretation: three hermeneutical moments
---

The history of hermeneutics is, as we already know, a story of extension. It is

therefore not so unlogical to inquire whether the problematics of interpretation can
actually be conceptually brought beyond humanity, and whether the hermeneutical
tradition - as it stands - could be of any assistance. While not attempting a complete
narrative about possible moments within the hermeneutical tradition (as officially
received) where something like animal interpretation eventually receives a voice, I
will still be able to tune in with certain of the most significant moments. And in that
sense, there will be sufficient paradigmatic value in my analysis. Three important
'moments' come to mind: the metaphor of the book of nature, Wilhelm Dilthey’s
philosophy of life, and Martin Heidegger's view on animals in Die Grundbegriffe der
Metaphysik. The 'book of nature' is a ubiquitous metaphor which cannot be pinned
down to just a few authors. Dilthey and Heidegger belong to the field of existential
hermeneutics (Heidegger is in fact connected to ontological hermeneutics, which
deals with the history of being and its interpretation, notably through a study of
Dasein's interpretation of being - but this, in my view, brings us rather back to the
field of existential hermeneutics, since Heidegger deals with human interpretation of
being).

2.1. The book of nature (9)

The metaphor of the book of nature belongs to a christian hermeneutics of nature.(10)

Romanticist hermeneutics has equally appropriated this metaphor. And its use
extends beyond the hermeneutical tradition as such. Also Galileo Galilei applies it to
nature. He wishes to understand the book of nature by understanding its language
and its letters, which are for him mathematical in nature.(16) But even if the book of
nature is applied in the context of natural science - a discipline not considering itself
hermeneutic in character - the metaphor itself remains hermeneutical to the bone.(11)
In its core it suggests an extension from the field where hermeneutical problematics
is deeply at home - the reading of books - to a field where one does not observe texts
at all, namely nature.
The book of nature metaphor goes beyond the 'old opposition' between nature
and book.(12) The freshness of nature is in this opposition placed against the reality
of old, dusty books - books written over from other textual sources, without
innovation and rational energy. The reflection on nature is seen as an anti-bookish
experience. But sometimes the opposition between fresh experience of nature and
dusty books is sustained by way of the metaphor of the book of nature. Goethe, for
example, relates 'das leichte, einfältige Buch der Natur' to the awakening of authentic
experience - an experience quite different from library room experience.(13)
Whatever the fate of this opposition, what matters here for us is of course the fact that
the notion of the book makes contact with the realm of nature. This is perhaps one of
the more significant points in Western history of ideas.
Once applied to nature, one might expect this metaphor of the book of nature to
argue - at least in some of its versions - for the idea that also animals can be 'readers'
of a book of nature, perhaps their own book of nature. However, the history of the
hermeneutical application of the book of nature metaphor has to my knowledge not
given rise to a conception of animals as readers (or authors). This metaphor rather
implies that we - human beings - should read and interpret the book of nature as an
expression of God's intention and goodness (romanticists would perhaps speak about
the divine or the absolute). Parts of nature (for example animals) are as such not
considered to be involved in activities of interpretation. The letters, words and
sentences of nature are written by God or express the divine realm. He is the author,
and we are the readers.(14) The book of nature rather refers to theo-textuality (god
provides the text) and anthropo-reading (human beings reading God's intention
through his book). The traditional interpretation of the book of nature is thus limited
in its vision concerning the eventual hermeneutical capacities of animals. Hence, the
moment of the book of nature, traditionally conceived, cannot really serve us in an
effort to validate animal interpretation. Of course, the issue may be to remain open
for new and alternative versions of the book of nature.(15)
Some more remarks are necessary. How to appreciate as such the model of the
text in nature? It should be clear that the traditional application of the book-metaphor
is carried out with a sense of distance (although, it takes concrete study of the
different authors to estimate what is going on exactly). It is visually obvious, namely,
that trees or stones or animals are not letters, sentences and chapters in any literal
sense. What is then in fact the motivation for metaphorically applying the 'text' to
nature? One can, I think, point to several similarities.(16) First of all, similar to texts is
perhaps the fact that parts of nature refer to each other. A particular animal can only
exist by virtue of relations (of support, antagonism, mutualism and appropriation) to
other animals, species, plants, trees and rivers. Equally, a particular word or sentence
is in its meaning defined - and only exists - by way of relations to other words and
sentences. Second, the book-metaphor expresses a sense of totality. The world can for
example be seen as a story, a narrative unity. The speculative or personal experience
of the world and its history as a suggested totality of meaning finds eloquent
translation in the notion of the book, with its perfect totality wherein chapters and
lines play a defined role. Another relevant point of similarity between nature and text
is God's position as the controlling origin of the earth and its creatures, not unlike the
ruling position of the author as intelligent designer of a text. This insight seems to
work both ways in religious argument. Since nature seems a meaningful and ordered
interplay of natural law and interaction between natural entities it must have an
intelligent origin. Hence, God is proposed as author. And since God is the author of
this world, life and interaction on the earth must in principle have (hidden) meaning
and order (romanticist conceptions of nature as a book - in Goethe, Schelling and
others - like to stress hidden meaning; nature is a poem of which we do not possess
the hermeneutical key).(17) Finally, there is the fact (already encountered in
'cognitive hermeneutics') that human interpretation of aspects of reality - objects, but
also interaction between objects, hence nature - is structured under the rule of a
hermeneutical circle. We could then say that we read nature and parts of nature as a
'text' (a sequential understanding of parts, and interaction between parts and sense of
whole), simply because our cognitive apparatus does not permit any other
structuration in our understanding of nature. This last point tells perhaps more about
the textualizing drive of human mind than about the intrinsic 'textual' aspects of
nature as such (and this suggests an important problem, underlined in
deconstructionism: the categories of human interpretation force some kind of
textualism upon nature, but nature is itself a non-text never to be grasped, since the
human interpretative effort automatically transforms things in textually organized
realities - or rather, in realities which are interpreted by way of circular structuration
which is very similar to what happens in the understanding of texts; we are then
Monsieur texte all the way down, since everything we touch is somehow
'textualized'). There is the danger that the nature as book metaphor will, in our
postmodern times, only be valued in a radical constructionist sense, namely as
symbol of the imperialistically minded operation within human beings to textualize
what is not a text in itself.
The conclusion must be that the metaphor of the book of nature seems initially
to harbor the suggestion - by way of its rhetorical promise, I would say - an opening
toward a hermeneutics of animal being and toward animal interpretation. After a
closer look, however, it is quite clear that the 'book of nature' functions as a metaphor
in a theo-hermeneutic and anthropo-hermeneutic scheme, nothing else really. This
doesn't mean we have to neglect future possibilities of this metaphor. Perhaps we can
provide a new turn and offer new content. This is something to keep in mind for
later, when we more constructively arrive at a theory of animal interpretation - a
theory which perhaps can benefit from the metaphor of the book of nature, in the
context of an alternative reception.
2.2. Dilthey's philosophy of life

The second relevant moment for us is situated in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth
century. In this period we find different authors bringing together the notions of
interpretation and life. Especially Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutic Lebensphilosophie
should concern us.(18) He is perhaps the most eminent hermeneuticist of the later
nineteenth century. In his works he often refers to the general notion of Leben (life).
He characterizes the riddle of life as the 'dark and fearful theme of all philosophy'.
(19) Does this perhaps mean that biological being receives a higher position in
relation to tasks of interpretation? Is perhaps bios (animal being) itself involved in
interpretative action? Let us see.
With Dilthey we have to follow his words on life and expression in order to get
at the task of interpretation. He reacts first of all against rationalism and
intellectualism. For him the realm of life is dynamic and creative, and the authentic
source of personal and cultural development. In Dilthey there is a sense of vitalism
serving as an alternative for culturalism without life. But while it is so that the notion
of life somehow 'borrows' from life in a biological context, Dilthey actually only
intends Leben within the human realm. Leben is full and 'unmutilated' human
experience, involving cognition, willing and feeling. We, humans, have a nature - a
nature unconsciously effective in us.(20) When Dilthey thus claims that lived
experience expresses itself in signs - language, art, but also gestures and facial
expressions - and that the task of interpretation is exactly to understand these signs,
he does not really refer to life in spiders or whales or lions. One author therefore
concludes: 'While appreciating the biological basis of life, he [Dilthey] never
emphasized it very much in his work'.(21) Hermeneutic philosophy of Leben is a
theory of human existence - an existence whose source of expression lies in a
prereflexive and vital realm.
Even so, I think we can say that the idea of 'life' at least to some extent breaks
the intellectual picture of man. Instead of bringing animals closer to human
expression, Dilthey 'vitalizes' human signification. From the perspective of
zoohermeneutics this is a fruitful step - a step which at least softens the gap between
human rationality and vital otherness. If expression can be connected to a prerational
and fundamental realm of life, then we already open up toward a different sense of
expression. This movement toward the vital as meaningful is furthermore confirmed
in Dilthey's view on varieties of expression.(22) He does, namely, not only refer to
'eminent' expressions such as artworks and novels, but to actions, facial signs, bodily
expressions. Think of a smile, gesture, tone of a voice, or trembling. These bodily
events refer to something else, namely the mood or state of being of someone. These
organic signs, which give expression to life, are in Dilthey confined to a story about
humans - but is it that hard to extend organic signs to the realm of animals? There is
animal gesture, posture and so on. One could perhaps argue that expression is
intentional in human beings, and that intentionality is an essential part of the
definition of something as an expression. However, while there must be purpose or
point to expressional being, Dilthey clearly allows unconsciously produced
expressions. We may be not aware that we dress in certain ways, hereby giving
expression to something. Furthermore, it is also not difficult, I think, to see point in
animal ways of expression. Certain animal postures are meant to accomplish
something (for example, to impress and scare away an animal opponent), even if not
through conscious semiotic behavior which so much characterizes human
expression. Dilthey's sense of organic or bodily expression is another step away from
'intellectualized hermeneutics', and therefore in its own small way fills the gap
between thinking selves and so-called mindless animals. Perhaps one can say that
Dilthey - like Freud and others - opens up a fuzzy logic between the poles of
rationalist mind and non-mind.
One question though. Is it perhaps the case that human life only results in
expresssional outlet because of the very typical nature of human vitality, whereas
animal life does not imply this typical need for expression, because of another type of
vital being? Think of Freud's theory of sublimation in which the need for cultural
production is related to a very specific structure of human personality. It is clear that
the higher expressions (paintings, music and so on), which are not available in
animals, are connected with a hermeneutic teleology in Dilthey. Our Leben can only
be interpreted by way of its expressions. Put otherwise: if we wish to know ourselves
(and 'self-knowledge' is a primary hermeneutic task in Dilthey or any other
existential hermeneuticist) we need a) to express ourselves , and b) to interpret these
expressions. This structurally implies that these expressions are themselves
interpretations of human life (as it is personalized in an individual), and that
subsequent interpretations of these interpretations are themselves expressions
(interpretations which are uttered to ourselves or others). This theme of self-
knowledge is not present in animal being, we can fairly assume. But this still leaves
the possibility of animal life being expressed, not for matters of self-knowledge, but
in function of others (enemies, mates). And these expressions are to be interpreted by
those others for which they are intended. If there is expression, there is a life - an
animal life not in search of itself, but in search of self-maintenance. In one of his very
rare passages on animals (passages always marginally situated between
anthropological issues) Dilthey does recognize (but does not further clarify) the
relation between life and expression in animals: 'Die Struktur und Artikulation des
Lebens ist überall, wo psychisches Innen auftritt, sonach in der ganzen Tier-und
Menschenwelt dieselbe.'(23)
There is much in Dilthey that confirms and clarifies the interpretational (and
expressional) excellence of human beings, quite in line with the idea of existential
hermeneutics (narrative self-interpretation, creation of life story, fiction and so on).
Since a human person expresses himself, he needs to interpret these signs, and the
signs of others. Higher signs (texts, for example) need to be received through higher
forms of interpretation. Texts imply ambiguity, distance, and conflict of
interpretation, There is often a trouble of interpretation. But there is also elementary
understanding between persons in common life. This process runs automatic and
spontaneous, almost intuitively. Think of understanding someone's facial expression.
What is the relevance of this elementary form of understanding in relation to the
problematics of animal interpretation? Again, Dilthey is not really concerned with
this. However, one could refer to certain moments in between. When Dilthey refers
to human reception of the outside world, the way we perceive objects and so on, he
seems to avoid the concept of Verstehen (as elementary understanding).(24) After
all, what is the message of a tree? And yet, how would he then call this act of
perception? He does not give it a name (besides perception of course, but then the
question is: what is the character of perfection as such). Dilthey's ommisions simply
disturb. Since he also has passages on animals and their perception of an outside, we
can allow ourselves to be equally disturbed about the lack of interpretational
tretament. In this sense the relevance of understanding in the animal world remains
quite visibly there as a question without sufficient response .(25)
Another point about Dilthey concerns an obstacle that blocks human
understanding of animals as creators of original meaning, namely his strong
conviction that the act of succesfully interpreting others is in the human context
made possible because of the 'Gemeinsamheit menschlichen Wesens'.(26) For Dilthey
we do not have this sense of affiliation and community with non-human nature - a
nature which can only be explained (Erklären) by the natural sciences (in lien with
their methodology), while humans and their signs can be understood (Verstehen). In
line with this, Dilthey refers to the constructive role of sympathy.(27) And we can
only feel sympathy with other humans, so it seems to be suggested. Dilthey is in fact
quite clear about the fact that we cannot get at the truth of 'tierischen
Lebensäußerungen' and of 'das in ihnen sich abspiegelnde Geistige'. However, since
he does refer - albeit marginally - to a life of animal mind and expression (and hence
interpretation, since expressions are to be interpreted), one may wonder whether
scientific explanation is the only appropriate response to animal ways of being. But
this is not Dilthey's problem.
 It will perhaps be possible to transform Dilthey's notion of vital expressionism
and hermeneutic vitalism more fully beyond anthropology, namely in critical
response to his ommissions. For now, however, the reader can only be asked to keep
this beyond in mind.

2.3. Heidegger

The third and most interesting moment, undoubtedly, is that of hermeneutics à la

Heidegger. Heidegger is supposed to constitute yet another phase of extension
within philosophical hermeneutics: from anthropological hermeneutics to ontological
hermeneutics. I do not believe this is a real extension, since ontological hermeneutics
refers to the problematics of the interpretation of being as far as it is carried out by
human selves The real hero in Being and Time, even if contrary to Heidegger's
intention, is the Dasein. However, Heidegger is certainly not a library philosopher.
And since it was impossible for him to live without mountains and woods, he is also
not a city philosopher. Natural being matters to him, and has a remarkable presence
in his writings. But whether this will lead to a Heideggerian philosophy of animal
interpretation is (as we shall see) quite another issue.
In general terms, for Heidegger the problematics of ontology implies
hermeneutics exactly because being can only be experienced through interpretation.
Therefore, to study being we have to study the beings who foremostly interpret
being. In his later thought, Heidegger offers us a narrative about the history of the
disclosure and concealment of being.(28) Sometimes it appears that he situates the
source of initiative of this process of disclosure and concealment in being and
instances of being. But how can being itself take initiatives? How can being claim
human voices of thinkers and poets as its instruments of expression? It is difficult to
comprehend being as a source of initiative without somehow projecting human
capacities into being. In a curved way, Heidegger's later ontology remains quite
infected with anthropology. What furthermore concerns us is the fact that
Heidegger's ontological hermeneutics does not really wish to thematize
interpretation beyond human interpretation. Being and aspects of being do not
interpret themselves. Again, only humans do the work of interpretation.
But there is that one peculiar exception: Heidegger's lectures on world and world
experience, given in 1929-30.(29) Suddenly, animal being is directly discussed - a
discussion occupying more than two hundred pages. These lectures constitute
nothing less than the basic moment where 'official' twentieth century hermeneutics
gives original consideration to animals. Not unexpectedly, we see nowadays the rise
of a separate stream of exegesis, focussing on these remarkable lectures of Heidegger.
(30) Animal minded readers, however, will find themselves divided between positive
reception and disappointment. Heidegger's lectures are themselves split up between
a generous reading of animal meaning and a glorification of human hermeneutical
excellence, hereby making animal meaning again marginal.(31) Heidegger's
discourse is - as Derrida comments - contradictory, ackward and even violent.(32)
Heidegger does not explicitly use the term animal interpretation (Verstehen,
Deutung, Auslegung). But his concrete descriptions of animal response to aspects of
being strongly suggest the idea of animal interpretation (his unwillingness to be
more explicit may already foreshadow a glorification of human interpretation).
Stones are weltlos (worldless), since there is no openess to the world. Stones cannot
experience aspects of being. Animals do have an openess toward the world. They
experience aspects of being. A lizard spots a thing to lie on (we would call it 'a stone
warmed up by the sun'). In the world-experience of the lizard there are no stones or
tables, but only 'lizard-things'. The same object is something else for a human being
and a dog. Unintended perhaps, Heidegger clarifies well why animals cannot but be
conceived as interpreters of aspects of being. If, for example, there was only one
species (humans) on earth, there would be no material for comparison. And without
comparison and difference, how to realize that an openess to the world is a highly
specific openess - perspectival, partial and therefore interpretational? Since
Heidegger compares, he makes us conscious of the presence and variety of
interpretation - of humans and animals, When there is difference of reception and
response in animals, one must assume interpretation - interpretation which differs
from human reception of the world.
On the one hand, Heidegger appreciates the openess of animals. Animals are
not weltlos, this is indeed a constructive point. Animals are not like stones, neither
can they be confused with machines (in animals there is an urge to be, organic being
is an original realm of Fähigkeiten). In one passage, Heidegger underlines even that
it cannot really be a good idea to characterize humans as higher and animals as lower
organisms.(33) Moreover, quite in tune with Heidegger's cultural pessimism, no-one
can sink deeper than human beings. We are the destructive entities, we are the
destroyers. The advantage of comparison may not go our way.(35) For example, the
perceptual capabilities of falcons outsail human perceptual possibilities in principal
aspects. Furthermore, in the world of animals every entity is involved in its own
perfection, and to compare these perfections according to a scale of higher and lower
(informed by what we cherish as humans) is rather futile.(36)
On the other, it predominantly remains the case that Heidegger cherishes
human interpretation. He frequently approaches animal interpretation
diminishingly, and does involve himself in a comparison with interpretational
human excellence: animals are weltarm (poverty of world experience), while human
beings are instances of Weltbildung (world development).(37) We have for example
the ability, so Heidegger remarks, to interpret objects as enduring totalities, while
animals are often only capable to sense objects in function of the play of their
momentary animal inclinations. Once the inclinations are satisfied the objects are
ignored: they simply fade away for the animal. The animal is captured in an Umring.
It is not difficult to come up with other human excellences: language, narrative being
and so on. These excellences place man in confrontation with beings, which can be
spoken about, which can be manipulated and transformed. In his study on Nietzsche
we see a Heidegger prepared to refuse the insight that a bird experiences a meaning
of nesting and feeding places. Heidegger connects the possibility of meaning with
having a language to name aspects of being.(38) Hence, animals do not experience
meaning.
To be sure, it would be unfruitful not to appreciate human excellences. Indeed,
we should not be bothered much with Heidegger's confirmation of these excellences,
it is rather his failure to remain long enough with the many different lives of animals
(it may take a non-reductionist biologist or ethologist to be able to do so) and with a
sustained appreciation of animal versions of original interpretation, which may have
value in their own terms and beyond any comparison with humans.(39) At times
Heidegger supports such an appreciation. In other instances he doen't care for it.
With all those twists and turns one conclusion seems to remain in place: animal
interpretation is not what ultimately matters in Heidegger's vast ontological project.
Even so, Heidegger did suggest, albeit indirectly, something like animal
interpretation ( and it should be noted that one of the main differences with Dilthey
is exactly the fact that Heidegger reflects on animals beyond the marginal -
Heideggerean reference to nature and animals in comparison with Dilthey's
minimalism is highly significant).
It remains, however, for others to hold on to this idea and further it in a proper
direction. Such an enterprise brings us beyond 'official' hermeneutics.

3. Toward a full theory of animal interpretation

We have discussed text-hermeneutics, existential hermeneutics and three

hermeneutical moments where in first instance an extension toward animal being
seems to be at play. We have had attention for similarities and differences between
text-interpretation and realms beyond the literal text. Hence, we have acquired a
robust understanding of the concept of interpretation as it functions in anthropo-
hermeneutics. With Heidegger we were able to conceive something like animal
interpretation, albeit dimly and ambiguously. If one author can bring the
hermeneutic debate a few steps further it is someone mentioned rather negatively by
Heidegger in his 1929-30 lectures, namely Jakob von Uexküll.(40)

3.1. Uexküll's Umweltlehre

Von Uexküll was an Estonian-German biologist and philosopher of biology. He died

in the fourties. Mainly with the inspiration received from von Uexküll's work, we can
come to something like bio-hermeneutics, more specifically zoo-hermeneutics
(animal interpretation). In his time, Uexküll enjoyed fame. He was even proposed
twice for a Nobel prize (without becoming a laureate though). Today he is largely
unknown to the philosophical (and ecological) public. Only in semiotics of nature
(and radical constructivism) we find his name mentioned with honour. Especially
semioticians of nature (notably Thomas Sebeok) like to think of Uexküll as a bio-
semiotician avant la lettre. However, it is far more accurate, I believe, to connect his
name with the idea of animal interpretation rather than animal semiosis. The
problematics of interpretation of course includes sign-interpretation, and Uexküll
would not deny the importance of sign interpretation and full semiosis, but he does
not structurally thematize it.
Another preliminary point to be noted is that Uexküll (like Heidegger) does in
fact not explicitly refer to the notion of animal interpretation. And yet, the issue is
there all the time - much more generously than has ever been the case in Heidegger's
work. Not being a hermeneuticist, the book of nature (combined with related
metaphors such as nature as a 'music score') does seem to function as a root
metaphor in Uexküll. It is certainly not a trivial fact that he articulates the wish to
look for meaning 'im Buche der lebenden Natur' (in the book of living nature).(41)
Furthermore, Uexküll refers to and is constantly occupied with meaning (Bedeutung)
in nature. One of his main publications carries the title of Bedeutungslehre.(42) The
word Bedeutung is not unrelated to Deutung (interpretation). To see Uexküll as bio-
hermeneuticist is, due to the presence of hermeneutically relevant notions, an
informed step to take. Let us articulate Uexküll's insights, which will be related to
hermeneutical problematics.
The first two points can be taken together:
One, animals create and live in species-specific Umwelten (subjective
environments, aspects of being as perceived and acted upon by a species.(43) The
world of the fly - a series of surfaces - is drastically different from the world of the bat
which has to determine its course by way of sounds. According to Uexküll, each
animal Umwelt is constituted by a functional cycle (Funktionskreises) between
perception and operation. For an ant, for example, part of the properties of an object
(the stem of a flower) serve as perceptual cue-carriers (Merkmal-Trägern). The
ridged surface of the stem, for example, is for the ant a touch perceptual cue, which is
meaningful to the ant. It is for the ant a way of passage. The ant receives this aspect
of being as ‘walk-through thing’. Furthermore, part of the properties of the same
object serve as effector cue-carriers (Wirkmal-Trägern). At times this can be that part
which also functions as perceptual cue-carrier, like in the the ant’s case. The
uneveness of the stem’s surfacefunctions also as effector cue for the ant's feet (the ant
receives it as an aspect of being on which it is best to act on). In other cases, the
properties of an object related to perception and operation may be different. For a
little girl the color of blossom in a flower is an optical perceptual cue, (a beautiful
flower), while the thinnest point of the stemserves as effector cue (picking the flower
at that thinnest point). Animal (and human) environments are constituted as an
interplay between things noticed and things acted upon. The intimate connection
between perception and action is well pointed out in Uexküll.
Two, already in line with the first point, there are no neutral objects or worlds
for animals (and humans). Meanings are imprinted by subjects upon otherwise
meaningless objects.(44) Objects without any role in relation to a particular Umwelt
simply do not exist for the animal involved. Furthermore, in different Umwelten the
same object may constitutes a different reality. A table for humans is a thing to lie
under for a dog. There is a reciprocal relation between world-experience and
organism. The organs of the fly are in tune with the demands and tasks within its
Umwelt, while at the same time its Umwelt is created through the capacities and
actualities of the sense organs of the fly. Needs or interests and capacities give rise to
a certain Umwelt, and the Umwelt refers to and demands certain capacities and
interests.
Uexküll, in fact, explains well why animals are interpreters. Umwelt is
constituted by virtue of the acts of selection, appropriation and reception in animals.
These acts have the characteristics of interpretation. Could we also say that a
hermeneutic circle is at work? Obviously, humans are capable of extended and
revisable circles of interpretation. We cannot expect the same kind of hermeneutic
circle in animals, but still: when a cat interprets an object as prey (expectation,
preliminary sense of the whole), she can subsequently test her interpretation by way
of turning the object around to see whether it will move. Here we see interaction
between expectation and confirmation/revision. Beyond that, we can perhaps
consider each animal species as the embodiment of a ‘specific’ hermeneutical circle
(with an Umwelt as result). While the complexities and liberties of the hermeneutical
circle in the context of reading texts are not found back in the life of a tick or bat,
there is still something that allows the idea of a hermeneutic circle - vital versions of
hermeneutic circles, which cannot be overturned and which define the being of
animals. Uexküll’s version of hermeneutics is pragmaticist. Succesful interpretations
keep the animal alive. Some would doubt that animal interpretations are instances of
knowledge. But interpretation is a way of orientation. There is something in animal
interpretation that provides the animal with information. How else to survive? The
selective reception of aspects of being is knowledge, not in the conscious human
manner, but an animal knows his ways through woods, rivers and mountains.
Three, every Umwelt refers back to a subject, which is for Uexküll defined as a
'Zentrum einer Umwelt'. World-experience is subjective experience.(45) Each animal
subject is a concerned and interested builder of its environment. Von Uexküll gives
the notion of subject a biological (and interpretational) content beyond human
subjectivity. Of course, he does not argue that animals have experience similar to
human selves in their selfhood. But versions of animal being testify to something
particular - a point from where construction radiates.
This third point leads to the following hermeneutic conclusion. If there is
interpretation (as we can call it) there must be a source - an interpreting entity, a
subject that stays alive through interpretation. Interpretation is of vital importance.
Uexküll defines subject in fact as interpreting entity. Interpretation matters to an
entity which, through interpretation, testifies that things matter to it. We are
accustomed to use the term subject for the full human self with his memories and
projects, his individuality, self-knowledge and self-ideals. But there is something in
animal interpretation that relates to the individual animal organism as an instinctual
effort to be. The figure of ‘interpreting animal’ also brings to light a conception of the
book of nature with the inclusion of ‘readers’ beyond humanity. ’Reader’ is taken
metaphorically, since animal interpreters do not read texts, but their lives of
interpretation provide enough nutrition for applying the reading metaphor. Ats of
reading and books serve as symbols of meaning in human society. To call animals
readers is thus to underline the fact that they are involved in projects of meaning.
That is a huge benefit - a rhetorical benefit, if you will. We should subsequently not
destroy this benefit by taking a literal stance to animal reading. Uexküll’s articulation
of what happens interpretatively in the animal world seems a fertile reinterpretation
of animal reading.
The two last points can - again - be taken together, as they will allow us to come
further to terms with a renewed conception of the book of nature and the role of
humans in it:
Four, an important metaphor in Uexküll's writings is that of musical
composition (Bedeutungssymphonie).(46) Organic being of animals implies points
and contra-points - like in music. A substantial part of the Umwelt of an animal
consists of (responding to) other animal species. The lion's teeth have as their contra-
point the flesh of certain animals. The characteristics of the flesh lead to the form of
teeth. A spider's web has as its contra-point flies which cannot sense the web's lines.
The non-sensing of the web by the flies is part of the raison d'etre of the web. All
animals, playing their personal pieces of music, form larger compositions. The
natural world as such seems to be a grand composition which suggests a plan of
nature, constituted by a rich texture of connecting and sometimes overlapping
Umwelten. The connection between subjective worlds is not only a matter of
harmony, but also of battle and deceit. Certain animals with parasites have a place in
the subjective world of birds which eat these parasites. This is an example of
mutualism between these animals and the birds, and an example of antagonism
between parasites/animals and parasites/birds. Music is itself of course a totality of
mutualism and antagonism. Von Uexküll is not very explicit about the ultimate
development of the global plan of nature. There is no proposal for a grand
teleological scheme, but there is the suggestion that all the Umwelten are voices that
take part in a universal score which ultimately works. In line with the spirit of
Uexküll's work, there seem to be many little functional teleologies within Umwelten,
and the 'miracle' is that they form together something symphonic. Uexküll's sense of
universal score is a conceptual result of his systematic observation of 'what happens
in nature'.(47)
Five, Uexküll believes in human modesty as well as human capacity. Human
selves can try to understand something of the Umwelten of other creatures. There is
no direct insight, but animals move and act in ways which reveals what their Umwelt
must be about. The first maxim for Uexküll is to realize that our world experience is a
typical human experience, and that animal beings live in different worlds. Is our
world the best? Uexküll refuses human arrogance and insists there is a plurality of
Umwelten each having particular worth.(48) To be sure, qua interpretational variety,
Uexküll does consider the world experience of dogs to be richer than those of flies,
and those of men richer than those of dogs. But even so, each Umwelt is functional
and unique in its own right. Superiority would shift anyway: in a jungle humans are
lost, but a snake lives well and succesfully.
On the one hand, the fact that there is a plurality of Umwelten serves the
conviction that there is not simply one book of nature. Humans have theirs, and each
animal species has its own ‘book’. On the other, these species - with their Umwelten -
interact with each other: Uexküll’s metaphor of symphony conveys the idea that all
these books of species and individuals constitute chapters of a grand book of nature
(a symphony is ultimately a score, a book of music). Uexküll refuses to consider the
grand book of nature as a defined teleological narrative. Things happen, they can be
observed, and subsequently the metaphors of book and symphony are relevant
because they express something of the lives of meaning that seem to be going on in
nature. There is for Uexküll no sublime or perfect author behind it all. There are
chapters who write themselves, and the togetherness of melodies or chapters offers
something that works in wonderful ways. The response to this should be perplexity,
not definition and teleology.
What is the interpretative role of mankind? Are we the ones that can see the
whole book? Uexküll wrestles with ambiguities. On the one hand, Uexküll - as
interpreter! - tells us something about nature and animals. While he stresses the fact
that we live in our own Umwelt (we cannot change our cognition nor the structure of
our eyes), he does believe he tells a truth about animals - objective truth, not
construction. He assumes something like human excellence of interpretation, but also
holds on to a plurality of Umwelten, each perfect in its own way of being. Remember
the earlier discussion on subjectivism and rationality in interpretation. Uexküll
combines both. Animals are constructionists (vital subjectivists). They do not ask the
question of truth. Humans are constructionists who posess the excellence of
comparison, evaluation, meta-reflexion, critique, logic and so on. By way of these
excellences (in which the otherness of others and their constructions can somehow
become acknowledged) they can ask the question of truth. Comparison is a powerful
form of cognition. It allows to spot similarities and differences. Our eyes construe the
world as we see it. We cannot escape the fact that this is construction, but since we
can compare our constructions indirectly with animals constructions, there is an
epistemological beyond - something not completely constructivist, something not
fully outside the world of constructions. In this ambiguous between there may be a
sense of human reading of the world as one book with many chapters or as one
library with many books - a book or library constructed by one of its eminent
chapters (mankind). We read the otherness of animal readings. We are the creatures
that read readings.

3.2. Conclusions

In the context of the history about the extension of hermeneutics, I have hopefull
been able to underline the relevance of Uexküll. Uexküll is a fertile place to start up
today, in a mood of renewal, a hermeneutical of animal being. A place to start, but
not a place to stand still. Beyond Uexüll it will be necessary to bring in dimensions
which he has not suffiently articulated. Let me name two issues:
 Uexküll does not say much about animals as semiotic creatures - as producers
and receivers of signs. It is clear that hermeneutics of animal being would remain
fundamentally incomplete if semiosis is left unclarified. Remember Dilthey - he
proposed the notion of expression, but mostly confined it to the human world. In
dialogue with someone like the American semiotic philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce, however, an animal extension of sign-production and sign-reception can be
articulated. The idea of sign-production may lead to a conception of animals as
‘writers’.
But, in any case, it is also possible to find in Peirce’s vast pansemiotic enterprise
interesting suggestions for a distinction between interpretation and sign-
interpretation. Peirce is relevant for the problematics of interpretation as such.
Things in the world are of course often not perceived and interpreted in their
capacity of being a sign. For Peirce a sign represents another object in a certain
respect by virtue of being taken in that representative way by an interpreter. Certain
noises or smells may for a fox function as a sign that a rabbit is near. When,
subsequently, the rabbit itself is perceived by the fox it is not the case that the fox
interprets the rabbit as a sign of itself. Through interpreting signs (noises, smells) the
object of consumation, so to say, is reached. For Peirce no thing can function as a sign
of its own presence. When we see a photograph of an old friend we are confronted
with a sign. But when we in reality meet this old friend he does not stand as a sign of
his own presence (he may of course function as a sign in other aspects, as
representing other objects, but this is not the same as saying that he represents
himself qua sign). There is certainly a life of interpretation besides sign-
interpretation, and it is exactly Uexküll who allows us insight in non-semiotic
interpretation: interpretation as a general concept simply refers to the selective and
attentive process whereby an entity appropriates or receives certain aspects within
the world. But it is Peirce who helps us to see how aspects of the world may be taken
as signs for certain interpreting entities. To be taken as signs means to see an object
as a representation of another object. The animal world is full of examples where
things are ‘taken’ as signs of other things. In the different animal Umwelten the array
of signs is different. Certain smells are for one species a sign, while other species
ignore its presence as sign or reality altogether.We can conclude that the dimension
of signs needs further probing. Semiotics and hermeneutics of nature should be
grasped as parts of one story of meaning. (49)
Another issue that needs exploration is the idea of an ethics of interpretation.
(50) If animals are interpreters and if we somehow possess the interpretational
excellence to recognize the original otherness of animal interpretation (and semiosis),
then we are perhaps confronted with a duty arising out of capacity: human
excellence of interpretation leads to human recognition of the originality of animal
ways of being interpretative (and semiotic). Interpretation and semiosis bring to the
fore the fact that animals create meaning (Umwelten). These projects of meaning can
be ignored, destroyed, confirmed, celebrated and defended. The problematics of
interpretation plays a role in confirmation, celebration and defence.It appears that
the bulk of recent hermeneutic work to a large extent will continue to be concerned
with human excellence of interpretation. It would perhaps go too far to claim that
common hermeneutics straightforwardly denies processes of interpretation in animal
being - it rather appears to be the case that one is not interested in these processes.
Neglect, however, has its venom. If one does not speak about non-human creation of
meaning, soon the general impression will arise - or rather, continue to exist - that
only human interpretation is worth celebrating. However, I hope I have been able to
disturb the humanist party by bringing in some 'uninvited' interpretational guests.
A politics of disturbance should always be on the agenda of a generous and
stubborn ethics of interpretation. And if there are indeed projects of meaning outside
humanity, which are nowadays destroyed at an incredible rate, then the historical
story about hermeneutics provided in this paper may very well be considered as a
proposal for radical action.
NOTES

(1) In this paper I limit my attention to hermeneutics and Uexküll. In other

papers I deal with related issues: animal life stories (module 5), animal
excellence (module 1), animal semiosis (module 4), and landscape
interpretation (module 7).

(2) There is perhaps no ultimate line of demarcation between hermeneutics and

certain other movements of thought, such as phenomenology, constructivism
and critical theory. Undoubtedly, there is 'hermeneutics' beyond hermeneutics.
Still, reviews of hermeneutics refer to certain authors rather than others (think
of the great five: Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur). In
this paper, the part on anthropo-hermeneutics only takes stock of contributions
in 'official' hermeneutics.

(3) On this, see E. D. Hirsch, The Aims of Interpretation, Chicago, 1976

(4) See P. Ricoeur, Du texte à l'action, Paris, 1986, pp. 75-100. Paul Ricoeur
reigns as the most prestigious figure in contemporary existential hermeneutics.
I will, however, not study him in relation to animal being, since he does not at
all address this issue.

(5) See Ricoeur, ibid., pp. 183-211. Joseph Margolis refers to persons as
'uniquely apt texts' which are 'interested in interpreting all texts including
themselves' in his Texts without Referents, Oxford, 1989, p. 329

(6) Truthfulness is certainly not canceled out as an issue. In each life events
happen. One can debate about their significance, but not about the fact that they
did happen. The play of appreciation and connection of parts, however leaves
many chances for ‘creative interpretation’.

(7) P. Ricoeur, Cours sur l'herméneutique, Leuven, 1971-72, p. 38

(8) I consider cognitive hermeneutics to be a subfield of existential

hermeneutics. Radical constructivism - von Glaserfeld, Maturana, Barry Smith -
is perhaps a version of cognitive hermeneutics, although it does not itself refer
to hermeneutics. Hans Lenk could certainly be characterized as a defender of
robust cognitive hermeneutics. A highly relevant study, perhaps a classic in its
own right, is G. Nicholson, Seeing and Reading, Atlantic Highlands, 1984

(9) One good introduction to the book of nature metaphor is E. Rothacker, Das
Buch der Natur, Bonn, 1979. Also see H. Blumenberg, Die Lesbarkeit der Welt,
Frankfurt am Main, 1981

(10) Blumenberg deals with a preliminary Greek version of the reading

metaphor, embodied in the Greek notion of stoicheion. This term refers to
letters as well as atoms (p. 37). However, whereas letters are ingredients of a
complex text which is more than its letter parts, the atomists wished to reduce
complex reality to its simple atoms. Blumenberg remarks, therefore, that
atomism works against a basic dimension of the book of nature metaphor,
namely the irreducability of the complex text. Another interesting preliminary
version of the metaphor lies in the notion of evolutio (p. 19). This originally
meant the rolling out of book roles. Now we speak of natural evolution. A third
preliminary version is contained in the astrological conception of 'reading the
stars'.

(11) There is of course a quarrel between natural science and hermeneutical

consciousness. The mathematised book of nature is opposed to the symbolic,
religious, poetic, romantic and semiotic book of nature.

(12) H. Blumenberg, 'Bücherwelt und Weltbuch', in Die Lesbarkeit der Welt, pp.
17-21

(13) Cited in Blumenberg, p. 18

(14) See Umberto Eco's chapter on 'interpreting animals' in his The Limits of
Interpretation, Bloomington, 1994. Hugo of Saint Victor writes that the visible
world is as a book, written by God's finger (cited in Rothacker, ibid., p. 17).

(15) In this working paper I remain with classical hermeneutic views and
authors. In a broader analysis, however, we would have to probe the idea of
genetic code as a new version of the book of nature metaphor. Letters are for
example used to symbolize the different parts of the genetic code. See H.
Blumenberg, Die Lesbarkeit der Welt, pp. 372-409

(16) It is interesting, by the way, not to forget an earlier chapter within the
history of the metaphorical interaction between text and nature, which goes in
the opposite direction, notably as it concerns the body as a source for textual
conceptuality. Text refers to textus, which is latin for tissue. Chapter refers to
caput, which is latin for head . The bodily reference of footnote is obvious.
Another example in an opposite direction : Luther compares the Bible with a
rich forest (cited in Rothacker, ibid., p. 17).

(17) Hamann refers to nature as 'eine Geheimsprache' (cited in Rothacker, ibid.,

p. 19). Schelling states that 'Was wir Natur nennen, ist ein Gedicht, das in
geheimer, wunderbarer Schrift verschlossen liegt' (cited in Rothacker, ibid., p.
21)

(18) See M. Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason ,

Chicago, 1978, especially 'The standpoint of life and lived experience', pp. 108-
121. Also Nietzsche and Freud, of course, could be explored with an eye on
hermeneutic vitalism.

(19) W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VIII, Göttingen, 1968, p. 140

(20) W. Diltthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VII, Göttingen, 1973, p. 80

(21) H. Rickmann, Dilthey Today, New York, 1988, p. 150

(22) W. Diltthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol III, (1959), p. 210 ff

(23) W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol XX (1990), p. 345

(24) Dilthey does refer, but does indeed not further thematize, human
perception of aspects of being as coloured by interests, appreciation and so on.

(25) See, for example, Dilthey's words on newborn animals in Gesammelte

Schriften, volume V: Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens , Göttingen, 1968,
p. 99

(26) W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VII, p. 86

(27) W. Dilthey writes, for example: 'Wir verstehen nur durch Liebe'
(Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VI, Göttingen, 1968 [1924], p. 74) ; Furthermore, he
writes: 'Auch das Verstehen ist von dem Maß der Sympathie abhängig, und
ganz unsympathische Menschen verstehen wir überhaupt nicht mehr'
(Gesammelte Schriften, vol. V, p. 277)

(28) I have gained much from reading M. Zimmerman, Heidegger's

Confrontation with Modernity, Bloomington, 1990
(29) These lectures have been published as Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik,
Frankfurt am Main, 1983. To be sure, also in other texts Heidegger makes
remarks about animal being, but not beyond minor passages.

(30) B. Blans and S. Lijmbach (eds), Heidegger en de wereld van het dier
(Heidegger and the world of the animal), Assen, 1996; A. MacIntyre, 'How
impoverished is the world of the nonhuman animal?', in his Dependent
Rational Animals, Chicago, 1999; V. Houillon, 'Pauvrement habite l'animal', in
Alter. Revue de phénoménologie 3, 1995, pp. 115-150; J. Derrida, De l'esprit:
Heidegger et la question, Paris, 1987

(31) This glorification is shared by Husserl, Plessner and Scheler. Also in

Merleau-Ponty and Buytendijk there are similar fragments of glorification, but
these last two authors are at other times interested in animal meaning in its own
'incomparable' perfection. And, since in some moments, Heidegger and Husserl
also show appreciation for the uniqueness of animal being (see my paper for
'Phenomenology and the environment'), it is clear that ambiguity reigns fully in
hermeneutico-phenomenological discourse about animal being - am anbiguity
which perhaps cannot be completely eradicated, since it may symbolize the
interminable relation between humans and animals.

(32)J. Derrida, Points ... Interviews, 1974-1994, Stanford, 1995, p. 277

(33) Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, p. 287

(34) Heidegger sketches human existence in Die Grundbegriffe and other

writings as a sad life. We do not feel at home. We are emotionally ambivalent,
fragile and divided entities. In Nietzsche and Rilke we find the happiness and
immediacy of animals opposed to sadness and conflict of humans. As William
Desmond points out in Philosophy and its Others, 1990, Albany, p. 49 : 'The
animal is simply content to be'.

(35) Heidegger also doubts the possibility for humans to reach animal being in
its originality. There is a principal possibility of interpretation, and yet in
relation to animals it cannot be properly actualized. I will discuss this point in
the part on animal interpretation.

(36) This comparison somehow portrays the animal as the sad entity, according
to Derrida - the sadness of having a lack of world. It is 'as of the animal
remained a man enshrouded, suffering, deprived on account of having access
neither to the world of man that he nonetheless senses, nor to truth, speech,
death, or the Being of being as such' (Derrida, ibid., p. 277).
(37) M. Heidegger, Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus, Frankfurt am Main,
1986 (1940), p. 82: '... ein Nist- und Futterplatz; genauer: Wir erfahren und
nennen das so was wir so nennen, , hat für den Vogel nicht nur eine andere
bedeuting, sondern überhaupt keine 'Bedeutung', sofern wir darunter
verstehen: das im Sagen und Wissen Offenbare eines Seienden. Worauf der
Vogel bezogen ist, wenn er futterbringend dem Nest der Jungen zufliegt,
vermögen wir nie unmittelbar zu erfahren.'

(38) Derrida therefore argues that in Heidegger there 'is no category of original
existence for the animal' (ibid, p. 277) .

(39) Heidegger resents Uexküll's notion of animal Umwelt, which implies too
much an openess toward the world (Welt), while Heidegger tries his very best
to sketch animals as poor in world-openess. Heidegger's opinion of Uexküll is, I
believe, unjust. I even suspect that Heidegger's positive remarks on animals are
deeply influenced by Uexküll's texts.

(40) J. von Uexküll, Kompositionslehre der Natur, Frankfurt am Main, 1980, p.

381 (in the following I will consult this volume, which is a collection of articles
originally written in the twenties and thirties, and here edited by Thure von
Uexküll - Jakob von Uexküll's son).

(41) First published in Leipzig, 1940

(42) See Uexküll, 'Die Bedeutung der Umweltforschung für die Erkenntnis des
Lebens', in Kompositionslehre, p. 363-381

(43) Uexküll, 'Wie sehen wir die Natur und wie sieht sie sich selber?', in
Kompositionslehre, p. 179-213

(44) Uexküll, 'Die Rolle des Subjekts in der Biologie', in Kompositionslehre, p.

343-356

(45) Uexküll, Kompositionslehre, p. 388

(46) This observation leads to the acknowledgement of 'ein unerhort reiches

Gewebe von sich überschneidenden und ineinander eingepaßter subjektiven
Umwelten' (Kompositionslehre, p. 377).

(47) Uexküll, Kompositionslehre, p. 355: 'Es war ein Irrtum, zuglauben, die
menschliche Welt gäbe die gemeinsame Bühne für alle Lebewesen ab. Jedes
Lebewesen besitzt seine Spezialbühne, die genau so real ist wie die
Spezialbühne des Menschen.'
(48) See my paper for module 4 on Peirce and animal semiosis.

(49) See my paper for module 1 on animal excellence and the ethics of the
benevolent interpreter.
List of references

Blans, B. and Lijmbach, L. (eds) - Heidegger en de wereld van het dier, Assen, 1996
Blumenberg, H. - Die Lesbarkeit der Welt, Frankfurt am Main, 1981
Derrida, J. - De l'esprit: Heidegger et la question, Paris, 1987
Derrida, J. - Points ... Interviews, 1974-1994, Stanford, 1995
Desmond, W. - Philosophy and its Others, 1990, Albany
Dilthey, W. - Gesammelte Schriften, Göttingen (1959 - 2000) (23 volumes have appeared)
Eco, U. - The Limits of Interpretation, Bloomington, 1994.
Ermarth, M. - Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason , Chicago, 1978
Heidegger, M. - Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, Frankfurt am Main, 1983.
Heidegger, M. - Nietzsche: Der europäische Nihilismus, Frankfurt am Main, 1986
Hirsch, E. - The Aims of Interpretation, Chicago, 1976
Houillon, V. - 'Pauvrement habite l'animal', in Alter. Revue de phénoménologie 3, 1995,
MacIntyre, A. Dependent Rational Animals, Chicago, 1999
Margolis, J. - Texts without Referents, Oxford, 1989
Nicholson, G. - Seeing and Reading, Atlantic Highlands, 1984
Ricoeur, P. - Cours sur l'herméneutique, Leuven, 1971-72
Ricoeur, P. - Du texte à l'action, Paris, 1986
Rothacker, E. - Das Buch der Natur, Bonn, 1979
von Uexküll, J. - Kompositionslehre der Natur, Frankfurt am Main, 1980
Zimmerman, M. - Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity, Bloomington, 1990

Word count: 12448 (notes and bibliography included)