A Biosemiotic Elaboration of Agamben's Experimentum Linguae: Toward an Experimentum Semioseos

Abstract

This paper argues that a dialogue between biosemiotics and Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy can be philosophically fruitful and illustrates this through a biosemiotic extension of Agamben’s experimentum linguae. It emphasizes that both Agamben’s philosophical project and the field of biosemiotics converge in their critical reflection on the relation between language and life, and in a shared – though differently formulated – effort to theorize biological life as inherently meaningful. I suggest that biosemiotics can offer a scientific grounding for Agamben’s philosophy of language while also benefiting from a philosophical deepening of its conceptual implications, especially in relation to contemporary questions of politics and ethics. However, the radical nature of Agamben’s philosophy of impotentiality and suspension might obstruct this dialogue. To develop their convergence and address this obstacle, I offer an interpretation of Agamben’s work that underlines the influence of non-biosemiotics modes of thought on his thinking, specifically his understanding of language. Since this influence is not neutral but specific and contingent, it opens up the opportunity to replace it with a biosemiotic alternative. I then introduce and elaborate the idea of an experimentum semioseos: an experience of semiosis as such, understood via biosemiotics as spanning both human and non-human forms of life. I argue that the long-term observation of vegetative life – particularly plants – plays a central role in making this experience possible.