Claus Emmeche

Claus Emmeche in Estonia, 2006.

Claus Emmeche (born 1956) is a Danish theoretical biologist and philosopher, one of founders of contemporary biosemiotics. ^{[1] [2]} He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and is head of the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies at the Faculty of Science (CPNSS, hosted by the Niels Bohr Institute).

His research interests are in philosophy of science, especially philosophy of biology, theoretical biology (especially morphogenesis and evolution, developmental systems, complex systems), artificial life, biosemiotics, and other areas within philosophy. He has made pioneering studies in the field of semiotics of friendship.

Activism

Claus Emmeche was one of the organizers of a petition directed at Helge Sander's education reforms, which the petition claimed undermined academic freedom by granting a broad majority of the management of universities to people from outside the academic community. As of August, 2008, 35% of Danish academics had signed the petition. ^[3] By November, this had risen to about 50%. ^[4]

Notable works

Claus Emmeche has authored or co-authored at least 31 works in science and philosophy in English. Some of his most notable English works include:

• The Garden in the Machine: The Emerging Science of Artificial Life, Princeton University Press, ( ISBN   0691029032) ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}
• Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies and Matter by Peter Bogh Andersen, Claus Emmeche, Niels Ole Finnemann, and Peder Voetmann Christiansen. Princeton University Press, ( ISBN   0691029032) (1996)
• Emmeche, Claus; Kull, Kalevi; Stjernfelt, Frederik 2002. Reading Hoffmeyer, Rethinking Biology. [Tartu Semiotics Library 3.] Tartu: Tartu University Press.
• Charbel Niño El-Hani, João Queiroz, Claus Emmeche 2009. Genes, information, and semiosis. [Tartu Semiotics Library 8.] Tartu: Tartu University Press.
• Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs , ed. by Claus Emmeche, and Kalevi Kull. London: Imperial College Press. (2011) See

In Danish, Emmeche has authored or co-authored at least 5 books, 25 articles, and over 47 other works.

References

1. Favareau, D. 2008. The IASS roundtable on biosemiotics: A discussion with some founders of the field. The American Journal of Semiotics 24(1/3): 1–21.
2. Favareau, D. (ed.) 2010. Essential Readings in Biosemiotics. Springer, p. 629.
3. Ard Jongsma, "Denmark: Academics sign up to protest", University World News, No. 0042, 31 Aug. 2008.
4. "6488 Underskrifter For En Ny Universitetslov Overdraget". November 21, 2008. Archived from the original on December 30, 2010. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
5. Sigmund, Karl (1994-09-23). "Virtually A-Life: The Garden in the Machine. The Emerging Science of Artificial Life. Claus Emmeche. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1994. xiv, 199 pp., illus. $24.95 or £18.95. Translated from the Danish edition (1991) by Steven Sampson". Science. 265 (5180): 1900–1901. doi:10.1126/science.265.5180.1900.b.
6. Ekstig, Borje (March 1995). "The Garden in the Machine: The Emerging Science of Artificial Life. Claus Emmeche , Steven Sampson". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 70 (1): 122–122. doi:10.1086/418968. ISSN   0033-5770.
7. Braeckman, Johan (July 1995). "Book Reviews : Claus Emmeche The Garden in the Machine: The Emerging Science of Artificial Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994". Cultural Dynamics. 7 (2): 265–269. doi:10.1177/092137409500700206. ISSN   0921-3740.
8. Van Dyke Parunak, H. (July 1995). "Book review: The Garden in the Machine: The Emerging Science of Artificial Life by Claus Emmeche (Princeton University Press, 1994)". ACM SIGART Bulletin. 6 (3): 15–16. doi:10.1145/208628.1065828. ISSN   0163-5719.

External links

• Claus Emmeche's Home Page