The St.Petersburg Seminar on Theoretical Biology (biohermeneutics) has worked from 1972, bringing together specialists in biology, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics and methodology, as well as medical science from different research centers and schools. The interaction of these professional points of view leads to a fruitful interdisciplinary approach.
The main course of the Seminar`s activity is centered upon the reflections of these specialists on biology as a cultural phenomenon, which is revealing the specific traits of the phenomenon of Life.
In the first stage, a conclusion has been drawn that theoretical biology cannot be built after the same pattern as that of theoretical or mathematical physics, provided it seeks to define the distinctive features of biological cognition as an original expert activity. The point is, that in the cognition of the Living, the biologist himself is supposed to be a living being, not just an abstract subject of cognition, alien to his object (as he is in the exact sciences).
The biologist explicitly or implicitly faces the hard task of representing his results in a form appropriate for this knowledge to fit in the culture, since modern Western culture has practically no means to treat the Living without missing its specific properties. This idea brought about the Seminar`s interest in the culturological aspects of biology, such as the relations between the activity of the biologist, his personality, and the cultural context.
As a fruit of the analysis of the biomorphal means of knowledge representation, a whole conception of "biocentrism" was developed, involving cultural orientation to Life (as opposed to the orientation to the non-living, "physicalism", and to man, "anthropocentrism", predominant in European culture). One of the "preserve-islands" of biocentrism in culture, namely biological systematics, is often in the scope of discussions during the Seminar's sessions.
When the phenomenon of Life is regarded more broadly, that is when the forms of life other than biological are taken into consideration, Life proves to be the basic notion for a more general conception: "vita-centrism".
At the same time, the discussions about the semiotic aspects of biology have given rise to biohermeneutic ideas, within which the Living Being is treated as the unity of Expression (i.e., the organism) and Content (i.e., Life as meaning). The ability to be expressed in the organism is an important feature of meaning.
The Life-meaning and the organism are bound in the hermeneutic circle of mutual interpretation, and the cognition of the Living supposes one's entering this circle.
Some particular problems of biology, biotechnology, medical science, environmental protection, education, etc., are being treated fruitfully by the Seminar, whose approach quite often becomes a starting point of non-trivial solutions and new insights.
Oleg V. Belyakov, Scientific Secretary of the Seminar
Russia, 189631, St.Petersburg,Metallostroy, Polevaja str., 8, apt. 32