A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology Book Summary: Jakob von
Uexkull founded Umwelt research with a clear idea - that humans are not
qualitatively different than other species. Umwelt, literally
"outer-world", is the study of the organism in relation to the world
around it, as well as the meaning that the world holds for that
organism. Thus the world is a truly subjective place. While von
Uexkull's theory has entered into the social sciences via semiotics, and
biology via ethology, the authors of these chapters go between and
beyond these disciplines to examine everything from cells to spiders to
humans and culture. The authors adopt the framework of Umwelt theory to
examine unique aspects of the natural world by relating the inner world
of the subject and the objects to which that organism attends.