This paper argues that biological organisation can be legitimately conceived of as an intrinsically teleological causal regime. The core of the argument consists in establishing a connection between organisation and teleology through the concept of self-determination: biological organisation determines itself in the sense that the effects of its activity contribute to determine its own conditions of existence. We suggest that not any kind of circular regime realises self-determination, which should be specifically understood as self-constraint: in biological systems, in particular, self-constraint (...) takes the form of closure, i.e. a network of mutually dependent constitutive constraints. We then explore the occurrence of intrinsic teleology in the biological domain and beyond. On the one hand, the organisational account might possibly concede that supra-organismal biological systems could realise closure, and hence be teleological. On the other hand, the realisation of closure beyond the biological realm appears to be highly unlikely. In turn, the occurrence of simpler forms of self-determination remains a controversial issue, in particular with respect to the case of self-organising dissipative systems. (shrink)

A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.

ABSTRACT. This paper contemplates Organicism and its relation with molecular and evolutionary biology. We explore whether twentieth-first century biology is returning to positions held at the beginning of the twentieth century and then abandoned. The guiding line is a history of theoretical biology in which we distinguish three periods: 1. The 20s-30s, and the Theoretical Biology Club (Needham, Woodger, and Waddington, among others); 2. An intermediate period in the 60s-70s, in which, in spite of the eclosion of the molecular and (...) evolutionary biologies, there is some recovery of organicist positions, and 3. The present post-genomic situation, which is demanding a systemic approach. (shrink)

This article is concerned with interactions between the natural and the human sciences. It examines a specific late 19th-century episode in their relationship and argues that the schism between the two branches of knowledge was due to cognitive factors, but consolidated through the social dynamics of institutionalized disciplines. It contends that the assignment of a social function to the human sciences to compensate for the self-destructive tendencies inherent in the technological society was expressed even by those, at the end of (...) the 19th century, who were fervent advocates of a science- and technology-driven modernization. (shrink)

Over the course of the 18th century, scholarly examinations of animal nature and behavior rejected ‘mechanical’, overly deterministic hypotheses, suggesting instead that animal action proceeded from a psycho-physiological sentient capacity. Though the ultimate causes of this capacity appeared to elude explanation, they expressed themselves in behaviors that scholars described and analyzed. Interpretations of sentient, animal nature also bore on the contemporary understanding of human nature: like animals, human beings were also considered to possess a psycho-physiological nature that motivated them to (...) act in order to satisfy their vital needs. Adopting this vision of human nature, early German political economists sought to construct a ‘human’ science, one that emphasized and explored the human interrelationship with the operations of the physical world, yet did not abandon the long-cherished belief in human distinctiveness within nature. (shrink)

After 1900, the selective breeding of a few standard animals for research in the life sciences changed the way science was done. Among the pervasive changes was a transformation in scientists' assumptions about relationship between diversity and generality. Examination of the contents of two prominent physiology journals between 1885 and 1900, reveals that scientists used a diverse array of organisms in empirical research. Experimental physiologists gave many reasons for the choice of test animals, some practical and others truly comparative. But, (...) despite strong philosophical differences in the approaches they represented, the view that it was best to incorporate as many species as possible into research on physiological processes was widespread in both periodicals. Authors aimed for generality, but they treated it as a conclusion that would or would not follow from the examination of many species. After 1900, an increasing emphasis on standardization, the growth of the experimental method and the growing industrialization of the life sciences led to a decline in the number of species used in research. In this context, the selective breeding of animals for science facilitated a change in assumptions about the relationship between generality and diversity. As animals were increasingly viewed as things that were assumed to be fundamentally similar, scientific generality became an a priori assumption rather than an empirical conclusion. (shrink)

Despite the radical importance of embryology in the development of organi- cism, developmental biology remains philosophically underexplored as a theoretical and empirical resource to clarify the nature of organisms. This paper discusses how embryology can help develop the organisational definition of the organism as a differentiated, function- ally integrated, and autonomous system. I distinguish two conceptions of development in the organisational tradition that yield two different conceptions of the organism: the life- history view claims that organisms can be considered as (...) such during their whole ontogeny; the constitutive view distinguishes two periods in the life history, a period of generation and a period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. Arguing in favour of the con- stitutive view, it will be claimed that the organisational criteria for the definition of organ- ism (i.e., differentiation, functional integration, and autonomy) can only be applied to the developmental system when it has entered the period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. under the light of current research in developmental biology, it is possible to make explicit how organisms come to be as organisms. To this end, I explore key onto- genetic events that help us clarify the core aspects of animal organisation and allow us to identify the developmental stage that marks the ontological transition between an organism in potency and an organism in actuality. The structure of this ontogenetic unfolding paral- lels the conceptual structure of the very notion of organism; the generation of the being of a particular organism parallels its definition. (shrink)

This article aims to compare notions of progress and evolution in the social theories of Freud and Spencer. It argues 1) that the two authors had similarly complex theories that contained mixed elements of positivism and teleology; 2) In its positivist elements, both authors made use of unified natural laws and, in its teleological aspect, they made use of notions of final cause in that progress and the evolution of civilization was understood as a linear path of progressive development with (...) an aim, 3) that that aim was both ethno- as well as - in Freud?s case in particular? self-centric and, finally, 4) that such understanding of natural law led to ethical commitments to the individual. (shrink)

In these notes, unadorned page numbers under 350 refer to Dennett (1987) - The Intentional Stance, hereafter referred to as Stance - and ones over 495 refer to Dennett (1988) - mostly to material by him but occasionally to remarks of his critics. Since the notes will focus on disagreements, I should say now that I am in Dennett’s camp and am deeply in debt to his work in the philosophy of mind, which I think is wider, deeper, more various (...) and more fruitful than mine or anyone else’s. Still, I have some ideas and emphases that I think he could profit from. In the final chapter of Stance Dennett compares his work with that of several others, including me. He sees me as having a position like his, the main difference being that I think (as he doesn’t) that our attributions of mental content can always be highly determinate (pp. 347f). In fact, there are differences between us but this isn’t one of them. I want to get this straight, so as to clear the decks for the positive points I am going to make. There is some indeterminacy and there could be lots of it; Dennett’s case for that is unanswerable. As for how much there actually is: I don’t know and don’t even suspect; there is simply no declared issue between Dennett and myself on that. Nor do we disagree on a related matter. If there is no evidence that settles whether the animal believes that P or believes that Q, should we say that nevertheless one of these is right, and it’s just that we can’t know which it is? Dennett says No. I perfectly agree. (shrink)

It is often claimed that one of Darwin''s chief accomplishments was to provide biology with a non-teleological explanation of adaptation. A number of Darwin''s closest associates, however, and Darwin himself, did not see it that way. In order to assess whether Darwin''s version of evolutionary theory does or does not employ teleological explanation, two of his botanical studies are examined. The result of this examination is that Darwin sees selection explanations of adaptations as teleological explanations. The confusion in the nineteenth (...) century about Darwin''s attitude to teleology is argued to be a result of Darwin''s teleological explanations not conforming to either of the dominant philosophical justifications of teleology at that time. Darwin''s explanatory practices conform well, however, to recent defenses of the teleological character of selection explanations. (shrink)

Nietzsche attributes 'will power' to all living things, but this seems in sharp conflict with other positions important to him-and implausible besides. The doctrine smacks of both metaphysics and anthropomorphizing, which he elsewhere derides. Will to power seems to be an intentional end-directedness, involving cognitive or representational powers he is rightly loath to attribute to all organisms, and tends to downplay even in persons. This paper argues that we find a stronger reading of will to power-both more plausible and more (...) consistent with Nietzsche's other views-by developing his affinities with Darwinism. By seeing will to power as an 'internal revision' to Darwinism, opposing the latter's stress (as Nietzsche thinks) on 'survival', but assenting to its uses of natural selection, we can ground or naturalize that notion, congenially to Nietzsche and to us. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions of biological classification have failed to recognise the central role of homology in the classification of biological parts and processes. One reason for this is a misunderstanding of the relationship between judgments of homology and the core explanatory theories of biology. The textbook characterisation of homology as identity by descent is commonly regarded as a definition. I suggest instead that it is one of several attempts to explain the phenomena of homology. Twenty years ago the ‘new experimentalist’ movement (...) in philosophy of science drew attention to the fact that many experimental phenomena have a ‘life of their own’: the conviction that they are real is not dependent on the theories used to characterise and explain them. I suggest that something similar can be true of descriptive phenomena, and that many homologies are phenomena of this kind. As a result the descriptive biology of form and function has a life of its own—a degree of epistemological independence from the theories that explain form and function. I also suggest that the two major ‘homology concepts’ in contemporary biology, usually seen as two competing definitions, are in reality complementary elements of the biological explanation of homology. (shrink)

An examination of the early history of Nobel Committee deliberations, coupled with a survey of discoveries for which prizes have been awarded to date – and, equally revealing, discoveries for which prizes have not been awarded – reveals a pattern. This pattern suggests that Committee members may have internalized the received, biomedical model and conferred awards in accord with the physicalistic premises that ground this model. I consider the prospect of a paradigm change in medical science and the possible repercussions (...) of such a change on the distribution of Nobel prizes within the domain of physiology or medicine. For expository purposes, I contrast a model based on a science of pathophysiology with one based on a science of pathopsychophysiology. I propose a means whereby members might minimize the potentially blinding effects of model-dependence and come to evaluate medical discoveries from an inter-model rather than an exclusively intra-model perspective. By bringing to light questions rarely asked and proposing answers, I seek to open a dialogue and furnish a vehicle by which the putative delimiting effects of model-dependence might be overcome. (shrink)

No response that was not as long and intricate as the two commentaries combined could do justice to their details, so what follows will satisfy nobody, myself included. I will concentrate on one issue discussed by both commentators: the relationship between evolution and teleological (or intentional) explanation. My response, in its brevity, may have just one virtue: it will confirm some of the hunches (or should I say suspicions) that these and other writers have entertained about my views. For more (...) closely argued defenses of my points, see Dennett 1990a,b,c; 1991a,b. (shrink)

This paper investigates conceptions of explanation, teleology, and analogy in the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Richards (2000, 2002) and Zammito (2006, 2012, 2018) have argued that Kant’s philosophy provided an obstacle for the project of establishing biology as a proper science around 1800. By contrast, Russell (1916), Outram (1986), and Huneman (2006, 2008) have argued, similar to suggestions from Lenoir (1989), that Kant’s philosophy influenced the influential naturalist Georges Cuvier. In this article, I wish to (...) expand on and further the work of Russell, Outram, and Huneman by adopting a novel perspective on Cuvier and considering (a) the similar conceptions of proper science and explanation of Kant and Cuvier, and (b) the similar conceptions of the role of teleology and analogy in the works of Kant and Cuvier. The similarities between Kant and Cuvier show, contrary to the interpretation of Richards and Zammito, that some of Kant’s philosophical ideas, whether they derived from him or not, were fruitfully applied by some life scientists who wished to transform life sciences into proper sciences around 1800. However, I also show that Cuvier, in contrast to Kant, had a workable strategy for transforming the life sciences into proper sciences, and that he departed from Kant’s philosophy of science in crucial respects. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper argues that a central explanatory role for the concept of Umwelt in theoretical biology is to be found in developmental biology, in particular in the effort to understand development as a goal-directed and adaptive process that is controlled by the organism itself. I will reach this conclusion in two (interrelated) ways. The first is purely theoretical and relates to the current scenario in the philosophy of biology. Challenging neo-Darwinism requires a new understanding of the various components involved (...) in natural selection processes. An important prerequisite for the explanation is the ability to understand development in a teleological way. Here, the concept of Umwelt plays a crucial role: if organisms are responsible for generating adaptive variation in specific environments, we need a theory that explains the context-dependent nature of adaptively oriented processes. The Umwelt is thus a central element in determining the goal that an adaptive process pursues. The second path in my analysis also has a historical dimension. I will present Karl Ernst von Baer’s reflections on teleological development and his influence on von Uexküll's thinking. I will present various ideas developed by von Baer, such as the distinction between Ziel and Zweck and the use of musical metaphors, which can help to understand development teleologically and give von Uexküll’s theory a central place in this framework. (shrink)

This paper investigates some classical oppositional categories, like synthetic vs. analytic, posterior vs. prior, imagination vs. grammar, metaphor vs. hermeneutics, metaphysics vs. observation, innovation vs. routine, and image vs. sound, and the role they play in epistemology and philosophy of science. The epistemological framework of objective cognitive constructivism is of special interest in these investigations. Oppositional relations are formally represented using algebraic lattice structures like the cube and the hexagon of opposition, with applications in the contexts of modern color theory, (...) Kantian philosophy, Jungian psychology, and linguistics. (shrink)

In this introductory article we reconstruct several broad developments in the scholarship on Kant’s theory of natural science with a particular focus on the Anglophone context over the past half-century. Our goal is to illuminate the co-development of Kant scholarship and the philosophy of science during this period and to identify points of influence in both directions. In section 2 we present an overview of the scholarship on Kant’s account of natural laws. In section 3 we survey the diverse interpretations (...) of Kant’s views on biology and consider recent appeals to Kant by philosophers of biology. In section 4 we explore several recent developments in philosophy of science that have potential synergies with Kant scholarship. Our aim is not simply to establish that Kant’s philosophy can have relevance for philosophy of science but also to point out where it has been and continues to be relevant. Appreciating this relevance, we suggest, can help identify productive lines of inquiry for Kant studies. (shrink)

Within contemporary science, it is common practice to compare data points to the average, i.e., to the statistical mean. Because this practice is so familiar, it might at first appear not to be the sort of thing that requires explanation. But recent research in cognitive science and in the history of science gives us reason to adopt the opposite perspective. Cognitive science research on the ways people ordinarily make sense of the world suggests that, instead of using a purely statistical (...) notion of the average, people tend to use a value-laden notion of the normal. Similarly, historical research on the scientific practices used in other time periods indicates that, prior to the nineteenth century, scientists tended to make use of a notion of the normal that was overtly value-laden. These findings give us reason to rethink certain familiar facts about scientific practice. In particular, they suggest that the fact that scientists so often make use of the statistical average should be seen as a highly surprising fact, the sort of thing that calls out for explanation. (shrink)

Originating in the work of Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Preyer, and advanced by a Prussian embryologist, Wilhelm Roux, the idea of struggle for existence between body parts helped to establish a framework, in which population cell dynamics rather than a predefined harmony guides adaptive changes in an organism. Intended to provide a causal-mechanical view of functional adjustments in body parts, this framework was also embraced later by early pioneers of immunology to address the question of vaccine effectiveness and pathogen resistance. (...) As an extension of these early efforts, Elie Metchnikoff established an evolutionary vision of immunity, development, pathology, and senescence, in which phagocyte-driven selection and struggle promote adaptive changes in an organism. Despite its promising start, the idea of somatic evolution lost its appeal at the turn of the twentieth century giving way to a vision, in which an organism operates as a genetically uniform, harmonious entity. (shrink)

Within contemporary science, it is common practice to compare data points to the _average_, i.e., to the statistical mean. Because this practice is so familiar, it might at first appear not to be the sort of thing that requires explanation. But recent research in cognitive science gives us reason to adopt the opposite perspective. Research on the cognitive processes involved in people’s ordinary efforts to make sense of the world suggests that, instead of using a purely statistical notion of the (...) average, people tend to use a value-laden notion of the _normal_. This finding about ordinary cognition gives us reason to rethink certain familiar facts about scientific practice. In particular, it suggests that the fact that scientists so often make use of the statistical average should be seen as a highly surprising fact, the sort of thing that calls out for explanation. To understand it, we turn to work in the history of science, and especially to work on the ways in which the practice of science changed over the course of the 19th century. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss some issues concerning magical thinking—forms of thought and association mechanisms characteristic of early stages of mental development. We also examine good reasons for having an ambivalent attitude concerning the later permanence in life of these archaic forms of association, and the coexistence of such intuitive but informal thinking with logical and rigorous reasoning. At the one hand, magical thinking seems to serve the creative mind, working as a natural vehicle for new ideas and innovative insights, (...) and giving form to heuristic arguments. At the other hand, it is inherently difficult to control, lacking effective mechanisms needed for rigorous manipulation. Our discussion is illustrated with many examples from the Hebrew Bible, and some final examples from modern science. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer niederländische Tierpsychologe Frederik J. J. Buytendijk (1887–1974) entwickelte in seinen Forschungen der 1920er und 1930er Jahre in Abgrenzung zum Behaviorismus eine antireduktionistische Zugangsweise auf Verhaltensexperimente. So bezog er in seinen Experimentalpraktiken explizit die subjektive Erfahrung des Versuchsleiters mit ein. Damit entwarf Buytendijk eine Wissenschaftstheorie, die methodologisch auf die Phänomenologie, Hermeneutik wie auf gestalttheoretische Ganzheitskonzepte zurückgriff, quantitative Datenerhebungen aber dennoch nicht aufgab. Vielmehr untersuchte Buytendijk auf der Grundlage des Biotheoretikers Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) in seinem physiologischen Institut in Groningen konkret (...) die These einer „Tier-Umwelt-Einheit“. Der vorliegende Beitrag ermittelt anhand der institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen und zweier Experimente (1924 und 1931), inwiefern Buytendijk seine Aussage, dass das Tier „mit und in seiner Umwelt geboren [ist]“, die zugleich sein wissenschaftsphilosophisches Konzept stützte, zu verifizieren wusste. Dass die Umwelt dem Tier ein Organ ist, ist bei Buytendijk dementsprechend nicht nur metaphorisch, sondern ganz real zu verstehen. (shrink)

This paper seeks to characterize how the study of nutrition processes contributed to revisit the problem of vital organization in the late eighteenth century. It argues that focusing on nutrition leads to reformulate the problem of the relation between life and organization in terms of processes, rather than static or given structures. This nutrition-centered approach to life amounts to acknowledge the specific strategic role nutrition played in the development of a materialist approach to the generation of vital organization. The paper (...) proposes a clarification of the multiple meanings of the concept of organization in the context of Enlightenment physiology and nascent biology, before focusing on the century long analogy between nutrition and generation. It shows how, by contrasting different uses of this analogy, nutrition was employed as a key vital phenomenon in the development of epigenetic theories of generation, i.e. how a nutritive modeling of generation was used in the undermining of preformationism. To this purpose I contrast two seemingly opposite theories of generation, Buffon’s and Bonnet’s, and show that despite the obvious metaphysical discontent, their views of generation share a common mechanical conceptual frame in which nutrition is conflated with growth and repair. I then turn to the role nutrition played in the epigenetic conception of generation in C. F. Wolff’s embryology and analyze this rival understanding of nutrition as an organizing process. (shrink)

Spirituality is a topic of recent interest. Mindfulness, for example, a concept derived from the Buddhist tradition, has captivated the imagination of clinicians who package it in convenient intervention programs for patients. Spirituality and religion have been researched with reference to potential health benefits. Spirituality can be conceptualised as the alignment of the individual with the whole, experientially, motivationally and in action. For spirituality to unfold its true potential it is necessary to align this new movement with the mainstream of (...) science, and vice versa. Hence, both a historical review, and a systematic attempt at integration is called for, which we are trying to give here. It is useful to go back to one of the roots: parapsychology. Parapsychology was founded as a counter movement to the rising materialist paradigm in the 19th century. Adopting the methods of the natural sciences, it tried to prove the direct influence of consciousness on matter. After 125 years this mission must be declared unaccomplished. Surveying the database of parapsychological research it is obvious that it will not convince sceptics: Although there are enough exceptional findings, it has in general not been possible to reproduce them in replication experiments. This is, however, a characteristic signature of a category of effects which we call effects of generalised entanglement, predicted by a theoretical model analogous to quantum theory. Using this perspective, parapsychological effects can be understood, and the original aim of the founding fathers can be recovered, as well as a new, systematic understanding of spirituality be gained. Generalised entanglement is a formal and scientific way of explaining spirituality as alignment of an individual with a whole, which, according to the model, inevitably leads to non-local correlations. (shrink)

In this paper we examine aspects of Canguilhem’s philosophy of biology, concerning the knowledge of life and its consequences on science and vitalism. His concept of life stems from the idea of a living individual, endowed with creative subjectivity and norms, a Kantian view which “disconcerts logic”. In contrast, two different approaches ground naturalistic perspectives to explore the logic of life and the logic of the living individual in the 1970s. Although Canguilhem is closer to the second, there are divergences; (...) for example, unlike them, he does not dismiss vitalism, often referring to it in his work and even at times describing himself as a vitalist. The reason may lie in their different views of science. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly (...) the existence of ‘seeds’ which may or may not develop depending on the environment (epigenesis of human natural predispositions). I then turn to Kant’s account of man’s natural predispositions and show that far from being limited to the issue of races, it encompasses unexpected human features such as gender, temperaments and nations. These predispositions, I argue, are means to the realisation of Nature’s overall purpose for the human species. This allows me to conclude that man’s biological determinism leads to the species’ preservation, cultivation and civilisation. (shrink)

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach is widely known as the father of German vitalism and his notion of Bildungstrieb, or nisus formativus, has been recognized as playing a key role in the debates about generation in German-speaking countries around 1800. On the other hand, Caspar Friedrich Wolff was the first to employ a vitalist notion, namely that of vis essentialis, in the explanatory framework of epigenetic development. Is there a difference between Wolff’s vis essentialis and Blumenbach’s nisus formativus? How does this difference (...) influence their overall understanding of the epigenetic process? The paper aims to provide an answer to these questions through the analysis of a little-known document, which contributes to shed light on a crucial chapter of the German life sciences in the late eighteenth-century, namely the decisive phase of the process that led to the formalization of biology as a unified field of inquiry at the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Defending Robert Rosen’s claim that in every confrontation between physics and biology it is physics that has always had to give ground, it is shown that many of the most important advances in mathematics and physics over the last two centuries have followed from Schelling’s demand for a new physics that could make the emergence of life intelligible. Consequently, while reductionism prevails in biology, many biophysicists are resolutely anti-reductionist. This history is used to identify and defend a fragmented but progressive (...) tradition of anti-reductionist biomathematics. It is shown that the mathematicoephysico echemical morphology research program, the biosemiotics movement, and the relational biology of Rosen, although they have developed independently of each other, are built on and advance this antireductionist tradition of thought. It is suggested that understanding this history and its relationship to the broader history of post-Newtonian science could provide guidance for and justify both the integration of these strands and radically new work in post-reductionist biomathematics. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss some issues concerning magical thinking—forms of thought and association mechanisms characteristic of early stages of mental development. We also examine good reasons for having an ambivalent attitude concerning the later permanence in life of these archaic forms of association, and the coexistence of such intuitive but informal thinking with logical and rigorous reasoning. At the one hand, magical thinking seems to serve the creative mind, working as a natural vehicle for new ideas and innovative insights, (...) and giving form to heuristic arguments. At the other hand, it is inherently difficult to control, lacking effective mechanisms needed for rigorous manipulation. Our discussion is illustrated with many examples from the Hebrew Bible, and some final examples from modern science. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly (...) the existence of ‘seeds’ which may or may not develop depending on the environment (epigenesis of human natural predispositions). I then turn to Kant’s account of man’s natural predispositions and show that far from being limited to the issue of races, it encompasses unexpected human features such as gender, temperaments and nations. These predispositions, I argue, are means to the realisation of Nature’s overall purpose for the human species. This allows me to conclude that man’s biological determinism leads to the species’ preservation, cultivation and civilisation. (shrink)

-/- Some phenomena within nature exhibit such exquisiteness of structure, function or interconnectedness that many people have found it natural—if not inescapable—to see a deliberative and directive mind behind those phenomena. The mind in question, being prior to nature itself, is typically taken to be supernatural. Philosophically inclined thinkers have both historically and at present labored to shape the relevant intuition into a more formal, logically rigorous inference. The resultant theistic arguments, in their various logical forms, share a focus on (...) plan, purpose, intention and design, and are thus classified as teleological arguments (or, frequently, as arguments from or to design). -/- Although enjoying some prominent defenders over the centuries, such arguments have also attracted serious criticisms from a number of major historical and contemporary thinkers. Both critics and advocates are found not only among philosophers, but come from scientific and other disciplines as well. In the following discussion, major variant forms of teleological arguments will be distinguished and explored, traditional philosophical and other criticisms will be discussed, and the most prominent contemporary turns (cosmic fine tuning arguments, many-worlds theories, and the present Intelligent Design debate) will be tracked. Discussion will conclude with a brief look at one historically important non-inferential approach to the issue. (shrink)

There have been attempts to subsume Charles Darwin's theory of evolution under either one of two distinct intellectual traditions: early Victorian natural science and its descendants in political economy (as exemplified by Herschel, Lyell, or Malthus) and the romantic approach to art and science emanating from Germany (as exemplified by Humboldt and Goethe). In this paper, it will be shown how these traditions may have jointly contributed to the design of Darwin's theory. The hypothesis is that their encounter created a (...) particular tension in the conception of his theory which first opened up its characteristic field and mode of explanation. On the one hand, the domain of the explanandum was conceived of under a holistic and aesthetic view of nature that, in its combination with refined techniques of observation, was deeply indebted to Humboldt in particular. On the other hand, Darwin fashioned explanations for natural phenomena, so conceived, in order to identify their proper causes in a Herschelian spirit. The particular interaction between these two traditions in Darwin, it is concluded, paved the way for a transfer of the idea of causal laws to animate nature while salvaging the romantic idea of a complex, teleological and harmonious order of nature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with organic conceptions of socio-political life and is concerned with the rehabilitation of organicism as a positive social ontology. It demonstrates that: organicism does not necessarily imply the negation of individuality by a monolithic society, and; that G. W. F. Hegel’s references to the state as organic do not imply social holism. With Hegel’s organicism, as with Idealist organicism generally, what is found is a relational rather than a holistic social ontology. This relational ontology is one (...) that addresses the tension between individualism and holism by theorizing the reciprocal or recursive nature of social relations; thus neither society nor the individuals within it can be seen as either purely determined or purely determining, each contributes to the constitution of the other. In making this case the paper provides both: a conceptual articulation of relational organicism which shows that it is an instructive and coherent positive social ontology, and; a historical account of its emergence into Idealist thought in the work of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Through developing this account of the organic relation this paper seeks to offer a conception of socio-political life that provides resources for thinking through both the tension between holism and atomism in social theory and the tension between liberal individualism and communitarian collectivism in political theory. (shrink)

The theory of concepts advanced in the dissertation aims at accounting for a) how a concept makes successful practice possible, and b) how a scientific concept can be subject to rational change in the course of history. Traditional accounts in the philosophy of science have usually studied concepts in terms only of their reference; their concern is to establish a stability of reference in order to address the incommensurability problem. My discussion, in contrast, suggests that each scientific concept consists of (...) three components of content: 1) reference, 2) inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued with the concept's use. I argue that in the course of history a concept can change in any of these three components, and that change in one component—including change of reference—can be accounted for as being rational relative to other components, in particular a concept's epistemic goal.This semantic framework is applied to two cases from the history of biology: the homology concept as used in 19th and 20th century biology, and the gene concept as used in different parts of the 20th century. The homology case study argues that the advent of Darwinian evolutionary theory, despite introducing a new definition of homology, did not bring about a new homology concept (distinct from the pre-Darwinian concept) in the 19th century. Nowadays, however, distinct homology concepts are used in systematics/evolutionary biology, in evolutionary developmental biology, and in molecular biology. The emergence of these different homology concepts is explained as occurring in a rational fashion. The gene case study argues that conceptual progress occurred with the transition from the classical to the molecular gene concept, despite a change in reference. In the last two decades, change occurred internal to the molecular gene concept, so that nowadays this concept's usage and reference varies from context to context. I argue that this situation emerged rationally and that the current variation in usage and reference is conducive to biological practice.The dissertation uses ideas and methodological tools from the philosophy of mind and language, the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the psychology of concepts. (shrink)

This article argues that from a territorial perspective a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. We understand Estonian theory as a local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. The article focuses on the older layers of Estonian theory, discussing the work of Karl Ernst (...) von Baer, Victor Hehn, Gustav Teichmüller, Jakob von Uexküll, Hermann Keyserling, Johannes Gabriel Granö, Juri Lotman a.o. We examine the philosophical foundations of Estonian theory as well as its main epistemic facets. The article concludes that the conceptualization of Estonian theory could contribute to a general transformation of contemporary (cultural) theory, a redefining of the relations between the centre and the peripheries. (shrink)

The term ‘vitalism’ is most readily associated with a series of debates among 18th- and 19th-century biologists, and broadly with the claim that the explanation of living phenomena is not compatible with, or is not exhausted by, the principles of basic sciences like physics and chemistry. Scientists and philosophers have continued to address vitalism - mostly in order to reject it - well into the second half of the 20th century, in connection with classic concepts such as mechanism, reductionism, emergence, (...) complexity and artificial intelligence, and in connection with approaches such as information theory and cybernetics. This article problematizes and transforms the claim that vitalism is obsolete by evaluating it diachronically, in the spirit of the historian and philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem. It discusses the contrast between classical vitalism and Canguilhem’s own claim that vitalism is ‘an imperative rather than a method and more of an ethical system, perhaps, than a theory’. At the same time, it argues (against postmodern and post-humanist critics) that Canguilhem’s position cannot be reduced to a ‘polemical vitalism’ devoid of compromising references to reality or ontology. In relation to contemporary forms of engagement between social theory and biotechnoscience, Canguilhem’s vitalism continues to provide the critical corrective that is proper to its ‘vitality’. (shrink)

ArgumentHere I analyze the anatomical thought of the French physician and naturalist Félix Vicq d'Azyr (1748–1794) in order to bring to light its importance in the development of comparative anatomy at the end of the eighteenth century. I argue that his work and career can be understood as an ambitious program for a radical reform of all biomedical sciences and a reorganization of this whole field around comparative anatomy, on the conceptual as well as the institutional level. In particular, he (...) recommended a close connection between anatomical and physiological studies, and a generalization of the comparative approach towards organs and functions in man and animals. This conception led him not only to reform the scope, the methods, the style of description, and the vocabulary in anatomy, but also to construct a new classification of living beings and to pursue a quest for laws of organization. This strategy was successful, since Vicq d'Azyr was able to promote his thought as well as his institutional position efficiently. The Revolution and his untimely death prevented him from achieving his program, but his attempt would serve as an example for younger scientists like Cuvier. (shrink)