Ernst Mayr''s distinction between ultimate and proximate causes is justly considered a major contribution to philosophy of biology. But how did Mayr come to this philosophical distinction, and what role did it play in his earlier scientific work? I address these issues by dividing Mayr''s work into three careers or phases: 1) Mayr the naturalist/researcher, 2) Mayr the representative of and spokesman for evolutionary biology and systematics, and more recently 3) Mayr the historian and philosopher of biology. If we want (...) to understand the role of the proximate/ultimate distinction in Mayr''s more recent career as a philosopher and historian, then it helps to consider hisearlier use of the distinction, in the course of his research, and in his promotion of the professions of evolutionary biology and systematics. I believe that this approach would also shed light on some other important philosophical positions that Mayr has defended, including the distinction between essentialism: and population thinking. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is concerned with “holism” as a German cultural “style” of doing psychobiology in Central Europe between the two world wars. The paper takes its starting point from a critical analysis of Forman's writings on nationalism versus internationalism in interwar German science, and the alleged “accommodation” of interwar German physics to an antiscientific, irrationalist culture. The paper argues that psychobiological holism was not just a reaction against nineteenth-century atomistic or mechanistic approaches to modeling life and mind; it also (...) represented a domestically directed answer from within the German biomedical scientific community to broad religious and cultural “disenchantment.” As such, holistic psychobiology emerges as a phenomenon that challenges us with at least four levels of discourse: experimental/clinical, epistemological/philosophical, existential/religious, and ideological/political. The paper defends the methodological appropriateness of a collective case-study approach to the problem of holism as a multilevel discourse. It concludes by offering a preliminary contextualized analysis of the thought of three representative holistic leaders of the time: behavioral biologist and ethologist Jakob von Uexküll; clinical neurologist Constantin von Monakow; and neuropsychiatrist Kurt Goldstein. (shrink)

Historians must have an understanding of the present both to reconstruct the past and to explain that reconstruction to a contemporary audience. One criticism of presentism is that it is an interpretation of the past in terms of current values and ideas, and fails to provide a complete picture of the historical context. Regardless of such practices, however, the historian is limited to the methodological and archival tools available during his own time. Meaning, reason, and truth are different for different (...) periods and peoples. The clarity of his language, the consistency of his logic, and the validity of his proofs are relative to the historian's time and culture. The act of historical inquiry is influenced by the contrasts between past and present. Only by consciously addressing his dependence on the present can the historian adequately understand the past. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr''s contributions to 20th century biology extend far beyond his defense of certain elements in evolutionary theory. At the center of mid-century efforts in American evolutionary studies to build large research communities, Mayr spearheaded campaigns to create a Society for the Study of Evolution and a dedicated journal,Evolution, in 1946. Begun to offset the prominence ofDrosophila biology and evolutionary genetics, these campaigns changed course repeatedly, as impediments appeared, tactics shifted, and compromises built a growing coalition of support. Preserved, however, (...) were designs to balance the community and journal with careful equation of status and explicit partitioning of responsibilities within the working coalition. Choice terms such as cooperation and unity carried a strong political message. Mayr''s editorship ofEvolution provides a superb example of these balancing efforts. The mid-century infrastructural activities described herein also represented aggressive attempts to leverage control across several layers of community. Leaders of these campaigns sought: (1) to promote evolutionary studies as a modernized research discipline and place it at the center of American biology, (2) to promote evolutionary studies within existing disciplines — e.g. systematics, genetics, and paleontology, (3) to foster certain research styles within evolutionary studies, and (4) to emphasize certain solutions to prominent research questions. Throughout, Mayr interjected his priorities, tactics and energy. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr''s scientific career continues strongly 70 years after he published his first scientific paper in 1923. He is primarily a naturalist and ornithologist which has influenced his basic approach in science and later in philosophy and history of science. Mayr studied at the Natural History Museum in Berlin with Professor E. Stresemann, a leader in the most progressive school of avian systematics of the time. The contracts gained through Stresemann were central to Mayr''s participation in a three year expedition (...) to New Guinea and The Solomons, and the offer of a position in the Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, beginning in 1931. At the AMNH, Mayr was able to blend the best of the academic traditions of Europe with those of North America in developing a unified research program in biodiversity embracing systematics, biogeography and nomenclature. His tasks at the AMNH were to curate and study the huge collections amassed by the Whitney South Sea Expedition plus the just purchased Rothschild collection of birds. These studies provided Mayr with the empirical foundation essential for his 1942Systematics and the Origin of Species and his subsequent theoretical work in evolutionary biology as well as all his later work in the philosophy and history of science. Without a detailed understanding of Mayr''s empirical systematic and biogeographic work, one cannot possibly comprehend fully his immense contributions to evolutionary biology and his later analyses in the philosophy and history of science. (shrink)