Showing papers on "Philosophy of biology published in 1972"

Buffon and the concept of species

Abstract: Historians of science have certainly not overlooked Buffon's concept of species. However, a perusal of the literature reveals an ironic situation. Even though Buffon was the leading naturalist of his century, the third most widely read author in France, and one of the "four great lights of the Enlightenment," his work has been reviewed largely in its relationship to later thought. Accordingly, he is most often given the dubious honor of being cited as a precursor first of Cuvier, then of Darwin.And as is the case with most alleged precursors, their fame and importance pales when compared to the major figures for whom they act as harbingers. In Buffon's case this situation is most regrettable, for his concept of species had an immense impact on the biology of his day, and furthermore it was an integral part of the intellectual ferment known as the Enlightenment. A thorough understanding of his thought can help us answer a much more important question than who thought what before whom; namely, what was the state of biology in the eighteenth

Studies in critical philosophy

Abstract: logical, speculative expression for the movement of history' (p. 173), then this is still an expression for the movement of real history; if he has described objectification and estrangement in their abstract forms, then he has still seen objectification and estrangement as essential movements of human history. The emphasis of Marx's critique of Hegel is definitely on the positive part, to which we now proceed. 'The outstanding achievement of Hegel's Phenomenology and of its final outcome, the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle, is thus first that Hegel conceives the selfcreation of man as a process, conceives objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as transcendence of this alienation; that he thus grasps the essence of labour and comprehends objective man ... as the outcome of man's own labour' (p. 177). The full significance of the interpretation of the Phenomenology given here by Marx could only be grasped if we unfolded the central problematic of Hegel's work, which we obviously cannot The Foundations of Historical Materialism 45 do here; it would also only then become apparent with what unheard of sureness Marx sees through all the mystifying and misleading interpretations (which begin even within Hegel's work) and gets back to the bedrock of the problems which were raised, for the first time in modern philosophy, in the Phenomenology. In the sentence quoted above Marx has brought together all the discoveries of Hegel which he recognizes as crucial: in what follows we want briefly to explain these, for Marx, 'positive moments of the Hegelian dialectic'. The Phenomenology presents the 'self-creation of man', which means, after what has already been said, the process in which man {as an organic, living being) becomes what he is according to his essence i.e. human essence. It thus gives the 'genetic history' (p. 173) of the human essence or man's essential history. Man's 'act of creation' is an 'act of self-genesis' (p. 188), i.e. man gives his essence to himself: he must first make himself what he is, 'posit' himself, and 'produce' himself (we have already gone into the meaning of this concept). This history which is given into man's own hands is grasped by Hegel as a 'process' characterized by alienation and its supersession. The process as a whole stands under the title of 'objectification'. The history of man thus occurs and fulfils itself as objectification : the reality of man consists of creating real objects out of all his 'species powers', or 'the establishing of a real, objective world' (p. 18o). It is this establishing of an objective world which Hegel treats merely as the alienation of 'consciousness' or knowledge, or as the relation of abstract thought to 'thinghood', while Marx grasps it as the 'practical' realization of the whole of man in historical and social labour (ibid.). Hegel defines the relation of knowledge to the objective world in such a way that this objectification is simultaneously the loss of the object, i.e. the loss of reality or estrangement, so that, 'to begin with, [it] is again only possible in the form of estrangement' (p. 177). That is to say: knowledge, in the process of becoming objective, initially loses itself in its objects: they confront it as something alien and other, in the form of an external world of things and matters which have lost their inner connection with the consciousness which has expressed itself in them and now continue as a power independent of consciousness. In the Phenomenology, for example, morality and right, the power of the state and wealth appear as estranged objective worlds and it is here that Marx accuses Hegel of dealing with these worlds only as 'worlds of thought' and not as real worlds (pp. 1741£.), since for Hegel they are extemalizations of 'Mind' only and not of real, total human existence. Although objectification consists initially in the loss of the object or estrangement, it is precisely this estrangement which in Hegel becomes the recovery of true being. 'Hegel conceives man's self-estrangement, the alienation of man's essence, man's loss of objectivity and his loss of realness as self-discovery, change of his nature, objectification and realization' (pp. 187-8). The human essence always conceived in Hegel as exclusively knowledge is such that it must not only express but alienate itself, not only objectify itself but lose its object, to be able to discover itself. Only if it has really lost itself can it come to itself, only in its 'otherness' can it become what it is 'for itself'. This is the 'positive meaning' of negation, 'the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle' (p. 177). We should have to go into the foundations of Hegel's ontology to justify and clarify this assertion: here we need only show how Marx interprets this discovery by Hegel. Through the positive concept of negation just referred to, Hegel conceives 'labour as man's act of self-genesis' (p. 188); 'he grasps labour as the essence of man as man's essence in the act of proving itself' (p. 177). With reference to this Marx goes so far as to say: 'Hegel's standpoint is that of modern political economy' (ibid.) a seemingly paradoxical statement in which, however, Marx summarizes the colossal, almost revolutionary concreteness of Hegel's Phenomenology. If labour is here defined as man's essence in the act of proving itself this obviously refers to labour not purely as an economic, but as an 'ontological' category, as Marx defines it in this very passage: 'Labour is man's coming-toThe Foundations of Historical Materialism 47 be for himself within alienation, or as alienated man' (p. 177). How does it come about that Marx should take precisely the category of labour to interpret Hegel's concept of objectification as self-discovery in estrangement and of realization in alienation ? It is not only because Hegel uses labour to reveal the objectification of the human essence and its estrangement, or because he depicts the relation of the labouring 'servant' to his world as the first 'supersession' of estranged objectivity (II, pp. 146 ff.). It is not only because of this; although the fact that this is viewed as the real beginning of human history in the Phenomenology is neither a coincidence nor the result of a purely arbitrary decision, but expresses the innermost direction of the entire work. Marx has thereby albeit in an exaggerated form discovered the original meaning of the history of the human essence as it is elaborated in the Phenomenology in the form of the history of self-consciousness. It is praxis, free self-realization, always taking up, superseding and revolutionizing pre-established 'immediate' facticity. It has already been pointed out that Marx holds Hegel's real mistake to be the substitution of'Mind' for the subject of this praxis. Hence for Marx, 'the only labour which Hegel knows and recognizes is abstract mental labour' (p. 177). But this does not alter the fact that Hegel grasped labour as man's essence in the act of proving itself a fact which retains its vital importance: despite the 'spiritualization' of history in the Phenomenology, the actual leading concept through which the history of man is explicated is transforming 'activity' (II, pp. 141, 196, 346, 426, etc.). If the inner meaning of objectification and its supersession is thus praxis, then the various forms of estrangement and their supersession can also be more than mere 'examples' taken out of real history and put alongside each other with no necessary connection. They must have have their roots in human praxis and be an integral part of man's history. Marx expresses this insight in the sentence that Hegel has found 'speculative expression for the movement of history' (p. 173) a sentence which (as already stated) must be understood positively just as much as negatively and critically. And if the forms of estrangement are rooted as historical forms in human praxis itself, they cannot be regarded simply as abstract theoretical forms of the objectivity of consciousness; under this logical-speculative 'disguise' they must have ineluctable practical consequences, they must of necessity be effectively superseded and 'revolutionized'. A critique must lie hidden already in the Phenomenology: critique in the revolutionary sense which Marx gave to this concept. 'The Phenomenology is, therefore, an occult critique still to itself obscure and mystifying: but inasmuch as it keeps steadily in view man's estrangement ... there lie concealed in it all the elements of the critique already prepared and elaborated in a manner often rising far above the Hegelian standpoint'. In its separate sections it contains 'the critical elements of whole spheres such as religion, the state, civil life, etc. but still in an estranged form' (p. 176). Thereby Marx has expressed in all clarity the inner connection between revolutionary theory and Hegel's philosophy. What seems amazing, as measured by this critique which is the result of a philosophical discussionis the decline oflater interpretations of Marx (even sit venia verbo those of Engels!) by people who believed they could reduce Marx's relationship to Hegel to the familiar transformation of Hegel's 'dialectic', which they also completely emptied of content. These suggestions will have to suffice; above all we cannot go into the question if and how the 'mistakes' with which Marx charges Hegel can really be attributed to him. It has perhaps become clear through this paper that the discussion really starts at the centre of Hegel's problematic. Marx's critique of Hegel is not an appendage of the preceding critique and foundation of political economy, for his examination of political economy is itself a continuous confrontation with Hegel. A Study on Authority

The Universal gestation of nature: Chambers' Vestiges and Explanations

Abstract: Sometimes a book proves hard to interpret correctly not because of what is in the book, but because of what is in another book Darwin's Origin of Species has made it very difficult indeed to give a correct reading of Robert Chambers' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) and Explanations: A Sequel to the Vestiges (1845) In fact, I know of no such reading, and a main aim of this paper is to attempt one, at least for the sections where Chambers deals with organic diversity' But let me dwell a moment on the difficulty involved For there are some important historiographical issues at stake The biology students I have been introducing to the history and philosophy of biology during the last two years come to the subject with several predictable preconceptions, mostly derived from scientific textbooks A parody of one preconception might go like this: Darwin synthesized a molecule with two atoms-the ideas of evolution and natural selection The second was new, the first was not Darwin did a couple of key things, then He produced more "evidence for evolution" than anyone before, and he provided a novel "mechanism" for it Conversely, his "precursors" who "believed in evolution" lacked Darwin's weight of evidence and his mechanism For the biology student there is an easy assumption, as natural as it is

The Origins of Philosophy

Abstract: In this chapter we propose to deal with the sources of philosophizing as such or with the sources of philosophy. The philosophical approach is to be understood as deliberate knowledge concerning the world in its totality and the knowledge of the world. The existence of philosophy and a tradition of philosophy must be accepted as a historical-cultural fact. We do not intend to inquire into the historical-cultural sources of man’s approach to the world that nourish philosophy. It is, furthermore, a literary fact that philosophy has to a certain extent turned its attention to the sources of the very philosophical approach to the world. We shall consider the accounts proposed by philosophers themselves concerning the sources of their philosophizing in order to assess whether these accounts provide an adequate explanation of the facts before us.

Explanation in morphology

Abstract: In biology, and particularly in morphology, various types of explanation are found,e.g. causal, teleological, historical, etc.

An analysis of "balance in nature" as an ecological concept.

Abstract: In the literature the term “natural balance” occurs frequently and is used for highly divergent collections of facts and for results arrived at by different methods. In this paper it is attempted (1) to give a review of the many possible meanings of “balance in nature”, and (2) to evaluate the application of the term in the scientific literature.

First Philosophy: Metaphysics or Epistemology?

Abstract: Philosophy, and especially metaphysics, today enjoys less respect and influence than at any time in the last 800 years, since Aristotle was rediscovered by the Medievals. Philosophy once was the realm of the controversies and upheavals that determine man's perspectives and attitudes; today that realm is the sciences and arts. Once “the queen of the sciences”, philosophy is rapidly becoming their handmaiden or stepchild. The very relevance of philosophy for life is seriously being questioned in many quarters. Today's “empiricists” are decreasingly concerned with philosophy in the traditional sense, and increasingly concerned rather with the methodology of certain disciplines, such as science, logic, grammar, etc.—if not with the outright destruction of philosophy itself. And even the speculative metaphysicians of today seem to find literature more conducive than philosophy to the quest and expression of their ideas. Sartre expresses himself philosophically in plays and novels and Heidegger's works become increasingly poetic; he has expressly called philosophy the “bad danger” to thought, as opposed to poetry, the “good danger”.

The relation between philosophy of science and biology exemplified by the problem of explanation

Abstract: This paper contains some considerations on the relation between philosophy of science and science, in particular biology. There is a contrast between formalistic and pragmatic approaches to the structure of scientific thought, which is illustrated by the different viewpoints on the nature of explanation. In an appendix some aspects of the logical structure of teleological explanation are discussed.