Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology
484Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology
484Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780739174364 |
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Publisher: | Lexington Books |
Publication date: | 02/01/2013 |
Pages: | 484 |
Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Foreword: Evolution Beyond Newton, Darwin, and Entailing LawIntroduction: On a “Life-Blind Spot” in Neo-Darwainism’s Mechanistic Metaphysical LensSection 1: Complexity, Systems Theory, and EmergenceChapter 1: Complex Systems Dynamics in Evolution and Emergence ProcessesChapter 2: Why Emergence MattersChapter 3: On the Incompatibility of the Neo-Darwinian Hypothesis With Systems-Theoretical Explanations of Biological DevelopmentChapter 4: Process-First OntologyChapter 5: Ordinal Pluralism as Metaphysics for BiologySection 2: Biosemiotics Chapter 6: Why Do We Need a Semiotic Understanding of Life?Chapter 7: The Irreducibility of Life to Mentality: Biosemiotics or Emergence?Section 3: Homeostasis, Thermodynamics, and SymbiogenesisChapter 8: Biology’s Second Law: Homeostasis, Purpose and DesireChapter 9: “Wind at Life’s Back” —Toward a Naturalistic, Whiteheadian Teleology: Symbiogenesis and the Second LawChapter 10: Of Termites and Men: On the Ontology of Collective IndividualsSection 4: The Baldwin Effect, Behavior, and EvolutionChapter 11: The Baldwin Effect in an Extended Evolutionary SynthesisChapter 12: On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary EthicsSection 5: Autogen, Teleology, and TeleodynamicsChapter 13: Teleology Versus Mechanism in Biology: Beyond Self-Organization Chapter 14: Teleodynamics: A Neo-Naturalistic Conception of Organismic TeleologySection 6: Epigenetics Chapter 15: Epigenetics: Toward An Inclusive Concept of EvolutionChapter 16: Epigenetics, Soft Inheritance, Mechanistic Metaphysics, and BioethicsSection 7: Organism and MechanismChapter 17: From Organicism to Mechanism—and Half-Way Back?Chapter 18: Machines and Organisms: The Rise and Fall of a ConflictAbout the ContributorsWhat People are Saying About This
This collection of papers explores some ways forward for biological science, out of its neo-Darwinian stasis and its mechanistic bonds. Perspectives brought to bear on this project herein range from ontogeny to ecology, entrained by a renewed bio-philosophy, and influenced as well by semiotics and moral considerability. The contributors include biologists and philosophers as well as a theologian. Major influences from the past are Aristotle, Kant, Lloyd Morgan and Whitehead, among more recent ones like Justus Buchler and Waddington. Anti-mechanicism is the overall organizing theme, as suggested by the phenomena of emergence and complexity, and mediated by concepts like self-organization and finality. Bacon’s prohibition against final cause serving as a motivation within scientific models is finally being jettisoned. Special topics include: adaptive state space, agency, anticipation, autonomy, epigenetics, hierarchical structures, interpretation, niche construction, organic selection, performativity, process philosophy, and symbiogenesis. Structural attractors are hinted at in regard to extension outward of relevant environments. There is a bit of internal criticism, as well as a muted demurrer by an observer from the current establishment. I recommend this volume to those willing to consider some of the possibilities emerging now within biological science.