In biology the term “vitalism” is usually associated with Hans Driesch’s doctrine of the entelechy: entelechies were nonmaterial, bio-specific agents responsible for governing a few peculiar biological phenomena. Since vitalism defined as such violates metaphysical materialism, the received view refutes the doctrine of the entelechy as a metaphysical heresy. But in the early twentieth century, a different, non-metaphysical evaluation of vitalism was endorsed by some biologists and philosophers, which finally led to a logical refutation of the doctrine of the entelechy. (...) In this non-metaphysical evaluation, first, vitalism was not treated as a metaphysical heresy but a legitimate response to the inadequacy of mechanistic explanations in biology. Second, the refutation of vitalism was logically rather than metaphysically supported by contemporary biological knowledge. The entelechy was not a valid concept, because vitalists could neither formulate vital laws, nor offer convincing examples of experimental indeterminism. (shrink)

A longstanding criticism of Ernest Nagel's model of reduction is that it fails to take theory change into account. This criticism builds on the received view that Nagelian reductions are incompatible with theory change. This article challenges the received view by showing that Nagel's model can easily accommodate theory change. Indeed, Nagel's model is essentially static as it only gives unchanging formal and nonformal conditions for reduction; in contrast, theory change belongs to the dynamic history of science; as a result, (...) the application of Nagel's model to scientific knowledge from different historical periods yields a series of Nagelian reductions of different degrees of reductive success. This Nagelian treatment of theory change is illustrated by considering the enterprise of reducing thermodynamics to statistical mechanics in the late nineteenth century. It is also contended that, in handling theory change Nagel's model has greater merits than subsequent models (exemplified by Kenneth Schaffner's general reduction-replacement model). This article concludes by suggesting that Nagel's model of reduction deals with theory change exactly in the same way as logical empiricism does with historicism. (shrink)

This article adopts a minimal definition of biological usage to demonstrate that the debate over biological function encompasses two distinct dimensions: descriptive and prescriptive. In the descriptive dimension, biological usage serves as the final arbiter for evaluating different accounts of biological function. Conversely, in the prescriptive dimension, accounts are formulated despite biological usage. The main thesis of this article is that the descriptive/prescriptive distinction helps make better sense of the biological function debate from a novel perspective. This is elucidated by (...) meticulously analyzing the two dimensions and subsequently providing a global overview of the debate. (shrink)

Vitalism was long viewed as the most grotesque view in biological theory: appeals to a mysterious life-force, Romantic insistence on the autonomy of life, or worse, a metaphysics of an entirely living universe. In the early twentieth century, attempts were made to present a revised, lighter version that was not weighted down by revisionary metaphysics: " organicism ". And philosophers since the Vienna Circle (Schlick, Frank and later Nagel) criticized Driesch and Bergson's " neovitalism " as a too-strong ontological commitment (...) to the existence of certain entities or " forces ", over and above the system of causal relations studied by mechanistic science, rejecting the weaker form, organicism, as well. But there has been some significant scholarly " push-back " against this orthodox attitude, notably pointing to the 18th-century Montpellier vitalists to show that there are different historical forms of vitalism, including how they relate to mainstream scientific practice (Wolfe and Normandin, eds. 2013). Additionally, some trends in recent biology that run counter to genetic reductionism and the informational model of the gene present themselves as organicist (Gilbert and Sarkar 2000, Moreno and Mossio 2015). Here, we examine some cases of vitalism in the twentieth century and today, not just as a historical form but as a significant metaphysical and scientific model. We argue for vitalism's conceptual originality without either reducing it to mainstream models of science or presenting it as an alternate model of science, by focusing on historical forms of vitalism, logical empiricist critiques thereof and the impact of synthetic biology on current (re-)theorizing of vitalism. (shrink)

Starting from Denis Noble’s criticism on the modern synthesis, this article argues that the author’s presentation of the modern synthesis focusses too one-sidedly on the phenomenal characteristics of the living, whereby it is made easily suitable to his criticisms, but risks to remain trapped in a territory-struggle; this criticism lacks an explicit focus on logical matters, and more in particular on the synthetic principles required to situate the relevancy or irrelevancy of phenomenal characteristics beyond territory-struggles. A brief sketch of how (...) the principle of teleology calls for reflexivity allows us to reveal the tension in Noble’s account between, on the one hand, the way in which he stresses the importance of metaphors and language, and, on the other hand, the way in which he invokes empirical arguments to assess the illusory character of certain metaphors. (shrink)

This book conducts a historico-critical investigation into a proposal to transform philosophy in the early twentieth century. Driven by the Great Differentiation, the emancipation of the sciences from philosophy in the nineteenth century, several early twentieth-century philosophical movements advocated the transformation of philosophy from an endeavor to unify all conceivable human knowledge into a practice focused on the logical analysis of the differentiated sciences and broader human knowledge. However, this proposal was not subsequently adopted, leading to the establishment of academic (...) philosophy as a discipline characterized by unique philosophical problems and solutions. Drawing on a variety of sources, this book posits that the transformation proposal offers crucial insights for understanding the history of philosophy, especially at its critical turning point in the early twentieth century. Moreover, although not pursued in academic philosophy today, this proposal still offers insights for rethinking the future role of philosophy. In response to Max Weber's fundamental challenge to philosophy post-Differentiation, it is argued that logical analysis offers a viable methodological approach and that the realm of values serves as a remaining substantive domain for practical philosophy. The book will be attractive to researchers and students interested in the history of philosophy and science as well as general intellectual history. (shrink)