In this book, Esposito presents a historiography of organicist and holistic thought through an examination of the work of leading biologists from Britain and America. He shows how this work relates to earlier Romantic tradition and sets it within the wider context of the history and philosophy of the life sciences.

In this article we argue that the classical—linear and bottom-up directed—models of causation in biology, and the ‘‘proximate/ultimate’’ dichotomy, are inappropriate to capture the complexity inherent to biological processes. We introduce a new notion of ‘‘multilevel causation’’ where old dichotomies such as proximate/ultimate and bottom-up/ top-down are reinterpreted within a multilevel, web-like, approach. In briefly reviewing some recent work on complexity, EvoDevo, carcinogenesis, autocatalysis, comparative genomics, animal regeneration, phenotypic plasticity, and niche construction, we will argue that such reinterpretation is a (...) necessary step for the advancement of the ‘‘Extended Synthesis.’’. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a new interpretation of the British evolutionary synthesis. The synthetic work of J. B. S. Haldane, R. A. Fisher and J. S. Huxley was characterized by both an integration of Mendelism and Darwinism and the unification of different biological subdisciplines within a coherent framework. But it must also be seen as a bold and synthetic Darwinian program in which the biosciences served as a utopian blueprint for the progress of civilization. Describing the futuristic visions of (...) these three scientists in their synthetic heydays, I show that, despite a number of important divergences, their biopolitical ideals could be biased toward a controlled and regimented utopian society. Their common ideals entailed a social order where liberal and democratic principles were partially or totally suspended in favor of bioscientific control and planning for the future. Finally, I will argue that the original redefinition of Darwinism that modern synthesizers proposed is a significant historical example of how Darwinism has been used and adapted in different contexts. The lesson I draw from this account is a venerable one: that, whenever we wish to define Darwinism, we need to recognize not only its scientific content and achievements but expose the other traditions and ideologies it may have supported. (shrink)

ArgumentD’Arcy Thompson has often been portrayed as a loner. His science of form has frequently been labeled anachronistic, idiosyncratic, and unconnected to his contemporary biology. This article aims to challenge this interpretation. Thompson's representation as a loner did not lie in the idiosyncrasies of his science, but in our own historiography. Through the use of unedited archival sources, this study shows that Thompson's biology was well-connected to an international research program – a program mainly shared by developmental biologists, physiologists, and (...) morphologists. In addition, this article also aims to propose a new interpretation of Thompson'sOn Growth and Form. Drawing on his private correspondence and published sources, the paper re-contextualizes the contents and conclusions of Thompson's seminal work. We will see that Thompson defended a particular kind of organismal biology. The bio-science he supported stemmed not only from Aristotle's zoology or Pythagorean mathematics, but had many allies among twentieth-century naturalists. (shrink)

This article addresses some crucial assumptions that are rarely acknowledged when organisms and machines are compared. We begin by presenting a short historical reconstruction of the concept of “machine.” We show that there has never been a unique and widely accepted definition of “machine” and that the extant definitions are based on specific technologies. Then we argue that, despite the concept's ambiguity, we can still defend a more robust, specific, and useful notion of machine analogy that accounts for successful strategies (...) in connecting specific devices (or mechanisms) with particular living phenomena. For that purpose, we distinguish between what we call “generic identity” and proper “machine analogy.” We suggest that “generic identity”—which, roughly stated, presumes that some sort of vague similarity might exist between organisms and machines—is a source of the confusion haunting many persistent disagreements and that, accordingly, it should be dismissed. Instead, we endorse a particular form of “machine analogy” where the relation between organic phenomena and mechanical devices is not generic but specific and grounded on the identification of shared “invariants.” We propose that the machine analogy is a kind of analogy as proportion and we elucidate how this is used or might be used in scientific practices. We finally argue that while organisms are not machines in a generic sense, they might share many robust “invariants,” which justify the scientists' use of machine analogies for grasping living phenomena. (shrink)

The relation between organisms and machines is very old. Over a century ago, the French historian and philosopher Alfred Victor Espinas observed that from the Greeks onwards the intelligibility of the organic world presupposed a comparison with technical objects. Aristotle, for instance, associated living organs with mechanical artefacts in order to understand animals ‘movements. In the modern period, Descartes, Borelli and other mechanists defended the idea that organisms are, in reality, machines. Today, philosophers and scientists still argue that the genome (...) is like a software and the brain is like a computer. In this article I reconsider the relation between organisms and machines from the perspective of the German geographer and philosopher Ernst Kapp, one of the founding fathers of the Philosophy of Technology. Breaking with a long and venerable philosophical tradition, Kapp argued that machines are, in reality, “organic projections”. Organisms are not machines; they are an imitation or reflection of the organic world. First of all, I clarify the hypothesis of “organic projection”. Secondly, I consider some of the philosophical consequences that such a hypothesis entails over the debate between machinists and anti-mechanists. Finally, and following the previous considerations, I defend the importance of reconnecting the philosophy of technology with philosophy of biology in order to better understand the development of contemporary biology. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century Haeckel’s biogenetic law was widely questioned. On the one hand, there were those who wanted to dismiss it altogether: ontogeny and phylogeny did not have any systematic or interesting relation. On the other hand, there were those who sought to revise it. They argued that while Haeckel’s recapitulationism might have been erroneous, this should not deter the research over the relation between evolution and development. The British embryologist Walter Garstang was one of the (...) main figures on the “revisionists” side. In this paper, I first situate Garstang’s contribution to embryology and evolution within the extraordinarily creative period of the first three decades of the twentieth century. Then, I review some of Garstang’s specific ideas in detail, especially his most well-known 1922 paper “The Theory of Recapitulation.” Finally, I look at how the demise of the biogenetic law in light of Garstang’s views—as well as from the perspective of contemporary developmental evolution—should be understood. My main concern is not about the dismissal of Haeckel’s law or the sidelining of embryology in the twentieth-century evolutionary biology. I am rather interested in exploring why Garstang’s revised version of biogenetic law—which was entirely consistent with the neo-Darwinian perspective underpinning the Modern synthesis—did not spur a major new agenda in evolutionary biology after the 1930s. (shrink)

Scholars have paid great attention to the neo-Darwinism of Ronald Fisher. He was one of the founding fathers of the modern synthesis and, not surprisingly, his writings and life have been widely scrutinized. However, less attention has been paid to his interests in the human sciences. In assessing Fisher’s uses of the human sciences in his seminal book the Genetical Theory of Natural Selection and elsewhere, the article shows how Fisher’s evolutionary thought was essentially eclectic when applied to the human (...) context. In order to understand how evolution works among humans, Fisher made himself also a sociologist and historian. More than a eugenically minded Darwinist, Fisher was also a sophisticated scholar combining many disciplines without the ambition to reduce, simplistically, the human sciences to biology. (shrink)

The relation between organisms and machines is very old. Over a century ago, the French historian and philosopher Alfred Victor Espinas observed that from the Greeks onwards the intelligibility of the organic world presupposed a comparison with technical objects. Aristotle, for instance, associated living organs with mechanical artefacts in order to understand animals ‘movements. In the modern period, Descartes, Borelli and other mechanists defended the idea that organisms are, in reality, machines. Today, philosophers and scientists still argue that the genome (...) is like a software and the brain is like a computer. In this article I reconsider the relation between organisms and machines from the perspective of the German geographer and philosopher Ernst Kapp, one of the founding fathers of the Philosophy of Technology. Breaking with a long and venerable philosophical tradition, Kapp argued that machines are, in reality, “organic projections”. Organisms are not machines; they are an imitation or reflection of the organic world. First of all, I clarify the hypothesis of “organic projection”. Secondly, I consider some of the philosophical consequences that such a hypothesis entails over the debate between machinists and anti-mechanists. Finally, and following the previous considerations, I defend the importance of reconnecting the philosophy of technology with philosophy of biology in order to better understand the development of contemporary biology. (shrink)

This paper has three principal aims: first, through a detailed analysis of the hypotheses and assumptions underlying Weismann’s and Morgan’s disagreement on the nature of animal regeneration, it seeks to readdress the imbalance in coverage of their discussion, providing, at the same time, a fascinating case-study for those interested in general issues related to controversies in science. Second, contrary to Morgan’s beliefs according to which Weismann employed a speculative and unempirical method of scientific investigation, the article shows that Weismann performed (...) experiments, made observations and proposed ‘undogmatic’ theories open to refutation. Third, through the reconstruction of Weismann’s and Morgan’s disagreement, this study illustrates how biology, during the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was undergoing important changes. I argue that this controversy clearly and convincingly demonstrates how some important epistemic assumptions became increasingly problematic for some members of the younger generations of biologists. At the end of my discussion I will also argue that Weismann and Morgan both had strong well-grounded arguments supporting their conclusions; for this reason I suggest a few factors (“taken-for-granted” beliefs or assumptions) that could explain why their disagreement was doomed to remain unresolved. In particular, I will analyze their diverse explicative interests, their different theoretical concerns and their distinct use of the available evidence. (shrink)