Reconstructing a Legacy: On Overcoming Biological Preformationism, Dualism, and the Inheritance Paradigm (2009)
Mengel, Gregory A. (Author)
California Institute of Integral Studies
Swimme, Brian
Edition Details: Advisor: Swimme, Brian
Physical Details: 284 pp.
Language: English
Contemporary attempts to bring evolution and ontogeny into a productive theoretical synthesis are constrained by a legacy of preformationist thinking. This legacy, which is descended from the metaphysics of the Scientific Revolution, is embodied in what I call the inheritance paradigm . In this dissertation, I document the interacting material and conceptual factors responsible for the development of the inheritance paradigm and critically examine its role in contemporary theory. I begin by describing the transformation of the physical and social landscape of early modern Europe that created the conditions for inheritance-based reasoning to develop. I then follow the construction of biological inheritance from its early appearance as an unstructured analogy, through its consolidation into a structured medical concept, and finally to its integration into biology as a general explanatory category. Next, I examine a theoretical and philosophical counter-movement in the life sciences, sometimes called constructionism (Gray, 1992). Proponents of the constructionist movement emphasize the interdependence of phylogenetic and ontogenetic (including behavioral) dynamics in the production of complex organic form. Developmental systems theory (DST), in particular, seeks to integrate theories of ontogeny and evolution by rejecting the preformationism implicit in the genes-environment dichotomy and taking seriously the constructive interactions that are actually responsible for the production of complex organic form. Finally, I evaluate a recent revision of DST that attempts, by way of an extended model of inheritance, to resolve a supposed inconsistency between DST and Darwinian explanation. I argue that this revision, with its focus on the causes of intergenerational resemblance and stability, privileges the inheritance paradigm over the systems thinking that is at the heart of DST. I suggest, therefore, that a constructionist integration of evolutionary and developmental theories would be more effectively advanced by replacing the inheritance paradigm with a network paradigm that emphasizes the constructive, interactive dynamics responsible for the formation and transformation of developmental systems across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 70/09 (2010). Pub. no. AAT 3374307.
Similar Citations
Article
Detlefsen, Karen;
(2003)
Supernaturalism, Occasionalism, and Preformation in Malebranche
(/isis/citation/CBB000502690/)
Article
Slezak, Peter;
(2012)
Mario Bunge's Materialist Theory of Mind and Contemporary Cognitive Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001252230/)
Book
Grene, Marjorie Glicksman;
Depew, David J.;
(2004)
The Philosophy of Biology: An Episodic History
(/isis/citation/CBB000401061/)
Article
Marc J. Ratcliff;
(2017)
De la règle de l’exception au principe de Bonnet: les principes épistémologiques des sciences de la vie à partir de 1740
(/isis/citation/CBB288202564/)
Article
Alessandro Becchi;
(2017)
Leibniz, the Microscope and the Concept of Preformation
(/isis/citation/CBB700580372/)
Article
Witt, Elke;
(2008)
Form---A Matter of Generation: The Relation of Generation, Form, and Function in the Epigenetic Theory of Caspar F. Wolff
(/isis/citation/CBB000831765/)
Chapter
Roe, Shirley A.;
(2010)
Biology, Atheism, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century France
(/isis/citation/CBB001020056/)
Book
Minelli, Alessandro;
Pradeu, Thomas;
(2014)
Towards a Theory of Development
(/isis/citation/CBB001510363/)
Article
Schickela, Joel A.;
(2011)
Descartes on the Identity of Passion and Action
(/isis/citation/CBB001211010/)
Book
Alfredo Marcos;
(2012)
Postmodern Aristotle
(/isis/citation/CBB237774227/)
Article
Tero Piiroinen;
(2018)
A Meaning Holistic (Dis)solution of Subject–Object Dualism – Its Implications for the Human Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB535374287/)
Article
Sobol, Valeria;
(2006)
Nerves, Brain, or Heart? The Physiology of Emotions and the Mind-Body Problem in Russian Sentimentalism
(/isis/citation/CBB000660083/)
Article
Jacqueline Broad;
(2018)
Conway and Charleton on the Intimate Presence of Souls in Bodies
(/isis/citation/CBB484625868/)
Book
Uttal, William R.;
(2004)
Dualism: The Original Sin of Cognitivism
(/isis/citation/CBB000630288/)
Article
Beiser, Frederick;
(2003)
Hegel and Naturphilosophie
(/isis/citation/CBB000340874/)
Thesis
Marquardt, Sarah Helen;
(2001)
The Freedom, Equality and Dignity of Human Reason: A Reconsideration of Cartesian Dualism
(/isis/citation/CBB001560616/)
Article
Thomas A. C. Reydon;
Markus Scholz;
(2015)
Searching for Darwinism in Generalized Darwinism
(/isis/citation/CBB384666113/)
Article
Radick, Gregory;
(2012)
Should “Heredity” and “Inheritance” Be Biological Terms? William Bateson's Change of Mind as a Historical and Philosophical Problem
(/isis/citation/CBB001211553/)
Book
Russell Winslow;
(2017)
Organism and Environment: Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB178727188/)
Article
Gliboff, Sander;
(2010)
Did Paul Kammerer Discover Epigenetic Inheritance? No and Why Not
(/isis/citation/CBB001024796/)
Be the first to comment!