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This book provides a straightforward introduction to teleology in biology, the work it did and the work it can do. Informed by history and philosophy, it focuses on scientific concerns. Seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century biologists proposed a menagerie of biological “actors” to explain power without appealing to Aristotelian vegetable souls and final causes. Three constraints on teleology narrowed the field, selecting among the various actors as they mutated and recombined. Methodological naturalism, local adaptation, and blind chance each represent a significant philosophical advance in biology. Kant, Darwin, and the Modern Synthesis provided a new teleology, grounded in natural selection, an etiological recursion of form and function, and the details of carbon chemistry on Earth. They naturalized teleology, but they also finalized nature, shifting conceptions about the world and science. Understanding these links – historical, philosophical, and theoretical – sets the stage for new work moving forward.
An End to Ends?
Biological Actors
Function and Teleology
Form and Agents
Power
The Argument
The Context of the Argument
Biological Context
Philosophical Context
Historical Context
Naturalized Teleology
What Makes Life Life-Like? The Dynamic Continuity of Living Things
Continuity Through Change
The Parmenidean Thread
Material Cause: Composition
Efficient Cause: Power
Formal Cause: Form
Final Cause: Function
Other Souls
Vegetable Souls in the Middle Ages
The Human Perspective
The Nature of Life
Physis—Natura—Nature
Psyche/Pneuma—Anima/Spiritus—Soul/Breath
Material Souls
The Ladder of Nature
Physical and Spiritual Life
Metabolism and Consciousness
Things Fall Apart
Mechanical Organisms in the Enlightenment
The Effects of Natural Science
Cartesian Biology
Baconian Biology
Kantian Biology
Organism Versus Mechanism
The Effects of Evolution
“Evolution” and Biology
Darwinian Biology
Who “Acts” in Biology? Biological Agents from Souls to Genes
Biological Actor Concepts Proliferate
Preformed Embryos
Vital Particles
Vital Forms
Vital Forces
Genes: The New Biological Agent
Biology in Historical Perspective
Genes
Genes as Form
Genes as Agents
Biological Interest
Genetic Interest
A New Teleology
Can Teleology Be Saved? Three Constraints on Bioteleology
Muddled “Teleology”
Categories of Teleology
Methodological Naturalism
Missing the Point
Creationism Versus Evolution
Local Adaptation
The Strong Anthropic Principle
Is Progress Possible?
Blind Chance
Genes and Natural Selection Finalize Nature
Etiological Recursion
Physical Cycling
Metabolic Power
Genetic Power
Organismal Power
Systemic Power
Environmental Action
Methodological Naturalism
Local Adaptation
Blindness
Completeness
Etiological Recursion Versus Physical Cycle
Author Index
Subject Index