The Gestation of German Biology

The Gestation of German Biology

Author: John H. Zammito

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 9780226520797

Category: History

Page: 532

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This book explores how and when biology emerged as a science in Germany. Beginning with the debate about organism between Georg Ernst Stahl and Gottfried Leibniz at the start of the eighteenth century, John Zammito traces the development of a new research program, culminating in 1800, in the formulation of developmental morphology. He shows how over the course of the century, naturalists undertook to transform some domains of natural history into a distinct branch of natural philosophy, which attempted not only to describe but to explain the natural world and became, ultimately, the science of biology.

Kielmeyer and the Organic World

Kielmeyer and the Organic World

Author: Lydia Azadpour

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

ISBN: 9781350143487

Category: Philosophy

Page: 248

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Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer (1765-1844) was the 'father of philosophy of nature' owing to his profound influence on German Idealist and Romantic Naturphilosophie. With the recent growth of interest in Idealist and Romantic philosophy of nature in the UK and abroad, the importance of Kielmeyer's work is being increasingly recognised and special attention is being paid to his influence on biology's development as a distinct discipline at the end of the eighteenth century. In this exciting new book, Lydia Azadpour and Daniel Whistler present the first ever English translations of key texts by Kielmeyer, along with contextual and interpretative essays by leading international scholars, who are experts on the philosophy of nature and the formation of the life sciences in the late eighteenth century. The topics they cover include: the laws of nature, the concept of force, the meaning of 'organism', the logic of recapitulation, Kielmeyer and ecology, sexual differentiation in animal life and Kielmeyer's relationship to Kant, Schelling and Hegel. In doing so, they provide a comprehensive English reference to Kielmeyer's historical and contemporary significance.

The Robbery of Nature

The Robbery of Nature

Author: John Bellamy Foster

Publisher: NYU Press

ISBN: 9781583678411

Category: Political Science

Page:

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Bridges the gap between social and environmental critiques of capitalism In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, inspired by the German chemist Justus von Liebig, argued that capitalism’s relation to its natural environment was that of a robbery system, leading to an irreparable rift in the metabolism between humanity and nature. In the twenty-first century, these classical insights into capitalism’s degradation of the earth have become the basis of extraordinary advances in critical theory and practice associated with contemporary ecosocialism. In The Robbery of Nature, John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, working within this historical tradition, examine capitalism’s plundering of nature via commodity production, and how it has led to the current anthropogenic rift in the Earth System.

The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy

The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy

Author: Manja Kisner

Publisher: Springer Nature

ISBN: 9783030841607

Category: Philosophy

Page: 332

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This volume gathers a collection of fourteen original articles discussing the concept of drive in classical German philosophy. Its aim is to offer a comprehensive historical overview of the concept of drive at the turn of the 19th century and to discuss it both historically and systematically. From the 18th century onward, the concept of drive started to play an important role in emerging disciplines such as biology, anthropology, and psychology. In these fields, the concept of drive was used to describe the inner forces of organic nature, or, more particularly, human urges and desires. But it was in the period of classical German philosophy that this concept developed into an important philosophical concept crucial to Kant’s and post-Kantian idealistic systems. Reflecting the complexity of this concept, the volume first discusses historical sources of drive theories in Leibniz, Reimarus, and Blumenbach. Afterwards, the volume presents the philosophical accounts of drives in Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and also gives a systematic overview of other important drive theories that were formed around 1800 by Herder, Goethe, Jacobi, Novalis, Reinhold, Schiller, and Schopenhauer.

The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism

The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism

Author: Karl Ameriks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781108509602

Category: Philosophy

Page:

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This updated edition offers a comprehensive, penetrating, and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling are all discussed in detail, along with contemporaries such as Hölderlin, Novalis, and Schopenhauer, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. Leading scholars trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism and discuss its relationship to Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. This second edition offers an updated bibliography and includes three entirely new chapters, which address aesthetic reflection and human nature, the chemical revolution after Kant, and organism and system in German Idealism. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of interested readers in philosophy, literature, theology, German studies, and the history of ideas.

Philosophy of Biology Before Biology

Philosophy of Biology Before Biology

Author: Cécilia Bognon-Küss

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317227557

Category: Social Science

Page: 220

View: 935

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The use of the term "biology" to refer to a unified science of life emerged around 1800 (most prominently by scientists such as Lamarck and Treviranus, although scholarship has indicated its usage at least 30-40 years earlier). The interplay between philosophy and natural science has also accompanied the constitution of biology as a science. Philosophy of Biology Before Biology examines biological and protobiological writings from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century (from Buffon to Cuvier; Kant to Oken; and Kielmeyer) with two major sets of questions in mind: What were the distinctive conceptual features of the move toward biology as a science? What were the relations and differences between the "philosophical" focus on the nature of living entities, and the "scientific" focus? This insightful volume produces a fresh but also systematic perspective both on the history of biology as a science and on the early versions of, in the 1960s in a post-positivist context, the philosophy of biology. It will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as history of science, philosophy of science and biology.

The End of Final Causes in Biology

The End of Final Causes in Biology

Author: Lucas John Mix

Publisher: Springer Nature

ISBN: 9783031140174

Category: Philosophy

Page: 150

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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.

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy

Author: Luca Corti

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

ISBN: 9781000643985

Category: Philosophy

Page: 298

View: 818

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This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of the relevance of naturalism and theories of nature in Classical German Philosophy. It presents new readings from internationally renowned scholars on Kant, Jacobi, Goethe, the Romantic tradition, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx that highlight the significance of conceptions of nature and naturalism in Classical German Philosophy for contemporary concerns. The collection presents an inclusive view: it goes beyond the usual restricted focus on single thinkers to encompass the tradition as a whole, prompting dialogue among scholars interested in different authors and areas. It thus illuminates the post-Kantian tradition in a new, wider sense. The chapters also mobilize a productive perspective at the intersection of philosophy and history by combining careful textual and historical analysis with argument-based philosophizing. Overall, the book challenges the stereotypical view that Classical German Philosophy offers at best only an idealistic, one-sided, anachronistic, and theological view of nature. It invites readers to put traditional views in dialogue with current discussions of nature and naturalism. Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Classical German Philosophy, 19th-Century Philosophy, and contemporary perspectives on naturalism.

Thinking

Thinking

Author: Nima Rezaei

Publisher: Springer Nature

ISBN: 9783031040757

Category: Medical

Page: 796

View: 401

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The “THINKING: Bioengineering of Science and Art” is to discuss about philosophical aspects of thinking at the context of Science and Art. External representations provide evidence that the fundamental process of thinking exists in both animal subjects and humans. However, the diversity and complexity of thinking in humans is astonishing because humans have been permitted to integrate scientific accounts into their accounts and create excellent illustrations for the effects of this integration. The book necessarily begins with the origins of human thinking and human thinking into self and others, body, and life. Multiple factors tend to modify the pattern of thinking. They all will come into play by this book that brings thinking into different disciplines: humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and applied sciences. The thinking demands full processing of information, and therefore, the book considers the economy of thinking as well. The book thoroughly intends to explore thinking beyond the boundaries. Specifically, several chapters are devoted to discipline this exploration either by artistic thinking alone or by art and mathematics-aided engineering of complexities. In this manner, the book models variations on thinking at the individual and systems levels and accumulates a list of solutions, each good for specific scenarios and maximal outcomes.

The Palgrave Handbook of German Romantic Philosophy

The Palgrave Handbook of German Romantic Philosophy

Author: Elizabeth Millán Brusslan

Publisher: Springer Nature

ISBN: 9783030535674

Category: Philosophy

Page: 722

View: 529

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This Handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the philosophical dimensions of German Romanticism, a movement that challenged traditional borders between philosophy, poetry, and science. With contributions from leading international scholars, the collection places the movement in its historical context by both exploring its links to German Idealism and by examining contemporary, related developments in aesthetics and scientific research. A substantial concluding section of the Handbook examines the enduring legacy of German romantic philosophy. Key Features: • Highlights the contributions of German romantic philosophy to literary criticism, irony, cinema, religion, and biology. • Emphasises the important role that women played in the movement’s formation. • Reveals the ways in which German romantic philosophy impacted developments in modernism, existentialism and critical theory in the twentieth century. • Interdisciplinary in approach with contributions from philosophers, Germanists, historians and literary scholars. Providing both broad perspectives and new insights, this Handbook is essential reading for scholars undertaking new research on German romantic philosophy as well as for advanced students requiring a thorough understanding of the subject.

Interrogations of Evolutionism in German Literature 1859-2011

Interrogations of Evolutionism in German Literature 1859-2011

Author: Nicholas Saul

Publisher: BRILL

ISBN: 9789004427075

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 296

View: 659

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In Interrogations of Evolutionism in German Literature 1859-2011 Nicholas Saul offers the first representative account of German literary responses to Darwinian evolutionism from from Raabe and Jensen via Ernst Jünger and Botho Strauß to Dietmar Dath.

Pragmatism's Evolution

Pragmatism's Evolution

Author: Trevor Pearce

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 9780226720081

Category: Philosophy

Page: 380

View: 786

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In Pragmatism’s Evolution, Trevor Pearce demonstrates that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism owes an enormous debt to specific biological debates in the late 1800s, especially those concerning the role of the environment in development and evolution. Many are familiar with John Dewey’s 1909 assertion that evolutionary ideas overturned two thousand years of philosophy—but what exactly happened in the fifty years prior to Dewey’s claim? What form did evolutionary ideas take? When and how were they received by American philosophers? Although the various thinkers associated with pragmatism—from Charles Sanders Peirce to Jane Addams and beyond—were towering figures in American intellectual life, few realize the full extent of their engagement with the life sciences. In his analysis, Pearce focuses on a series of debates in biology from 1860 to 1910—from the instincts of honeybees to the inheritance of acquired characteristics—in which the pragmatists were active participants. If we want to understand the pragmatists and their influence, Pearce argues, we need to understand the relationship between pragmatism and biology.