Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T05:43:49.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mechanism and Biological Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Francisco Varela  and
Humberto Maturana
Francisco Varela
Affiliation:
Universidad de Chile
Humberto Maturana
Affiliation:
Universidad de Chile
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Machines and Biology have been, since antiquity, closely related. From the zoological figures present in astronomical simulacra, through renaissance mechanical imitations of animals, through Decartes' wind pipe nerves, to present day discussions on the computer and the brain, runs a continuous thread. In fact, the very name of mechanism for an attitude of inquiry throughout the history of Biology reveals this at a philosophical level ([4] and [6]). More often than not, mechanism is mentioned in opposition to vitalism, as an assertion of the validity of the objectivity principle in biology: there are no purposes in animal nature; its apparent purposefulness is similar to the purposefulness of machines. Yet, the fact that one picks machines as a set of objects comparable to living systems, deserves a closer look. What in machines makes it possible to establish such a connection?

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 378 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 by The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Ashby, W. R. An Introduction to Cybernetics. New York: Wiley, 1956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Beckner, M. The Biological Way of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
[3] Beckner, M. “Function and Teleology.” Journal of the History of Biology 2: 151–164.10.1007/BF00137271CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] de Solla Price, D. J. “Automata and the Origins of Mechanism and Mechanistic Philosophy.” Technology and Culture 5: 9–23.10.2307/3101119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Gunther, G. “Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations.” Self-Organizing Systems. Edited by Youits, M. C., Jacobi, G. T., and Goldstein, G. D. Washington: Spartan Books, 1962.Google Scholar
[6] Hall, T. S. Ideas of Life and Matter, vol. 1. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
[7] Schaffner, K. F. “Approaches to Reduction.” Philosophy of Science 34: 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Stern, A. W. “Space, Field and Ether in Contemporary Physics.” Science 116: 493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9] Roll, H. N. “On the Reduction of Biology to Physical Science.” Synthese 20:277–289.10.1007/BF00413792CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[10] Rosenblueth, A.; Wiener, N.; and Bigelow, J. “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology.” Philosophy of Science 10: 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11] Wiener, N. Cybernetics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961.Google Scholar