Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Incidental Causation, Spontaneous Generation, And Homonymous Predication In Aristotle’S Physics Ii And Other Texts, David Depew

David J Depew

How did Aristotle, the founder of scientific biology, define life? In this volume, which collects the contributions to a conference held in 2006, philologists, philosophers and biologists approach this question. They study how Aristotle's concept of the soul relates to his perception of life; how he evaluates the different criteria that, according to him, constitute life; how he uses those criteria to define different organic structures; whether there exists a unified definition of life in Aristotle's philosophy; aspects of procreation and ontogenesis; the relationship between individuals and species; the reception of Aristotle's theories. German text.

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew

David J Depew

This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and …

Consequence Etiology And Biological Teleology In Aristotle And Darwin, David Depew

David J Depew

Aristotle’s biological teleology is rooted in an epigenetic account of reproduction. As such, it is best interpreted by consequence etiology. I support this claim by citing the capacity of consequence etiology’s key distinctions to explain Aristotle’s opposition to Empedocles. There are implications for the relation between ancient and modern biology. The analysis reveals that in an important respect Darwin’s account of adaptation is closer to Aristotle’s than to Empedocles’s. They both rely on consequence etiological considerations to evade attributing the purposiveness of organisms to chance. Two implications follow: (l) Darwinian explanations of adaptation are as teleological as Aristotle’s, albeit differently; …

Inheriting Inherit The Wind: Debating The Play As A Teaching Tool, Edward Larson, David Depew, Ronald Isetti

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

From Hymn To Tragedy: Aristotle's Biological Genealogy Of Poetic Kinds, David Depew

David J Depew

This book examines the evidence for the pre-history and origin of drama. The belief that drama developed from religious ritual has been commonplace since the time of Aristotle but here is little agreement on just how this happened. Recently, scholars have even challenged the historical connection between drama and ritual. This volume an examination on the origins of Greek drama to date. It brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields, including classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, theatre history, philosophy, and religion. Though it primarily focuses up on ancient Greece, the volume includes comparative studies of …

Isocrates And Civic Education, Takis Poulakos, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Carlo Michelstaedter’S La Persuasione E La Rettorica: A Translation And Commentary, Carlo Michealstaedter, Russell Valentino, Cinzia Blum, David Depew

David J Depew

This translation of Carlo Michelstaedter’s Persuasion and Rhetoric brings the powerful and original work of a seminal cultural figure to English-language readers for the first time. Ostensibly a commentary on Plato’s and Aristotle’s relation to the pre-Socratic philosophers, Michelstaedter’s deeply personal book is an extraordinary rhetorical feat that reflects the author’s struggle to make sense of modern life. This edition includes an introduction discussing his life and work, an extensive bibliography, notes to introduce each chapter, and critical notes illuminating the text. Within hours of completing Persuasion and Rhetoric, his doctoral thesis, 23-year-old Michelstaedter shot himself to death. The text …

Darwinism, Design And Complex Systems Dynamics, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

The Philosophy Of Biology: An Episodic History, David Depew, Grene Marjorie

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Evolution And Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

The role of genetic inheritance dominates current evolutionary theory. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, several evolutionary theorists independently speculated that learned behaviors could also affect the direction and rate of evolutionary change. This notion was called the Baldwin effect, after the psychologist James Mark Baldwin. In recent years, philosophers and theorists of a variety of ontological and epistemological backgrounds have begun to employ the Baldwin effect in their accounts of the evolutionary emergence of mind and of how mind, through behavior, might affect evolution.

The essays in this book discuss the originally proposed Baldwin effect, how it …

Genetically Altered Crops, Ecological Irreversibility And The Precautionary Principle, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Developmental Systems, Darwinian Evolution,And The Unity Of Science, Bruce Weber, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Communication And Community: The Conceptual Background, David Depew, John Peters

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Genetic Biotechnology And Evolutionary Theory: Some Unsolicited Advice, David Depew

David J Depew

In his book The Biotech Century Jeremy Rifkin makes arguments about the dangers of market-driven genetic biotechnology in medical and agricultural contexts. Believing that Darwinism is too compromised by a competitive ethic to resist capitalist depredations of the “genetic commons,” and perhaps hoping to pick up anti-Darwinian allies, he turns for support to unorthodox non-Darwinian views of evolution. The Darwinian tradition, more closely examined, contains resources that might better serve his argument. The robust tradition associated with Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and others provides an alternative, scientifically sound basis for challenging the rhetoric of genetic reductionism.

The Baldwin Effect: An Archeology, David Depew

David J Depew

Abstract: “The Baldwin effect” stands for a wide variety of ways in which learn ing can be conceived as guiding adap tive evolution ary change. An analysis of the history of this notion reveals that it does not reliably refer either to a theory-neutral empirical phenomenon or to a single theoretical hypothesis. On the contrary, articulations of the general idea depend on distinctive, but in commensurable, theoretical backgrounds. In reconstructing the conceptual history of the Baldwin effect I hope to support contemporary explorations of idea by encouraging the articulation of new theoretical frameworks in which it might make sense. I …

Darwinism And Developmentalism: Prospects For Convergence, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics And The Genealogy Of Natural Selection, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

Darwinism Evolving examines the Darwinian research tradition in evolutionary biology from its inception to its turbulent present, arguing that recent advances in modeling the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems may well catalyze the next major phase of Darwinian evolutionism.While Darwinism has successfully resisted reduction to physics, the authors point out that it has from the outset developed and applied its core explanatory concept, natural selection, by borrowing models from dynamics, a branch of physics. The recent development of complex systems dynamics may afford Darwinism yet another occasion to expand its explanatory power.Darwinism's use of dynamical models has received insufficient attention …

Pragmatism From Progressivism To Post- Modernism, David Depew, Robert Hollinger

David J Depew

American pragmatism can be best understood against the background of 20th-century American culture and politics. The essays in this volume, by philosophers, cultural critics, and historians, explore the development of pragmatism in this context. The emphasis in this volume is on the interrelations between the philosophical or foundational issues raised by pragmatism as a philosophical movement, and the cultural, political, and educational programs that have been associated with pragmatism from James, Dewey, and Mead to Rorty and Cornel West. The book is divided into three parts, reflecting the periods of Progressivism, Positivism, and Postmodernism. The contributors explore the ways in …

Evolution, Ethics, And The Complexity Revolution, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Politics, Music, And Contemplation In Aristotle's Best State, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Entropy, Information, And Evolution: New Perspectives On Physical And Biological Evolution, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

Can recent developments in thermodynamics and information theory offer a way out of the current crisis in evolutionary theory? One of the most exciting and controversial areas of scientific research in recent years has been the application of the principles of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to the problems of the physical evolution of the universe, the origins of life, the structure and succession of ecological systems, and biological evolution. These sixteen original essays by evolutionists, ecologists, molecular biologists, physical chemists, physicists, and philosophers of science provide the best current summary of this developing research program.Chapters in the book's first part - by …

Evolution At A Crossroads: The New Biology And The New Philosophy Of Science, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Aristotle's De Anima And Marx's Theory Of Man, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

The Greeks And The Good Life: Proceedings Of The Ninth Annual Csuf Philosophy Symposium, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.