24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harmonizing Teleology and Evolution?, May 30, 2010
This review is from: From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution (Paperback)
This book is both brilliant and difficult.
The most glaring issue seems to stem from the translation. The work does not flow well, and the wordings are often obtuse, when more common philosophical terms could have been used for an easier read.
Translation aside, there are three things that I dislike about the book:
1. Originally written at the onset of our current post-secular age, Gilson was still required to write according to a mythical neutrality and with even a notion of scorn towards his fellow Christian scholars. Forty years later, the secularists remain among the loudest in the public square, but few academics continue to persist in the old myth of a secular neutrality, nor that we should hide our most cherished values in order to play according to unproven rules of this equally biased perspective. Thus, many words are wasted in arguing that teleology does not necessarily imply theism so as to appease the arbitrarily enforced secular worldview of the academy in his day.
2. As Christoph Schornborn mentions in the foreword, Gilson has an awkward relationship with formal causes. Unfortunately, due to my previous point, it is difficult to tell whether this is due to a philosophical reason or simply as a means to appease the secular worldview and appear more "neutral."
3. Gilson furthers the myth that Darwin lost his faith as a direct result of his scientific findings. Historians of Darwin continue to argue against this myth, although some have championed the propogation of this myth in order to further their own metaphysical perspectives. Nick Spencer's
Darwin and God has shown the complexity of Darwins move from a deistic Christian position to an adamant agnosticism.
Despite these three negatives, I still give the book a worthy five stars.
It should be noted from the onset that this book is not arguing against evolution, or the "limits" of evolutionary science or anything similar. The author intends to show instead that current evolutionary thinking lends itself naturally to Aristotelean philosophy.
The book begins with a basic introduction to Aristotle's thinking in regards to mechanism and finalism. It then proceeds into an analysis of the key figures leading up to Darwin's theory. He discusses Lamarck, Wallace, Gray and especially Spencer as well as others. He also discusses how F. Darwin and Huxley continued a variation of Darwin's argument after his death. His concern was not the science, but the underlying metaphysical assumptions of each of these contributors to the discussion. Gilson's concern is to show that they had radically different metaphysical assumptions that led to conflicts in telling the story of evolution. Instead of resolving the difficulties, evolutionary thinking simply tried to exclude the metaphysical from the discussion and continue to progress based on the usefulness of its ideas in hopes that the distinct metaphysical disjunction could be hidden under the rug. Gilson quips, "The root of the difficulties is the fundamental indetermination of the notion of evolution. The notion signified something supposedly enveloped, but Spencer popularized the word in another sense which no one could exactly define."
For many of these scientists of a previous age, the observation of clear teleology means they are now in the realm of physics and teleology may lead to theology and scientists are not equipped to adequately discuss either of these fields. Somehow this admitted humility in regards to other spheres of knowledge led to an exclusion of other forms of knowledge, and as the scientific world rapidly progressed through the functionality and usefulness of their products, they began to present themselves as the only sphere of actual knowledge. Unfortunately, this move happened only as the result of a willful exclusion (in partiality as we will see) of the teleological and not as a result of scientific endeavor.
Gilson, after discussing this progression and showing along the way the constant reliance on teleological thinking says, "The long detour in which we have been involved with evolutionism will not have been useless. It allows us to see in the first place that the problem of final causality is just as unavoidable in the perspective of the evolution of species as in that of their creation" (i.e. Creationism). Strangely enough, Darwin and many of his contemporaries were thrilled by the fact that he had reunited teleology with their mechanistic view of the world. For instance, when Asa Gray thanked Darwin for restoring the role of the teleological to scientific thinking, Darwin responded, "What you say about teleology pleases me especially." It is no surprise that even after the neo-Darwinian synthesis, today many scientists constantly rely on teleological language and processes in order to make their determinations. Any time a scientist mentions the evolutionary "struggle" for survival they are inevitably resorting to an idea that species intentionally move toward and end. Any time they discuss the evolutionary "purpose" of some feature of a species they are likewise invoking teleology.
It would be fair to note at this point that Gilson would have no time for Intelligent Design (ID). Unsurprisingly, he reserves harsh criticism for some of the ideas underlying the grandfather of ID, William Paley. Whether correct or incorrect, he would see ID theorists as embracing the mechanistic worldview that he resists.
The final two chapters of Gilson's work are on the limits of mechanism and the constants of biophilosophy. This is where his argument takes off and shows that despite the desire of Bacon to separate certain philosophical notions in order to promote utility, these notions cannot be excluded. In a discussion of quantum realities and more contemporary biology, he comes back to Aristotle. As he says, "The facts that Aristotle's biology wished to explain are still there...up to the present no one has explained them any better. Mechanist interpretations of these facts, which Aristotle formerly said had failed, have not ever been satisfactory; they have only displayed more and more the inevitability of the notions of organization and teleology...in order to explain the existence of mechanistic structures of which science is the study." He makes the brilliant distinction early on in these chapters between how a mechanistic philosophy must exclude final causes a priori, often against common sense and empirical reasons, yet how a finalist philosophy can completely embrace the very mechanism at the heart of the other philosophy while giving a more complete explanation for things that mechanistic philosophy cannot per definition. He even suggests that whereas science may have no need for final causes to progress in its utilitarian endeavor for knowledge, they still exist in reality. There is a distinct difference between a methodological abstraction (or exclusion) and a real elimination and the constant reliance of science upon teleological language and methods only proves this point.
This review is already long, but gives the underlying ideas in this work. Whereas my explanation thus far is surely inadequate, if one takes the time to work through this book giving ample thought to what is being said, one will be rewarded with seeing the inevitability of complete explanations resorting to teleology. As Gilson concludes, if teleology so annoyingly continues to refuse to go away from the sciences, simply excluding it a prior only leaves it as an unexplained fact of nature. Let us instead seek to pursue knowledge from every angle, even if it means that we once again take up Aristotle and consider that after all these years, it may have been we who went astray.
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ancient Work too Often Left Behind, November 26, 2009
This review is from: From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution (Paperback)
How have modern Darwinian scientists handled Aristotle's rational achievements? Largely by ignoring his notions on causality and teleology. Etienne Gilson, as a philosopher, reveals the weakness of the theory of evolution's explanatory power regarding teleology.
The back cover notes: "The overreaching of many scientists into matters beyond self-imposed limits of scientific method is perhaps explained in part by the loss of two important ideas in modern thinking: final causality or purpose and formal causality."
This historian of philosophy in this volume provides chapters on:
- Aristotle
- The Mechanistic Objection
- Finality and Evolution
- The Constants of Biophilosophy
Christoph Schonborn writes a thought-provoking foreword. 240 pages.
The author proves that "organization and teleology invoked by Aristotle in order to explain the existence of mechanistic structures" remain satisfying and convincing.
Truth, Knowledge and the Reason for God: The Defense of the Rational Assurance of Christianity
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, though primarily a historical examination., June 18, 2010
This review is from: From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution (Paperback)
I've always been interested in biology. It is my absolute favorite natural science. When I saw this book by Etienne Gilson relating the thought of Aristotle to evolutionary theory I bought it as soon as I could.
The preface by Cardinal Schonborn is good. He basically contrasts materialistic philosophy with genuine metaphysics, and exposes some of the assumptions upon which an entirely naturalistic and scientific worldview is based. While certainly not disparaging science, he does show that it is not the "be all and end all" of truth.
The first chapter basically describes the Aristotelian understanding of biology and how final causality fits into this. Chapter 2, "The Mechanist Objection" shows from whence comes the usual mechanistic understanding of all things, especially biological organisms. Chapter 3 is by far the largest chapter. Here Gilson talks about the "fixist" understanding of biology, that all species are fixed. He goes on to talk about early theories of evolution, evolutionary theories that are not necessarily concerned with simple biology, and finally Darwin's thought and the thought of his successors. Throughout all this, Gilson shows what people thought of teleology and how it fit into their theories. The author then talks about Bergson, a famous philosopher in the stream of vitalist thought. He shows where this is similar to the teleology of Aristotle, and where it is different. In the last two chapters, we are told why mechanism cannot account for everything and why teleology is an indispensable part of understanding the facts of biology and the facts of life.
With that rather long summary of the book, I have to say that while I was really looking forward to this book, I was slightly disappointed. I thought that the book would mainly apply Aristotelian thought to current biology, with examples, explanations, etc. While it may be partly the fault of the translator, it seems that the author is not entirely clear in describing what teleology is, what final causality is, how it relates to evolution and natural selection, and to what end all organisms point. In short, this is not exactly an in-depth look at what finality is with lots of examples in biology, but rather a history of the thought and a short argument against the opposite position.
While it seems I'm only being critical, still, it's wonderful for history, and for somebody willing to take the time to read through it all it is worth it. There is some genuine argument against mechanistic interpretation and for teleology, I only think that the definitions and conclusions we should come off with from this discovery are not entirely stated. This book deserves four stars.
Edit: Since reading this book, I was tempted to search for more in-depth answers. Gilson's book would be a good intro. However, for those interested in more comprehensive discussions of Aristotle's though and its relation to modern biology, I recommend "Real Essentialism" by David Oderberg and "Aristotle's Philosophy of Biology" by James Lennox. These are both available on Amazon. You can also find free articles by them by typing their names in google and going to their websites.
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