Customer Reviews

Foundations of Biophilosophy

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a colleague of the authors' and have used the book in my own work. This book will be welcome to all who appreciate the great achievements of modern biological thought and practice, right along with the conceptual inadequacies and confusions that plague the field. The following are excerpts from various professional reviews:

"The authors have set the standards of biophilosophy" (Eörs Szathmáry, in Trends in Ecology & Evolution).

"Those who have no problems or see none do not need this book. But those who look for help in the partially inconclusive debates over meaning and truth, have much to gain by it" (Gerhard Vollmer, Naturwissenschaften).

This is a book addressed to biologists interested in the philosophy of biology, and philosophers interested in biology or natural sciences in general.
The main advantage of this book is that it presents a unified science-oriented philosophical outlook.

The book consists of two parts. In the first part Mario Bunge, professor of theoretical physics turned philosopher of science, builds the philosophical fundamentals: an emergentist-materialistic scientific realism. A brief outline of parts of the ontology and epistemology is sketched below. In the second part, two thirds of the book, the main author, Martin Mahner doctor of Zoology turned philosopher of science, turns to biophilosophy proper using the fundamentals defined part 1.

Part 1 would be most demanding for biologists. Philosophers would probably need to check up some biological terms that occur in Part 2. The whole book would be quite demanding for the general reader, though if you have studied some philosophy, some logic, and are able to get through a book on biology such as Dawkin's "The Extended Phenotype" you would be fine.

This is not a book for the timid. It is demanding in several ways
* it is detailed
For example: six usages of the word information and eight usages of the word adaption are identified.
* it is sometimes contrary to common sense
The worse for common sense, since it only takes you so far. For example, knowledge is defined in terms of neural plasticity of animals (see sketch below).
* it is sometimes contrary to other biophilosophy (by biologists or by philosophers of science)


Biophilosophical problems that are addressed include:
What is life?
What is biovalue?
What is a species?
What is a natural kind?
Taxonomy and Classification
What is development?
What is a gene?
At what level does selection takes place?
What is evolution?
What are the units of evolution?
What use has teleology and teleonomy? (hint: this is addressed at the very end of book)

Some philosophical problems that are identified and addressed throughout the book include:
* reification of concepts
Example: designed by natural selection for a certain function (natural selection is here a reified concept)
* confusion of ontological and epistemological concepts
* confusion of ontological and methodological concepts
* dualism/Platonism creeping back in
Example: Artificial Life, functionalist approach to the body-mind problem ("brain as symbol processor")
* usage of methaphors (often of heuristic value, but of little explanatory value)
Examples: selfish genes, the meaning of genetic information, DNA as a blueprint
* What is the conciousness?

Table of contents
Part 1, Philosophical Fundamentals
Chapter 1, Ontological Fundamentals
Chapter 2, Semantical and Logical Fundamentals
Chapter 3, Epistemological Fundamentals
Part 2, Fundamental Issues in Biophilosophy
Chapter 4, Life
Chapter 5, Ecology
Chapter 6, Psychobiology
Chapter 7, Systematics
Chapter 8, Developmental Biology
Chapter 9, Evolutionary Theory
Chapter 10, Teleology
Chapter 11, Concluding remarks


Sketch of ontology (from chapter 1):
Postulate O1 (basic assumption of ontological realism, not provable): The world exists on its own (whether or not there are inquirers).

Postulate O2 (axiom of methodological dualism): Every object is either a thing or construct (no object is neither, and none is both).

Postulate O3 (central thesis of materialism): The world is composed exclusively of things (concrete material objects)

Definition: For any x: x is a concrete (or material, or real) thing (entity) is defined as x is changeable.

Properties do not exist apart from things.

Definition: For any x: x is an ideal (or abstract, or conceptual) object (or construct) is defined as x is neither unchanging nor changeable.

Conceptual objects do not have substantial properties, only fictional properties.


Postulate O4 (ontological principle of lawfulness): Every essential property is lawfully related to some other essential property.

Postulate O5: Every thing changes.

Theorem 1: Every thing can undergo only lawful changes (events or transformations)
Corollary 1.1: There is no total disorder, and there are no miracles.

Postulate O6: Every concrete thing is either a system or a component of one.

Postulate O7: Every system, except the universe, is a subsystem of some other system.

Postulate O8: The universe is a system, namely the system such that every thing is a component of it.

Definition of emergent property P of a thing b:
Either
A) b is complex thing (system) and no part of b possesses P
or
B) b is a thing that has acquired P by virtue of becoming a component of a system

Postulate O9: All processes of development and evolution are accompanied by the emergence or submergence of (generic) properties.

Rule 1: All sciences should investigate possible real facts and should explain phenomena (appearances) in terms of them rather than the other way around.

Rule 2: A science-oriented ontology and epistemology should focus on reality, not appearance.

Sketch of Epistemology (from chapter 3):

Postulate E1: Every cognitive act is a process in some nervous system, whether human or not.

Postulate E2: All animals with a nervous system have neuronal systems that are committed, and some animals have also neuronal systems that are plastic.

Postulate E3: Learning is the specific function of some plastic neuronal systems.

Definition: The knowledge of an animal at a given time is the set of all items it has learned and retained up until that time.

Cororally: There is no inherited knowledge.

Definition: A piece of knowledge p is objective if, and only if, p is public (intersubjective) in some society and p is testable either conceptually or empirically.

Postulate E4 (axiom of epistemological realism): We can get to know the world, although only partially, imperfectly (or approximately), and gradually.

Postulate E5: Any knowledge of factual items is not direct or pictorial but symbolic.

Rule 1 (testability principle): Every datum, hypothesis, technique, plan, and artifact must be checked for adequacy (either truth or efficiency).

Rule 2 (fallibilist principle): Regard every cognitive item - be it datum, hypothesis, theory, technique, or plan, as subject of revision, every check is recheckable, and every artifact is imperfect.

Postulate E6 (meliorist principle): Every cognitive item, every proposal, and every artifact worth being perfected can be improved.

harold's quote in his negative review seems very disingenuous. G.M. Smith, the algal biologist, died in 1959, which appears to be well before this book was first started in German.

Mario Bunge is the Philosopher of choice for reflective scientists.

To be fair, perhaps we should add to the previous review the famous biologist G.M.Smith's appreciation of this book: "Everything contained herein is WRONG".