created by iunoionnis on 27/10/2018 at 14:44 UTC*
7 upvotes, 3 top-level comments (showing 3)
I was looking over the SEP page on teleology in biology, and it points out that concerns about the role of teleology includes:
(1) vitalistic (positing some special "life-force"); (2) requiring backwards causation (because future outcomes explain present traits); (3) incompatible with mechanistic explanation (because of 1 and 2); (4) mentalistic (attributing the action of mind where there is none); (5) empirically untestable (for all the above reasons).
I am especially interested in "(2) requiring backwards causation (because future outcomes explain present traits)."
Skimming the article, the main mention of a way of approaching this issue seems to be in the section on functionalism:
Some theorists adopt an etiological or backward-looking approach that analyzes the function of a trait only in terms of those effects of the trait which have in the past contributed to the selection of organisms with that trait. Others adopt a dispositional or forward-looking approach that analyzes function in terms of those effects it is disposed to produce that tend to contribute to the present or future maintenance of the trait in a population of organisms.
I would be interested in any recommendations on further issues related to this, or other problems associated with "backwards causation."
I am currently working on biology/teleology in Kant, and am interested in this notion of "backwards causation," and was wanting to figure out more about contemporary perspectives.
Another thing I noticed was that the main focus (for Darwinian reasons, I would assume) seems to be on explaining how the parts of organisms relate to their environment. I am more interested in how the parts of the organism relate to each other to form a whole, the status of these kinds of part/whole relationships in current biology, and whether any kind of teleological explanations are operative when talking about, say, the function of a liver in respect to other organs when keeping the body alive.
I would appreciate any recommendations on this issue, both in terms of generally accessible works about biology or the history of biology, as well as important papers or books in recent philosophy (I have heard people mention Nagel's *Mind and Cosmos* as a controversial book about teleology, but maybe this doesn't have to do with biology).
Cheers!
Comment by concordiasalus at 27/10/2018 at 15:14 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I am not, unfortunately, familiar with problems of backward causation as they relate to the philosophy of biology specifically. However, there is this SEP article[1] on backwards causation that might be worth a read.
1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-backwards/
Causation within biology is an interesting topic, though, and perhaps worth reading is "Dispositionalism: A Dynamic Theory of Causation" by Anjum and Mumford. The paper was included as a chapter in the book *Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology*, edited by Daniel Nicholson and John Dupre, which I highly recommend.
Comment by [deleted] at 28/10/2018 at 16:03 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
**I am more interested in how the parts of the organism relate to each other to form a whole**, the status of these kinds of part/whole relationships in current biology, and whether any kind of teleological explanations are operative when talking about, say, the function of a liver in respect to other organs when keeping the body alive.
If I understand what you are saying here, you're at least partially interested accounts that talk about biological individuality (SEP link here[1]). So the difference between a part of an organism and the organism itself. Not too sure about the teleological part, but the parts/whole part has had some work done. For example:
1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biology-individual/
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d3e3/a183f2f803f2058b410edf86ca69366d3572.pdf
from this book:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/groups-individuals
There's also the idea that the immune system plays an important role in individuality and forming a whole. Here's a talk and a book by a relevant researcher. The basic idea is that we should not think of the immune system as distinguishing between self / other -- self nonself is the traditional way of talking about this sort of thing (see 19:00 in the youtube video). Rather, we should think of the the self / other differentiation occurring as a result of the *rate of change* that the immune system reacts to particular stuff (see 37:22). 'The immune system can perceive rapid modifications'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_3tJTrEHpU
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-limits-of-the-self-9780199775286?cc=ca&lang=en&
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-limits-of-the-self-immunology-and-biological-identity/
https://philpapers.org/rec/PRAWIA-2
Comment by paschep at 28/10/2018 at 11:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you are interested in biological/teleological explanation of mental events, esp. intentionality, look up Ruth Millikan. I have to warn you though, she is not an easy read. In broad terms she tries to interpret the aboutness of mental content as matter of survival.