Process-Philosophical Perspectives on Biology: Intuiting Life
Many life scientists implicitly assume a materialistic metaphysics that is based on the worldview of the 19th century. This sort of reductionistic metaphysics does not do justice to the complexity of biological phenomena, leaving many features of living processes unexplained. The authors of this book explore the viability of process metaphysics to advance our understanding of fundamental biological concepts such as organism, ontogeny, agency, teleology, environment, and normativity. Based on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and other process thinkers, the authors ascribe subjective interiority to all living beings, from unicellular organisms to the most complex animals. This book highlights the uniqueness and intrinsic value of living beings. It presents a new approach to essential dimensions of the phenomenon of life with the aim of opening up new horizons in the thinking of philosophers, philosophers of biology, life scientists, and environmentalists.
About the Author
Spyridon A. Koutroufinis is a Privatdozent (Associate Professor by habilitation) at the Institute of Philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin/Germany. His primary areas of expertise are biophilosophy, process philosophy (Whitehead, Bergson et al.), the theory of self-organization of complex dynamical systems, and classical metaphysics (Aristotle, Leibniz). Koutroufinis investigates the philosophical underpinnings of biological form and process, drawing on ideas from systems theory (critically) and process thought (positively) to understand life’s organization. He has authored and edited numerous books, articles, and book chapters in these areas, aiming to develop a process-oriented ontology for the theory of the organism.
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