Chance and Necessity

Abstract

In Chance and Necessity Monod masterfully spans the divide between humanities and sciences. For Monod, unlike subsequent renowned popularisers, science was one thing but what science evoked was quite another; he claimed that we should take the logic of science as far as it allowed. In this chapter, I revisit Monod’s reflections on Bergson —as did the famous evolutionary biologist Mayr —and I suggest that this philosopher’s vitalist theory should be reconsidered in the light of modern Biology, as should Driesch’s Embriology. The thesis on the need to give similar importance to both the parts of a biological entity as to the interactions between them is discussed within a wider context.