Abstract
In the opening sentence of his essay on the “Philosophy of Organic Life” (1925), Moritz Schlick wrote that “the ultimate and most basic question of organic life concerns the relation of living to nonliving matter.”1 He went on to list important changes in the development of matter theory, he gave the arguments for and against “vitalism” and “mechanism,” and he mentioned significant events such as Friedrich Wöhler’s (1800–1882) laboratory production of urea in 1828, an event which refuted the view that the synthesis of organic compounds required a special “vital force.” The questions raised in Schlick’s essay are representative of the issues found in studies on organic life, issues about the relationship of mind and body, about organic teleology, about vitalism and non-physical processes of life. It is such issues which lie at the heart of the present discussion of organicism in science and literature.
What we extolled as Nature’s deep conundrum,
We venture now to penetrate by reason,
And what she did organically at random,
We crystallize in proper season.
Goethe. Faust II. Lines 6857–60.
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Notes
Schlick, Moritz, “Philosophy of Organic Life,” p. 523, in: Readings in the Philosophy of Science, H. Feigl and M. Brodbeck, ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), pp. 523–36.
Ernan McMullin, in the introduction to his book on The Concept of Matter, in Greek and Medieval Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963), pp. 1–23, considers the notion of a “matter” to be “the oldest conceptual tool in the Western speculative tradition,” p. 1; he treats the topic historically, including discussion of Aristotle’s matter-potency question, Plato’s matter-spirit contrast, as well as more recent efforts to quantify matter as mass.
Schlick, 1953, p. 525.
Schlick, 1953, p. 526.
Zilsel, Edgar, “Physics and the problem of historico-sociological laws,” p. 715, in: Feigl and Brodbeck, 1953, pp. 714–22.
Recent philosophic discussion in systems theory has attempted to bridge studies in the natural and social sciences, as for example, in Archie J. Bahm, “Holons: Three Conceptions,” Systems Research, 1 (1984), pp. 145–150, where “organicism” is listed along with “emergentism” and “structuralism” as the three most important approaches to holistic studies in the natural and social sciences.
Schlick, 1953, p. 527.
Schlick, 1953, p. 529.
Schlick, 1953, p. 528. Recent research in the culture sciences, particularly in psychology and sociology, would seem to fulfill the expectations of those like Schlick, especially in that research where social and mental behavior is integrated with mathematical models. In his book on Stochastic Models for Social Processes, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley, 1973), D. J. Bartholomew explains what organic teleology might look like with the theocentrism removed: “A stochastic process is one which develops in time according to probabilistic laws. This means that we cannot predict its future behavior with certainty; the most we can do is to attach probabilities to the various possible future states,” p. 1.
Nagel, Ernest, “Teleological Explanation and Teleological Systems,” p. 537, in: Feigl and Brodbeck, 1953, pp. 537–58.
Nagel, 1953, p. 539.
Although Georg Wilhelm Hegel discussed “Racial Variety” and “Stages of Life” in his Anthropologie, in: Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, M. J. Petry, trans., 3 vols. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), vol. 2, pp. 45–83; 95–125, he clearly separated the culture sciences from his study of “Organics,” in: Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, A. V. Miller, trans. (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 272–445, where he treats the “animal organism” in its systems, shapes, generic and environmental relationships.
Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory, A History of Theories of Culture (New York: Crowell, 1968), locates the analogy of organisms with social structures in the writings of Hobbes and Spencer and finds in the more recent theoretical writings of Radcliffe-Brown much that he can agree with and quotes him as follows: “In using the terms morphology and physiology, I may seem to be returning to the analogy between society and organism which was so popular with medieval philosophers, was taken over and often misused by nineteenth century sociologists, and is completely rejected by many modern writers. But analogies, properly used, are important aids to scientific thinking and there is a real significant analogy between organic structure and social structure,” p. 526.
Graham, Ilse, “Wintermärchen: Goethes Roman “Die Wahlverwandtschaften,” Goethe Jahrbuch, 99 (1982), pp. 41–75, reviews Gundolf’s inception of the idea of a morphological Ottilie as well as Benjamin’s criticism of her development as a “pflanzen-haftes Dasein,” and goes on to elevate Ottilie’s existence to a plane of art and spirit, to a process of “Stirb und Werde,” pp. 49 and 54.
Knight, D.M., “German Science in the Romantic Period,” p. 163, in: The Emergence of Science in Western Europe, M. Crosland, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 161–78. For more examples of the work of the natural Philosophers see also Knight, “The Physical Sciences and the Romantic Movement,” History of Science, 9 (1970), pp. 54–75.
For a fuller narrative on the role of organic modeling in the Dolland-Euller construction of the refractor telescope see Johann W. Goethe, Materialien zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre, D. Kuhn, ed. in: Goethe. Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft, Leopoldina Ausgabe, 14 vols. (Weimar: Böhlau, 1947-), pt. I, vol. 6, pp. 361–65.
Gould, Stephen, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).
Gould, 1977, pp. 14–15.
Gould, 1977, p. 17.
Gould, 1977, Chapter 2, “The Analogistic Tradition from Anaximander to Bonnet,” pp. 13–32.
Gould, 1977, p. 19.
See also Karl J. Fink, “Herder’s Theory of Origins: From Poly- to Palingenesis,” in: Johann Gottfried Herder: Innovator Through the Ages, W. Koepke, ed. (Bonn: Bouvier, 1982), pp. 85–101, for a discussion of the connection Herder found between the universals in the human psyche and the diversity in human culture: “This link, which related prehistoric to historical forms, and which explained the origins, growth, and continuation of the human condition, is characterized by the concepts poly-and palingenesis. Today this link is often expressed in a single formula: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” p. 96.
Gould, 1977, p. 409.
See also Jean Piaget’s “Guiding hypothesis about the relation between cognitive functions and living organizations,” in: Biology and Knowledge, B. Walsh, trans. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971), where he states that “life is essentially autoregulation, … but if organic regulations thus appear more and more to be central properties of life, there remains the task of describing those organs that bring about regulations,” p. 26. Concerning “discontinuity” see also Bahm, 1984, who conceives an organicist model to be a structured asymmetry: “The organicist model conceives a symmetry of asymmetries, and some asymmetry in every symmetry, as part of the universal nature of existence,” p. 148.
Goethe viewed such discontinuity as amorphic,” see Karl J. Fink, “Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan: Orientalism Restructured,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 14 (1982), pp. 315–28.
Vico, Giambattista, The New Science, T. Bergin and M. Fisch, trans. (New York: Cornell University Press, 1968), “The Course the Nations Run,” pp. 335–83.
Vico, 1968, p. 104.
Vico, 1968, p. 324.
On further development of the idea of a composite Homer, of an ideal Homer, in classical philology, see John E. Sandys, History of classical Scholarship, 3 vols., 1st ed., 1903–08 (New York: Hafner, 1958)
particularly volume 3 which includes a discussion of Friedrich A. Wolfs “Prolegomena ad Homerum” (Halle, 1795).
Piovani, Pietro, “Vico without Hegel,” p. 117, in: Giambattista Vico, An International Symposium, G. Tagliacozzo and H. White, eds. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), pp. 103–23.
On the significance of Vico’s concept of ingenium for the role of language as a creative force of history see David P. Stevenson, “Vico’s Scienza Nuova: An Alternative to the Enlightenment Mainstream,” in: The Quest for the New Science, K. J. Fink and J. W. Marchand, eds. (Carbondale: SIU Press, 1979), pp. 6–16.
Vico, 1968, p. 104.
Lessing, Gotthold, “Das Christentum der Vernunft,” vol. 14. pp. 175–78; “Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts,” vol. 13, pp. 413–36, in: Sämtliche Schriften, K. Lachmann, ed., 3rd ed., 23 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968).
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 175.
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 175.
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 175.
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 177.
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 178.
Lessing, “Das Christentum,” vol. 14, p. 178.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 416.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 417.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 427.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 427.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 429.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 435.
Lessing, “Die Erziehung,” vol. 13, p. 435.
Herder, Johann, “Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache,” vol. 5, p. 34, in: Sämtliche Schriften, B. Suphan, ed., 33 vols. (Hildesheim: Olm, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 1–154.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 5.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, pp. 34–35.
Herder anticipating modern developmental theories with a mathematical base, described growth patterns in terms of geometric progression through successive stages: “The first one always contains the data of the second one; they advance in geometric, not arithmetic, progression,” Journal meiner Reise, in: Schriften, 1967, vol. 4. p. 450.
See Karl J. Fink, “Herder’s Life-stages as forms in geometric progression,” Eighteenth Century Life 6 (1981), pp. 39–59, for a discussion of Herder’s argument that socio-psychological data accumulate in geometric progression but that this view had to await another age for fulfillment, “an age capable of computing the data of life-stages as stochastic processes,” p. 53.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 48. Such theories of language acquisition are usually founded on the basis of Jean Piaget’s bio-genetic theories of cognitive development, Biology and Knowledge, 1971, in which he argues that, “even if ontogenesis is not an exact and detailed recapitulation of phylogenesis, because of differences in speeds and possible short circuits, not to mention neo-formations, it is nonetheless true that, within certain main outlines, … there is a progressive differentiation of characteristics, such that the more general come before the more specific and swallow them up, just as a whole is organized of its parts,” p. 160.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, pp. 93, 112, 123, 134.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 134.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 134.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p 135.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 146.
Herder, “Abhandlung,” vol. 5, p. 135.
Adelung Johann, Versuch einer Geschichte der Cultur des menschlichen Geschlechts (Leipzig: Hertel, 1782).
Adelung, 1782, pp. xvi–xxi.
Adelung, 1782, p. 10.
Adelung, 1782, p. 20.
Adelung, 1782, p. iv.
Jenisch, Daniel, Universalhistorischer Überblick der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Eine Philosophie der Cultur geschiente, 2 vols, (in three) (Berlin: Voss, 1801).
Parameters set by Jenisch are perhaps as representative for his era as those set for the Human Relations Area File by George Murdock, et al, Outline of Cultural Materials, 4th ed. (New Haven: HRAF, 1971), although there is the distinct difference that Jenisch’s scheme deals with items in process, making his culture outline more topological than taxonomic.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 2, p. vi.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 393.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 396.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 396.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 420–21.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 461.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 467.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 499.
Johann P. Süssmilch (1707–67), generally regarded as the founder of demographics, was also a key representative of the theocentric theories of the origins of language, against which Herder wrote; however, Jenisch acknowledged the value of population statistics in culture studies as did Adelung, Versuch einer Geschichte der Cultur, 1782, pp. x–xi, making questions about space-population relationships and class struggles basic to his theory of culture.
And only three years after Jenisch’s work appeared, August Schlözer, Theorie der Statistik (Göttingen: Vandenhoek, 1804), set the parameters of the field of statistics, “eine ganz neue Wissenschaft,” which he claimed had only existed piecemeal in governmental, travel, and historical documents.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 393.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 306.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 319.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, pp. 319–20.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 319.
See also Karl J. Fink, “Actio in Distans, Repulsion, Attraction. The Origin of an Eighteenth Century Fiction,” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, 25 (1982), pp. 69–87, for a critique of the reduction of the concept of antagonism in culture studies from attraction in celestial mechanics, pp. 82–83.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 325.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 323.
More recently Carl G. Hempel defined ideal types in “Typological Methods in the Social Sciences,” in: Philosophy of the Social Sciences, M. Natanson, ed. (New York: Random House, 1963), pp. 210–30: “An ideal type is a mental construct formed by the synthesis of many diffuse, more or less present and occasionally absent, concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged, according to certain one-sided accentuated points of view, into a unified analytical construct, which in its conceptual purity cannot be found in reality; it is a Utopia, a limiting concept, with which concrete phenomena can only be compared for the purpose of explicating some of their significant components,” p. 211.
Jenisch, 1801, vol. 3, p. 323.
Goethe, Johann W., Faust. A Tragedy, W. Arndt, trans. (New York: Norton, 1976), lines 2038–39.
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Fink, K.J. (1987). Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny: A Classic Formula of Organicism. In: Burwick, F. (eds) Approaches to Organic Form. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 105. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3917-2_4
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