This text builds upon the over 1500 papers published in peer-reviewed journals revealing that there are more than 200 biological codes in living systems. The author claims this experimental fact is bound to change biology forever. This book shows how this very discovery reveals that coding is a new mechanism of life, just as the discovery of electromagnetism revealed the existence of a new physical force in the universe. The existence of many biological codes, furthermore, Barbieri argues, is one of those experimental facts that have extraordinary theoretical consequences. It implies that coding is not only a mechanism that constantly operates in all living systems, but also a mechanism of evolution, more precisely a mechanism that gave origin to the absolute novelties of the history of life. This amounts to saying that evolution took place by two distinct mechanisms, by natural selection and by natural conventions, two mechanisms that are fundamentally different because natural selection is the result of copying and deals with information whereas natural conventions are the result of coding and deal with meaning. This volume appeals to students and researchers working in the fields of semiotics, philosophy, biology and mathematics.

This book explores the notion of organismal agency from the perspective of both philosophy and biology. The two sections of the book delve into parallel themes, including distinctions between organic and inorganic nature, self-organization, autonomy, self-presentation, memory, umwelt, and environmental influence. The philosophical part focuses on the influential thinkers who shaped our perception of living entities beyond mere mechanisms. It scrutinizes the concepts of organism and nature in the works of Aristotle, Kant, Schelling, and various processualists. Each chapter explores facets of their ideas that directly or indirectly foreshadowed or contributed to the formulation of the concept of agency. The biological part of the book investigates various concepts associated with agency such as experience, meaning attribution, and phenotypic plasticity, as well as reproduction, organisational constraints, modularity, development of integrated phenotypes, organismal choices, or self-representation through animal organisation. In essence, this work offers a comprehensive examination of organismal agency and its philosophical and biological foundations. Collaboratively authored by individuals from several institutions, this publication caters primarily to researchers and students working at the intersection of philosophy and biology.

At a time when the human genome has been sequenced advances in the life sciences seem to have great potential for human health, industry and the environment throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Still, for some, potential risks and ethical dilemmas remain, surrounding issues such as the appropriate use of GM crops, stem cells, genetic information, the nature of intellectual property and other challenges that come with EU accession. This book is the first of its kind to bring together experts from across Europe to explore the landscape of current life science policy and industrial development in CEE, including implications for economies, regulatory and legal frameworks, health care, ethics and human rights. It will be essential reading for researchers and students in science and technology studies, development, sociology, politics and law, and those interested in life science development in transition economies.

These volumes collect a selection of papers presented at the Founding Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association meeting in Madrid. The volumes provide an excellent overview of the state of the art in philosophy of science as practised nowadays in different European countries.

Die Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte und das Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland haben die Menschenwürde als Höchstwert und oberstes Prinzip verankert. Biopolitischen Eingriffen durch den Staat sollte damit eine absolute Grenze gesetzt werden. Die Unbestimmtheit der Menschenwürde hat jedoch in den bioethischen Debatten der letzten Jahrzehnte dazu geführt, dass die Vorrangstellung der Menschenwürde in Frage gestellt wurde oder sich Vertreter entgegengesetzter Positionen beide gleichermaßen auf die Würde des Menschen berufen konnten. So stehen Eugenik und Euthanasie – in liberalem Gewande – als legitime Optionen wieder auf der Tagesordnung. Dies ist einerseits eine Problemanzeige und andererseits der Hinweis darauf, das unterschiedliche Lager unter Würde unterschiedliches verstehen. Der vorliegende Band diskutiert vorranging das Verhältnis von Menschenwürde und Autonomie als den zentralen Argumentationsgrundlagen dieser Debatte. Dabei wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit es gerechtfertigt ist, den Würdebegriff durch den Autonomiebegriff zu ersetzen, bzw. ob der Würdebegriff Aspekte des Autonomiebegriffs integrieren oder ausschließen muss, um dem Grundanliegen der Allgemeinen Erklärung der Menschenrechte und des Grundgesetzes der Bundesrepublik Deutschland gerecht zu werden, ohne Abstriche am Grundsatz der Unverfügbarkeit zu riskieren.

This book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally.

This edited volume is the first specialized book in English about the Swiss zoologist and anthropologist Adolf Portmann (1897-1982). It provides a clarification and update of Portmann’s theoretical approach to the phenomenon of life, characterized by terms such as “inwardness” and “self-presentation.” Portmann’s concepts of secondary altriciality and the social uterus have become foundational in philosophical anthropology, providing a benchmark of the difference between humans and animals.

This book is aimed at those who wish to understand more about the molecular basis of life and how life on earth may change in coming centuries. Readers of this book will gain knowledge of how life began on Earth, the natural processes that have led to the great diversity of biological organisms that exist today, recent research into the possibility of life on other planets, and how the future of life on earth faces unprecedented pressures from human-made activities.

This book offers to the international reader a collection of original articles of some of the most skillful historians and philosophers of biology currently working in Latin American universities. During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology, but since many local authors prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese, their ideas have barely crossed the boundaries of the continent.