Lexicon of Arguments

 

I 29
Vitalists/Vitalism/Mayr:
Appropriateness (before Kant).
>Purposefulness.
"Protoplasm": a special substance that inanimate matter lacks.
I 31
Vitality, "élan vital".
Fluid: (no liquid)
Debate "Preformations/Epigenesis Theory 2nd half of the 18th century.
Preformationists: believed that the parts of an adult individual were already present in smaller form at the beginning of its development. (Caspar Friedrich Wolff refuted preformation, needed causal power "vis essentialis").
I 33
Epigenetics: assumed that they appeared as products of a development, not at the beginning.
>Terminology/Mayr.
Blumenbach, rejected "vis essentialis" and spoke of "educational drive" that plays a role not only in the embryo but also in growth, regeneration and reproduction.
I 35
Selection theory: made vitalism superfluous: Haeckel:"We recognize in Darwin's selection the decisive proof for the exclusive effectiveness of mechanical causes in the entire field of biology... definitive end of all teleological and vitalistic interpretations of organisms".⁽¹⁾
I 35
Protoplasm: the search for it promoted a flourishing branch of chemistry: colloid chemistry. It was finally discovered that there is no protoplasm! Word and concept disappeared.
Life: it became possible to explain it by means of molecules and their organisation!
Organic/inorganic: in 1828 urea was synthesized: first proof of the artificial conversion of inorganic components into an organic molecule!
I 38
Vitalism: Strange phenomenon: among the physicists of the 20th century vitalistic ideas arose. Bohr: in organisms, certain laws could have an effect that cannot be found in inanimate matter.
Bohr looked in biology for evidence of its complementarity and drew on some desperate analogies.
MayrVsBohr: there is really nothing that can be considered.(Unclear only in the subatomic field).
Cf. >Eccles/Popper.


1. E. Haeckel (1869/1879). Über Entwicklungsgang und Aufgabe der Zoologie. In. Jeanuische zeitung 5 s. 353-370.