Many Windows: Reflections on Robert Ulanowicz’s Search for Meaning in Science

Axiomathes 22 (2):195-205 (2012)
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Abstract

This paper is an extended discussion of Robert Ulanowicz’s critique of mechanistic and reductionistic metaphysics of science. He proposes “process ecology” as an alternative. In this paper I discuss four sets of question coming out of Ulanowicz’s proposal. First, I argue that universality remains one of the hallmarks of the scientific enterprise even with his new process metaphysics. I then discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the interpretation of the history of the universe. I question Ulanowicz’s use of the terms “random” and “chance” in his definition of process. Finally, I discuss what difference a relational and process metaphysics might make in addressing the political and practical problems in the twenty-first century

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References found in this work

Wonderful Life; The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History.Stephen Jay Gould - 1992 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 23 (2):359-360.
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History.Stephen Jay Gould - 1991 - Journal of the History of Biology 24 (1):163-165.
Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness.Philip Clayton - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press UK.

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