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. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China;There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds– Gregory Bateson (1972, p. 492)While there are classical anteced...

William Bateson has long occupied a controversial role in the history of biology at the turn of the twentieth century. For the most part, Bateson has been situated as the British translator of Mendel or as the outspoken antagonist of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson's biometrics program. Less has been made of Bateson's transition from embryologist to advocate for discontinuous variation, and the precise role of British and American influences in that transition, in the (...) years leading up to the publication of his massive Materials for the Study of Variation. In this paper, I first attempt to trace Bateson's development in his early career before turning to search for the development of the moniker "anti-Darwinist" that has been attached to Bateson in well-known histories of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis. (shrink)

William Bateson (1861-1926) has long occupied a controversial role in the history of biology at the turn of the twentieth century. For the most part, Bateson has been situated as the British translator of Mendel or as the outspoken antagonist of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson's biometrics program. Less has been made of Bateson's transition from embryologist to advocate for discontinuous variation, and the precise role of British and American influences in that transition, in (...) the years leading up to the publication of his massive Materials for the Study of Variation (1894). In this paper, I first attempt to trace Bateson's development in his early career before turning to search for the development of the moniker "anti-Darwinist" that has been attached to Bateson in well-known histories of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis. (shrink)

The recognition of Gregor Mendel's achievement in his study of hybridization was signalled by the ‘rediscovery’ papers of Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich Tschermak. The dates on which these papers were published are given in Table 1. The first of these—De Vries ‘Comptes renduspaper—was in French and made no mention of Mendel or his paper. The rest, led by De Vries’Berichtepaper, were in German and mentioned Mendel, giving the location of his paper. It has long been accepted that (...) the first account of Mendel's work in English was given by the Cambridge zoologist, William Bateson, to an audience of Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society in London on 8 May, 1900. This is based on two sources: the paper ‘Problems of Heredity as a Subject for Horticultural Investigation’, published in the Society's journal later that year and stated as ‘Read 8 May, 1900’, and Beatrice Bateson's account of the event over a quarter of a century later. Of the paper which her husband gave on that occasion she wrote:He had already prepared this paper, but in the train on his way to town to deliver it, he read Mendel's actual paper on peas for the first time. As a lecturer he was always cautious, suggesting rather than affirming his own convictions. So ready was he however for the simple Mendelian law that he at once incorporated it into his lecture. (shrink)

Bateson's belated acceptance of the chromosome theory came in two main stages, and was permanent, although he retained to the end reservations about some implications and extensions of the theory. Coleman's attempt to explain Bateson's resistance in terms of his conservative mode of thought is critically examined, and rejected: the attributes Coleman assigns to Bateson are all either inappropriate, or irrelevant to chromosome theory, or both. Instead, the diverse factors which contributed to Bateson's resistance are enumerated (...) and discussed. These include deficiencies in the evidence then available to support the theory; embryological difficulties; Bateson's aversion to microscopy combined with the lack of a close colleague skilled in cytology; his iconoclastic temperament, and the fact that he found T. H. Morgan, the leader of the Drosophila school, an uncongenial personality. Taken together, these factors suffice to account for his resistance. Bateson's position is contrasted with that of the other most eminent opponent, W. Johannsen, whose organismic outlook was the main obstacle to acceptance. (shrink)

In 1891 Cambridge biologist William Bateson (1861–1926) announced his idea that the symmetrical segmentation in living organisms resulted from energy peaks of some vibratory force acting on tissues during morphogenesis. He also demonstrated topographically how folding a radially symmetric organism could produce another with bilateral symmetry. Bateson attended many lectures at the Cambridge Philosophical Society and viewed mechanical models prepared by eminent physicists that illustrated how vibrations affected materials. In his subsequent research, Bateson utilized analogies and (...) metaphors based upon his observations of nature to build a thought model on the effects of vibrations on living tissue, because he realized that the chemistry and biology of his day lacked technologies to perform actual experiments on the subject. He concluded the production of organic segmentation was both a chemical and mechanical phenomenon. By the time of his death Bateson had incorporated new ideas about embryonic organizer regions to suggest a center from which a rhythmic force emanated and then produced the observed repetitive segmentation as a common feature in living organisms. (shrink)

Early in the 20th century Bateson, Doncaster and Punnett formed a cooperative collective to share research findings on the chromosome theory of heredity (CTH). They cross-bred plants and animals to correlate behaviour of chromosomes and heredity of individual traits. Doncaster was the most enthusiastic proponent of the new theory and worked for years to convince Bateson and Punnett on its relevance to their own research. The two younger biologists collaborated with Bateson, the preeminent geneticist in England. As (...) their own reputations developed, their research findings allied with the consensus on the importance of the CTH by the broader scientific community. After Doncaster’s tragic death in 1920, major objections to the theory had been resolved; Bateson and Punnett then utilized the CTH to construct chromosome maps detailing locations of specific genes on particular chromosomes in several different species. The marriage of heredity and cytology enhanced confidence that the theory was an accurate mechanism to explain inheritance in both plants and animals. (shrink)

Research in Mendelian heredity was first given permanent institutional support in the U.K. at the John Innes Horticultural Institution. The path by which this was achieved is described. It is shown that Brooke-Hunt in the Board of Agriculture played a decisive part in redirecting the John Innes Bequest from a school for gardeners as intended by the testator to an institute given to research on plants of importance to the horticultural trade. The choice of William Bateson as the (...) institute's first director is traced to the influence of a lobby of academic biologists led by J. B. Farmer. The effects of Bateson's appointment on the shape taken by the new institute and on its subsequent history are described. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the ongoing reassessment of the controversy between William Bateson and Karl Pearson by characterising what we call “Batesonian Mendelism” and “Pearsonian biometry” as coherent and competing scientific outlooks. Contrary to the thesis that such a controversy stemmed from diverging theoretical commitments on the nature of heredity and evolution, we argue that Pearson’s and Bateson’s alternative views on those processes ultimately relied on different appraisals of the methodological value of the statistical apparatus developed by (...) Francis Galton. Accordingly, we contend that Bateson’s belief in the primacy of cross-breeding experiments over statistical analysis constituted a minimal methodological unifying condition ensuring the internal coherence of Batesonian Mendelism. Moreover, this same belief implied a view of the study of heredity and evolution as an experimental endeavour and a conception of heredity and evolution as fundamentally discontinuous processes. Similarly, we identify a minimal methodological unifying condition for Pearsonian biometry, which we characterise as the view that experimental methods had to be subordinate to statistical analysis, according to methodological standards set by biometrical research. This other methodological commitment entailed conceiving the study of heredity and evolution as subsumable under biometry and primed Pearson to regard discontinuous hereditary and evolutionary processes as exceptions to a statistical norm. Finally, we conclude that Batesonian Mendelism and Pearsonian biometry represented two potential versions of a single genetics-based evolutionary synthesis since the methodological principles and the phenomena that played a central role in the former were also acknowledged by the latter—albeit as fringe cases—and conversely. (shrink)

In 1894, William Bateson objected to the terms “heredity” and “inheritance” in biology, on grounds of contamination with misleading notions from the everyday world. Yet after the rediscovery of Mendel's work in the spring of 1900, Bateson promoted that work as disclosing the “principles of heredity.” For historians of science, Bateson's change of mind provides a new angle on these terms at a crucial moment in their history. For philosophers of science, the case can serve as (...) a reminder of the potential of Putnam's hypothesis of a division of linguistic labor for analyzing the semantic lives of scientific kind terms. (shrink)

As a defender of the fundamental importance of Mendel’s experiments for understanding heredity, the English biologist William Bateson did much to publicize the usefulness of Mendelian science for practical breeders. In the course of his campaigning, he not only secured a reputation among breeders as a scientific expert worth listening to but articulated a vision of the ideal relations between pure and applied science in the modern state. Yet historical writing about Bateson has tended to underplay these (...) utilitarian elements of his program, to the extent of portraying him, notably in still-influential work from the 1960s and 1970s, as a type specimen of the scientist who could not care less about application. This paper offers a corrective view of Bateson himself—including the first detailed account of his role as an expert witness in a courtroom dispute over the identity of a commercial pea variety—and an inquiry into the historiographic fate of his efforts in support of Mendelism’s productivity. For all that a Marxian perspective classically brings applied science to the fore, in Bateson’s case, and for a range of reasons, it did the opposite during the Cold War. (shrink)

Em 1866, Johan Gregor Mendel publicou um artigo sobre os padrões que governam a formação de híbridos, baseando-se principalmente em estudos de cruzamentos experimentais de ervilhas do gênero Pisum. Segundo alguns historiadores da ciência, esse trabalho foi ‘redescoberto’ em 1900, estimulando uma série de pesquisas que procuravam verificar se padrões hereditários descobertos em Pisum se aplicavam a outros organismos. O objetivo deste artigo é discutir algumas das contribuições de William Bateson em relação ao teste e divulgação dos princípios (...) de Mendel, comparando-as aos estudos realizados por Mendel. Conclui-se que Bateson desenvolveu um novo programa de pesquisa mendeliano, pois embora seguisse uma metodologia semelhante à de Mendel e divulgasse seu trabalho, não se dedicou simplesmente a testar, explicar e defender suas ‘leis’. Concentrou-se nas exceções e desvios dos princípios mendelianos, procurando explicá-los através de novas ‘leis’. Introduziu uma nova terminologia e alterou a simbologia mendeliana.In 1866 Johan Gregor Mendel published a paper on the patterns governing the formation of hybrids, mainly grounded in his studies dealing with experimental crossings in sweet peas . According to some historians of science, this work was “rediscovered” in 1900, stimulating several researches which tried to verify if the hereditary patterns found in Pisum would also apply to other organisms. The aim of this paper is to discuss William Bateson’s contribution in relation to the test and dissemination of Mendel´s principles, comparing it to Mendel´s own work. It is concluded that Bateson developed a new Mendelian research program. Although he adopted a methodology similar to Mendel´s and disseminated Mendel´s own work, he did not simply dedicate himself to testing, explaining or defending it. He focused his attention on the exceptions and deviations from Mendel’s principles, trying to explain them with new laws. Besides introducing a new terminology , he also modified the symbols used by Mendel. (shrink)

The controversy between Biometricians and Mendelians has been called an inexplicable embarrassment since it revolved around the mistaken identification of Mendelian genetics with non-Darwinian saltationism, a mistake traced back to the non-Darwinian William Bateson, who introduced Mendelian analysis to British science. The following paper beings to unravel this standard account of the controversy by raising a simple question: Given that Bateson embraced evolution by natural selection and that he studied the causes of variation within a broadly Darwinian (...) framework of problems and questions, how are we to understand the claim that he was a non-Darwinian? A brief survey of possible responses to this question is followed by an alternative proposal: the controversy will be considered as a struggle among Darwinians about the future course of Darwinism. On this account, Darwin's own work led to the juncture at which Mendelians and Biometricians parted company, indeed, the Origin itself prepared the divergent methodological stances subsequently adopted by Bateson and his antagonists. The inexplicable embarrassment is dissolved through the parsimonious reconstruction of the profound substantive conflict between Biometricians and Mendelians as a chapter in the articulation and differentiation of the Darwinian research programme. (shrink)

In order to set up a dialogue the author, first, will attempt to discern similarities and differences between the ideas of Gregory Bateson and those of the so-called Pragmatist philosophers, John Dewey and William James. Second, he will address connecting points and relevance to intercultural communication training and teaching. For both sides aesthetics are of central importance, for Bateson, coming from the direction of systems, more in the observation of the pattern that connects. For Dewey, the aesthetic (...) experience is embedded in the context potentially in any situation. For both Dewey and James human and other organisms actively experiencing environments as situations are the beginning and the end of any philosophy of pragmatic significance. For Bateson, the addition of aesthetics to ecology is necessary to highlight its global significance. (shrink)

The following three related contributions jointly serve to lift up elements of the thought of the anthropolo­gist Gregory Bateson that can be fruitfully compared with elements of Michael Polanyi’s thought. In a brief introduction, William Stillwell reviews Bateson’s life and developing interests. Stillwell also provides, in a creative dialog form akin to Bateson’s own dialogs, a short review article on Noel Charlton’s Understanding Gregory Bateson: Mind, Beauty and the Sacred Earth. The third piece is Jere (...) Moorman’s short 1991 essay (now out of print) discussing Polanyi’s ideas about tacit knowing and their connection with Bateson’s ideas about the double bind. (shrink)

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients (...) than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

Former Google advertising strategist, now Oxford-trained philosopher James Williams launches a plea to society and to the tech industry to help ensure that the technology we all carry with us every day does not distract us from pursuing our true goals in life. As information becomes ever more plentiful, the resource that is becoming more scarce is our attention. In this 'attention economy', we need to recognise the fundamental impacts of our new information environment on our lives in order to (...) take back control. Drawing on insights ranging from Diogenes to contemporary tech leaders, Williams's thoughtful and impassioned analysis is sure to provoke discussion and debate. Williams is the inaugural winner of the Nine Dots Prize, a new Prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary social issues. This title is also available as Open Access. (shrink)

Discusses mental processes, the role of humans in nature, experience, and the connection between myth, religion, and science.

Drawing on a passage from Ramsey's Truth and Probability, we formulate a simple, plausible constraint on evaluating the accuracy of credences: the Calibration Test. We show that any additive, continuous accuracy measure that passes the Calibration Test will be strictly proper. Strictly proper accuracy measures are known to support the touchstone results of accuracy-first epistemology, for example vindications of probabilism and conditionalization. We show that our use of Calibration is an improvement on previous such appeals by showing how it answers (...) or sidesteps problems that have been raised for previous work in this area. (shrink)

Bernard Williams's remarkable essay on morality confronts the problems of writing moral philosophy, and offers a stimulating alternative to more systematic accounts which seem nevertheless to have left all the important issues somewhere off the page. Williams explains, analyses and distinguishes a number of key positions, from the purely amoral to notions of subjective or relative morality, testing their coherence before going on to explore the nature of 'goodness' in relation to responsibilities and choice, roles, standards, and human nature. The (...) final chapters make a fascinating enquiry into what morality is about, looking beyond happiness to other human aims and ideals. This re-issue of a classic in moral philosophy includes a new foreword by the author. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Discusses what is involved in describing a person as responsible: she has responsibilities that she is duty-bound to undertake, and may be held responsible when she fails to fulfill these. Considers why societies and organizations divide responsibilities between persons. Also considers how questions of responsibility arise in the spheres of morality, law, organizational life and politics, and how different modes of holding responsible may be appropriate in each. Concludes with a brief discussion of some questions about collective responsibility.

Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded, that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on which correct (...) interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

Introduction: the advance of governmentality -- Foucault, power, and governmentality: introduction; what is governmentality?; beyond the microphysics of power?; from theory of the state to genealogy of the state; history of the art of government; pastoral power; raison d'état; liberal governmentality; five propositions on foucault and governmentality -- Governmentality 3.4.7.: introduction; governmentality after Foucault; governmentality and the political sciences; some problems in governmentality -- Foucault effect redux? some notes on international governmentality studies: constellation; a few preliminary observations; problems and debates (...) in international governmentality studies -- Reconnecting governmentality and genealogy: introduction; genealogy and governmentality; pluralizing genealogy; practicing genealogy; lines of descent: the family tree of power?; counter-memory and re-serialization; the retrieval of forgotten struggles and subjugated knowledges -- Conclusion: encountering governmentality: governmentality as a new cartography of power; from mapping to encountering; governmentality and politics. (shrink)

This is the first critical study of The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze's most important work on language and ethics, as well as the main source of his vital philosophy of the event.James Williams explains the originality of Deleuze's work with careful definitions of all his innovative terms and a detailed description of the complex structure he constructs. This reading makes connections to his ground-breaking work on literature, to his critical but also progressive relation to the sciences, and to his (...) controversial denial of the priority of standard logics, human values and 'meaning' in thinking.This book will open new debates and develop current ones around Deleuze's work in philosophy, politics, literature, linguistics, cultural studies and sociology. (shrink)

Awarding rights to rivers, forests, and other environmental entities (EEs) is a new and increasingly popular approach to environmental protection. The distinctive feature of such rights of nature (RoN) legislation is that direct duties are owed to the EEs. This paper presents a novel rebuttal of the strongest argument against RoN: the no interest argument. The crux of this argument is that because EEs are not sentient, they cannot possess the kinds of interests necessary to ground direct duties. Therefore, they (...) cannot be legitimate rights-bearers. After considering and rejecting standard responses to this argument, the paper challenges its fundamental assumption: that rights-correlative duties must be grounded in the interests of the rights-bearer. The paper then presents the RoN critic with a dilemma. The critic must either accept that EEs are legitimate rights-bearers, or delegitimise many well-established rights-bearers along with EEs. Either way, the no interest argument loses its force. (shrink)

This new volume of philosophical papers by Bernard Williams is divided into three sections: the first Action, Freedom, Responsibility, the second Philosophy, Evolution and the Human Sciences; in which appears the essay which gives the collection its title; and the third Ethics, which contains essays closely related to his 1983 book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Like the two earlier volumes of Williams's papers published by Cambridge University Press, Problems of the Self and Moral Luck, this volume will be (...) welcomed by all readers with a serious interest in philosophy. It is published alongside a volume of essays on Williams's work, World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, edited by J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison, which provides a reappraisal of his work by other distinguished thinkers in the field. (shrink)