2. In the first place, the term "power" is used to refer to processes which are held to go on at particular times, and to be accessible to direct experience. It is not clear to me why our experiences of activity are not "explicit", or why they are not to be regarded as manifested to the senses ; but possibly these assertions could be defended on the ground that the experiences in question are phenomenologically distinctive in some way.

The determination of the place of life in nature has been a major philosophic issue. Some, in their attempt to show the continuity of nature, have resorted to the reductive method and have argued that the living differ in no significant sense from the non-living, unless it be in their complexity; others, in their desire to emphasize the qualitatively varied aspects of nature, have drifted to disjunctive method and have claimed that there is an unbridgeable gap between the living and (...) the non-living. Yet life in its natural setting presents both continuity with the physical world and a distinctive difference from it. One need neither sunder the continuity in nature nor deny the empirically observable qualitative differences. It is this principle that will guide the present discussion of life. (shrink)

All these activities of living beings, and the functioning of their organs, and the functioning of instruments demand a teleological explanation. Why do human beings toil? Why do living beings try to maintain the activities of the organism? What are the functions of specific organs or instruments? Intelligible answers can be given in teleological terms. Of course, one could ask many questions about these situations that would not require the teleological explanation; for example, questions concerning the mechanical structure of living (...) beings or of instruments. Yet this fact would not eliminate the legitimacy nor the utility of the teleological category. (shrink)

The image of nature as causality has been a major theme of science and poetry. It has been a symbol of hope and fear, of progress and futility. Yet its meaning has seldom been clear. Prior to any statement about the relation of causality to physical nature, life, and mind, its meaning should be established. I shall therefore first define causality, and I shall then discuss its applicability to nature.

Meanings have an empirical genesis and status. This simple claim has often been denied or ignored. Some metaphysicians in their exaltation of the eternal have regarded meanings as essences, or eternal objects, or neutral entities, in a subsistential or supernatural realm that is changeless and has no roots in nature. Some logicians in their zest to manipulate meanings isolate them so completely as forms of reason, or as syntactical symbols that at no point is their connection with natural events made (...) intelligible. Yet meanings, all meanings, have relation to mind. It is this empirical, psychological aspect of meaning that I shall analyze. The larger philosophic question as to what the relation of the psychological aspect is to the metaphysical or the logical will not concern us except indirectly. (shrink)

All these activities of living beings, and the functioning of their organs, and the functioning of instruments demand a teleological explanation. Why do human beings toil? Why do living beings try to maintain the activities of the organism? What are the functions of specific organs or instruments? Intelligible answers can be given in teleological terms. Of course, one could ask many questions about these situations that would not require the teleological explanation; for example, questions concerning the mechanical structure of living (...) beings or of instruments. Yet this fact would not eliminate the legitimacy nor the utility of the teleological category. (shrink)