Beyond Mechanism

Brian G. Henningis an associate professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University. A Summa cum laude graduate in philosophy from Seattle University, Dr. Henning holds a M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University. His research includes domestic and international invited lectures, book reviews, nearly twenty articles or anthology chapters, two books, and three co-edited volumes, including Beyond Metaphysics? Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead’s Late Thought, co-edited with Roland Faber and Clinton Combs (Rodopi 2010) and Being in America: Sixty Years of the Metaphysical Society, co-edited with David Kovacs (forthcoming, Rodopi). His 2005 book, The Ethics of Creativity (University of Pittsburgh), won the Findlay Book Prize from the Metaphysical Society of America. He is co-editor of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies book series through Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield.Adam C. Scarfe is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Winnipeg. His areas of research are applied ethics, philosophy of education, continental philosophy, and philosophy of biology. Scarfe is the executive director of the International Process Network, an organization dedicated to advancing process philosophy globally. He has published well over twenty-five articles and book chapters, and is the editor and a co-author of The Adventure of Education: Process Philosophers on Learning, Teaching, and Research (Rodopi Press, 2009).

A wonderful volume edited by Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe. . . .the book provides many helpful intuitions, and also arguments and explanations, towards the understanding of. . . .life itself. . . .The work by Brian Henning and Adam Scarfe deserves much appreciation.

• Foreword: Evolution Beyond Newton, Darwin, and Entailing LawIntroduction: On a “Life-Blind Spot” in Neo-Darwainism’s Mechanistic Metaphysical LensSection 1: Complexity, Systems Theory, and EmergenceChapter 1: Complex Systems Dynamics in Evolution and Emergence ProcessesChapter 2: Why Emergence MattersChapter 3: On the Incompatibility of the Neo-Darwinian Hypothesis With Systems-Theoretical Explanations of Biological DevelopmentChapter 4: Process-First OntologyChapter 5: Ordinal Pluralism as Metaphysics for BiologySection 2: Biosemiotics Chapter 6: Why Do We Need a Semiotic Understanding of Life?Chapter 7: The Irreducibility of Life to Mentality: Biosemiotics or Emergence?Section 3: Homeostasis, Thermodynamics, and SymbiogenesisChapter 8: Biology’s Second Law: Homeostasis, Purpose and DesireChapter 9: “Wind at Life’s Back” —Toward a Naturalistic, Whiteheadian Teleology: Symbiogenesis and the Second LawChapter 10: Of Termites and Men: On the Ontology of Collective IndividualsSection 4: The Baldwin Effect, Behavior, and EvolutionChapter 11: The Baldwin Effect in an Extended Evolutionary SynthesisChapter 12: On the Ramifications of the Theory of Organic Selection for Environmental and Evolutionary EthicsSection 5: Autogen, Teleology, and TeleodynamicsChapter 13: Teleology Versus Mechanism in Biology: Beyond Self-Organization Chapter 14: Teleodynamics: A Neo-Naturalistic Conception of Organismic TeleologySection 6: Epigenetics Chapter 15: Epigenetics: Toward An Inclusive Concept of EvolutionChapter 16: Epigenetics, Soft Inheritance, Mechanistic Metaphysics, and BioethicsSection 7: Organism and MechanismChapter 17: From Organicism to Mechanism—and Half-Way Back?Chapter 18: Machines and Organisms: The Rise and Fall of a ConflictAbout the Contributors