Name: Organismal Agency
ISBN: 978-3-031-53625-0

Overview

Editors:

Jana Švorcová⁰

Jana Švorcová
1. Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
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Divided in two equally important parts, the philosophical and the biological
Aimed at a diverse readership spanning from the sciences to the humanities
Includes the conception of organism in the philosophy of Aristotle, Kant, and Schelling

Part of the book series: Biosemiotics (BSEM, volume 28)

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Keywords

Organic evolution
Process ontology
Levels of agency
Experience and memory
self organization
modularity and closure
umwelt and appearances
evolution of complexity
generative entrenchment and robustness
complexity and arrow of time
philosophy and evolution
philosophy and cell biology
evolutionary biology
william wimsatt
biological modularity
origins of agency
Organisms Agency and Evolution
agents and goals in evolution

About this book

This book explores the notion of organismal agency from the perspective of both philosophy and biology. The two sections of the book delve into parallel themes, including distinctions between organic and inorganic nature, self-organization, autonomy, self-presentation, memory, umwelt, and environmental influence. The philosophical part focuses on the influential thinkers who shaped our perception of living entities beyond mere mechanisms. It scrutinizes the concepts of organism and nature in the works of Aristotle, Kant, Schelling, and various processualists. Each chapter explores facets of their ideas that directly or indirectly foreshadowed or contributed to the formulation of the concept of agency. The biological part of the book investigates various concepts associated with agency such as experience, meaning attribution, and phenotypic plasticity, as well as reproduction, organisational constraints, modularity, development of integrated phenotypes, organismal choices, or self-representation through animal organisation. In essence, this work offers a comprehensive examination of organismal agency and its philosophical and biological foundations. Collaboratively authored by individuals from several institutions, this publication caters primarily to researchers and students working at the intersection of philosophy and biology.

Editors and Affiliations

Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Jana Švorcová

About the editor

Jana Švorcová, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences of the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague. She teaches theoretical and evolutionary biology. Her research focuses on non-mechanistic approaches to the living within the philosophy of biology, nongenetic evolutionary variation and inheritance, as well as organismal agency.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Organismal Agency
Book Subtitle: Biological Concepts and Their Philosophical Foundations
Editors: Jana Švorcová
Series Title: Biosemiotics
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-53625-0Due: 03 June 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-53628-1Due: 03 June 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-53626-7Due: 03 June 2024
Series ISSN: 1875-4651
Series E-ISSN: 1875-466X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 293
Number of Illustrations: 9 b/w illustrations, 2 illustrations in colour

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