![]() At the same time, current findings and directions seem to offer new tools for this. Read moreĪlthough the legacy of the Swiss zoologist Adolf Portmann (1897-1982) has left profound traces in the formation of modern evolutionary anthropology and comparative neuroscience, few if any studies have considered the wider conceptual backdrop of his comparative research and its potential modern significance. The recent epigenetic turn in biology, acknowledging the interconnections between organismal development, morphology and communication, presents an opportunity to revisit Portmann’s work and to reconsider and update his primary ideas in the contemporary context. ![]() The topic of this book is significantly relevant to the disciplines of theoretical biology, philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and biosemiotics. If biology seeks to understand organisms as autonomous agents, it needs to take display and the interpretation of appearances as basic characteristics of life. These exact methods must be applied according to what has meaning for living beings. Confronted with the enormous amount of scientific knowledge being produced today, it is even clearer than it was during Portmann’s lifetime that although biologists employ physical and chemical methods, biology itself is not (only) physics and chemistry. Portmann’s conception of life is unique in its focus on the phenomenal appearance of organisms. Besides contributions from contemporary biologists, philosophers, and historians of science, this volume also includes a translation of an original essay by Portmann and a previously unpublished manuscript from his most remarkable English-speaking interpreter, philosopher Marjorie Grene. Significant attention is also paid to the methodological implications of his intended reform of biology. In its content, this book brings together two approaches: historical and philosophical analysis of Portmann’s studies in the life sciences and application of Portmann’s thought in the fields of biology, anthropology, and biosemiotics. ![]() philosophical anthropology, providing a benchmark of the difference between humans and animals. It provides a clarification and update of Portmann’s theoretical approach to the phenomenon of life, characterized by terms such as “inwardness” and “self-presentation.” Portmann’s concepts of secondary altriciality and the social uterus have become foundational in. ![]() This edited volume is the first specialized book in English about the Swiss zoologist and anthropologist Adolf Portmann (1897-1982). Finally, it presents Portmann’s partly phenomenological approach to biological phenomena as a reluctant relative of Goethe’s approach, thereby claiming that Portmann is no advocate of a genuine Goethean science of nature. Secondly, it aims at reconstructing Portmann’s rather scattered argument for the bold claim by recasting it as an appeal to what Portmann calls “unaddressed authentic appearances” (unadressierte eigentliche Erscheinungen). First, it aims at establishing the relevant context for the bold claim by embedding the claim in Portmann’s broader view of biology. The aim of the following contribution is threefold. A fundamental and bold claim of Portmann’s philosophy of biology is a thesis about the autonomy of self-representation (Selbstdarstellung) of all living beings: “Self-presentation has to be understood as a basic fact of life, on a par with self-maintenance and the preservation of the species.” In other words, the perceivable appearance of organisms cannot be reduced to its chemical, physiological, morphological or functional causes, but must be understood as a phenomenon in its own right. ![]()
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