Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
concerns the reality of species. Hylemorphic ontology asserts that
the species is a real structure which acts as a cause (the form or the
genotype, in the case of genetics). It supposes that the world is
intrinsically ordered. Under the apparent diversity of existing things
are hidden forms on which they depend. In molecular biology, this
is expressed by the principle of order from order advanced by
Schrödinger. It comes into play through the genetic programme
which corresponds to the plan of characteristic organisation of the
species (to its Form). In physics, hylemorphic ontology has been
abandoned. Species are considered to be the result of processes and
not their cause. They do not correspond to an order given in
advance, intrinsic to the world. This is what Schrödinger expressed
with the principle of order from disorder. In biology, hylemorphic
ontology which makes specificity a central concept is still at work,
even though it is the antithesis of Darwinism and despite the prob-
lems that it induces. Where does this persistence, this determina-
tion to retain it against the experimental evidence, we might say,
come from?
7.6
Beyond the species
On taking stock we can see that with the species we have a prob-
lem which goes beyond scientific rationality. The nature and objec-
tive reality of biological species seem indisputable. They appear to
us to be absolutely evident and impossible to question. Are we not
being blinded here, however, by our narcissism and our egocentric-
ity? When we deal with species we are also dealing with the human
species, therefore ourselves. To abandon essentialism and hylemor-
phic ontology is to deny the objective reality of the species, which
may undermine our own image and the position that we attribute
to ourselves among the entities which people the world.
In truth, essentialism reassures us. It tells us that there is mean-
ing to our existence, that there is a nature to which we conform
(our essence, our genetic code) and that we have by right a place
in the universe (in general, at the summit of a stratified model of
the world). Denying the species amounts to denying the idea of this
