Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
supposes a greater separation than discrimination, but a less separation than dissociation.
Thus I can discriminate red from blue, space from color, and color from space, but not red
from color. I can prescind red from blue, and space from color (as is manifest from the fact
that I actually believe there is an uncolored space between my face and the wall); but I
cannot prescind color from space, nor red from color. I can dissociate red from blue, but not
space from color, color from space, nor red from color.
6.3 Philosophy
6.3.1 The “Five Causes Doctrine”
The
Four Causes Doctrine
of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) consists of the first four
items listed below but lacks the last cause which is here thought to be essential to be
taken into account in view of the fundamental discoveries made in evolutionary and
developmental biology since Darwin (Waddington 1957; Gerhart and Kirschner
1997; West-Eberhard 2003; Carroll 2006; Jablonka 2006, 2009). I elected to refer to
this new addition to Aristotle's list of the four causes as the ”original” cause but it
could as well be referred to as a “historical” cause:
1. The
material cause
(What is it made out of?)
2. The
efficient cause
(How does it work?)
3. The
formal cause
(What is it?)
4. The
final cause
(What is it for?)
5. The
original cause
(Where does it come from? How did it originate?)
The five causes doctrine asserts that no structure, process, or phenomenon can be
said to be completely known or understood until and unless the associated five
causes have been determined and described. In other words, no theory, especially
biological ones, would be deemed complete unless the five causes described above
are fully detailed.
It may be objected that it is not necessary to invoke the fifth cause because it can
be viewed as a part of the efficient cause. I would agree to such an opinion under one
condition - recognizing two kinds of the efficient causes - (1) rapid and (2) slow.
The
rapid efficient cause
takes effect in times shorter than the lifetime (or cycling
time) of the system under consideration, and the
slow efficient cause
act over times
much longer than the lifetimes of individual systems. The former may be referred to
as the
synchronic
efficient cause and the latter as the
diachronic
efficient cause (see
related discussions in Sects.
4.5
and
6.3.2
). Alternatively, we can adopt the five
causes and associate the efficient cause with the synchronicity (and developmental
biology) and the fifth cause with diachronicity (and evolutionary biology).
The Four Causes Doctrine of Aristotle was formulated over 2,000 years ago
based on abstractions from everyday human experiences in the macroscopic world.
Since then two major developments have taken place in human knowledge - (1) the
development of the theory of biological evolution formulated by Darwin in 1859
and (2) the development of quantum mechanics that began with the discovery of
quanta by M. Planck in 1900. Therefore, it would not be too surprising if it is found
