Organism and Environment: Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences

Product description Review The question of "Life" has never been more pressing than in the current context of climate change, species loss, and what is now called the Anthropocene: all of which force upon us the need to rethink questions of community and ethical responsibility beyond the purview of homo sapiens. Referencing new work on the microbiome, developmental systems theory, and epigenetics (just to name a few), Russell Winslow's book is an immensely readable and broadly informed contribution to thinking these questions anew by moving beyond the neo-Darwinian reductionist paradigm. A welcome--and overdue--contribution to the growing literature on "posthumanism."This remarkable book aims to raise the big questions of subjectivity, identity, and individuality while searching for an adequate interpretation of what biological existence is. . . . the observer (and her prejudices as a human living subject) is part of the relation, as Winslow's book splendidly shows.Winslow's philosophical study of the discourse of modern and contemporary biology is lucid, measured, precise, and refreshing. Along with incisive discussions of figures ranging from Heidegger and Canguilhem to Foucault and Simondon, he introduces a hermeneutic frame derived from Gadamer that effectively delineates and distinguishes among a series of ontological prejudices that "subtend" evolutionary and ecological ideas from Darwin to the present moment. Organism and Environment provides persuasive arguments for the significant contributions of ecological trends in recent biology to ongoing debates over the cultural meanings of posthumanism.Organism and Environment can best be described as a philosophical interpretation of recent developments in the life sciences. Using insights from postmodern philosophers, especially Gadamer, Winslow (philosophy, St, John's College) highlights the ontological prejudices behind discourses in evolutionary biology. He uncovers a particular assumption, that of the autonomous, individually existing subject at the heart of the familiar theory of adaptation by (vertical) genetic inheritance from parent to offspring. This "humanist" prejudice, or, to use Heidegger's term, "metaphysics of presence," is now giving way to an ecological ontology consisting of horizontal modes of genetic inheritance that render the humanist individual no longer feasible. This book is useful as an insightful application of hermeneutics, but it will also help those in the philosophy of biology reflect further on developments in their field.... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. About the Author Russell Winslow teaches philosophy at St. John's College, Santa Fe.