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Organism and Environment

Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences

Russell Winslow

Organism and Environment performs an examination into the way the contemporary life sciences are heralding a revolution of the most basic philosophical concepts of the Western world. Analyzing recent research in microbiology and evolution theory, the present book argues that these discourses are adding their voices to a growing chorus which is announcing a disruption, if not an end, to the understanding of the order of the world articulated in humanism. What does it mean to be a living substance? Are there such things as living individuals? How are living beings free? The discourses of microbiology, the medical sciences and evolution theory are revealing a living organism that escapes the limited frame that Enlightenment humanism has traditionally used to answer these (and other) ontological questions. Appealing to the theoretical lenses provided by Michel Foucault, Hans Georg Gadamer and Gilles Deleuze, Organism and Environment offers an interpretation of the way the contemporary life sciences are giving articulation to a posthuman ontological order.
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  • Reviews
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Lexington Books
Pages: 246 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4985-5278-3 • Hardback • August 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-5280-6 • Paperback • May 2019 • $50.99 • (£39.00)
978-1-4985-5279-0 • eBook • August 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
Subjects: Philosophy / Hermeneutics, Philosophy / Ethics / Bioethics
Russell Winslow teaches philosophy at St. John's College, Santa Fe.
Introduction: on Inheritance and Subjectivity
Part I: Theoretical Inheritances
Chapter 1: Toward a Hermeneutic Approach to Biological Discourses
Chapter 2: The Structure of Sight: Foucault’s Early Analysis of the Life Sciences
Part II: Ecological Inheritances
Chapter 3: Subjectivity in the Extended Inheritance Theory of Evolution
Chapter 4: Genetic Transformation into Structure
Chapter 5: The Space of Life: Reflections on the Ontological Consequences of the Secondary Inheritance Theory of Evolution
Part III: Microbial Inheritances
Chapter 6: Microbes Colonizing Humanism
Chapter 7: Horizontal Gene Transfer: On the Ontological Consequences of the Horizontal Inheritance of DNA
Chapter 8: Being One and Many: Microbial Symbiosis and Inheritance
Chapter 9: A Concrescence of Inheritances Vs. the Metaphysically-Present Individual
Bibliography
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.
— Choice Reviews


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.”
— Cary Wolfe, Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University; author of What Is Posthumanism? (2010) and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2013).


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.
— History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences


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.”
— Cary Wolfe, Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University; author of What Is Posthumanism? (2010) and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2013).


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.
— Bruce Clarke, professor of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, USA; co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science


Organism and Environment

Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Organism and Environment performs an examination into the way the contemporary life sciences are heralding a revolution of the most basic philosophical concepts of the Western world. Analyzing recent research in microbiology and evolution theory, the present book argues that these discourses are adding their voices to a growing chorus which is announcing a disruption, if not an end, to the understanding of the order of the world articulated in humanism. What does it mean to be a living substance? Are there such things as living individuals? How are living beings free? The discourses of microbiology, the medical sciences and evolution theory are revealing a living organism that escapes the limited frame that Enlightenment humanism has traditionally used to answer these (and other) ontological questions. Appealing to the theoretical lenses provided by Michel Foucault, Hans Georg Gadamer and Gilles Deleuze, Organism and Environment offers an interpretation of the way the contemporary life sciences are giving articulation to a posthuman ontological order.
Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 246 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
    978-1-4985-5278-3 • Hardback • August 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
    978-1-4985-5280-6 • Paperback • May 2019 • $50.99 • (£39.00)
    978-1-4985-5279-0 • eBook • August 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
    Subjects: Philosophy / Hermeneutics, Philosophy / Ethics / Bioethics
Author
Author
  • Russell Winslow teaches philosophy at St. John's College, Santa Fe.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Introduction: on Inheritance and Subjectivity
    Part I: Theoretical Inheritances
    Chapter 1: Toward a Hermeneutic Approach to Biological Discourses
    Chapter 2: The Structure of Sight: Foucault’s Early Analysis of the Life Sciences
    Part II: Ecological Inheritances
    Chapter 3: Subjectivity in the Extended Inheritance Theory of Evolution
    Chapter 4: Genetic Transformation into Structure
    Chapter 5: The Space of Life: Reflections on the Ontological Consequences of the Secondary Inheritance Theory of Evolution
    Part III: Microbial Inheritances
    Chapter 6: Microbes Colonizing Humanism
    Chapter 7: Horizontal Gene Transfer: On the Ontological Consequences of the Horizontal Inheritance of DNA
    Chapter 8: Being One and Many: Microbial Symbiosis and Inheritance
    Chapter 9: A Concrescence of Inheritances Vs. the Metaphysically-Present Individual
    Bibliography
Reviews
Reviews
  • 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.
    — Choice Reviews


    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.”
    — Cary Wolfe, Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University; author of What Is Posthumanism? (2010) and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2013).


    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.
    — History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences


    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.”
    — Cary Wolfe, Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory, Rice University; author of What Is Posthumanism? (2010) and Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame (2013).


    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.
    — Bruce Clarke, professor of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, USA; co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science


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