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Chapter 10 - Developmental potential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2011

By
Louis M. Guenin
Edited by
Tuomas E. Tahko
Tuomas E. Tahko
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Summary

What, if anything, is developmental potential? The physical sciences deploy a well-defined concept of potential. Where F is a force field and there exists a scalar field ϕ such that F = −∇ϕ, it is said that F is conservative and that ϕ is a potential function for F. Thus do we speak of gravitational potential and electric potential. But biology has no concept equivalent to conservative force. Biology has no concept of potential as a scalar field.

Metaphysics nurtures more general notions of potential. If we start from ontological fundamentals, what might we be able to say of developmental potential? To progress, we must first acquire an understanding of development. That poses a challenge unto itself.

Keywords

developmental potentialdispositionmultipredicative monismprobabilistic modelprenatal manifestation
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Chapter
Information
Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics , pp. 156 - 173
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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