Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-qdpjg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-24T02:20:02.997Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Account of Recent Biological Methodology: Causal Law and Transplanar Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Heinz Herrmann
Heinz Herrmann*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Medical School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has been tacitly assumed that certain fundamental “laws” of science have the same meaning and significance in the different scientific disciplines. Outside of quantum physics the law of causality was regarded as such a concept which was most generally applicable in the description of the systems of nature. However, the role of causality in recent research in biology seems not quite clear. There an explanation of the specific properties of biological systems does not assume the form of a simple law such as a mathematical expression relating different states of one and the same system. Rather it is attempted to show how the properties of the system as a whole are established by the specific interaction of the parts of the system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1953 , pp. 149 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1953

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

(1) Fenn, W. O., “Contractility,” in R. Hober, Physical Chemistry of Cells and Tissues. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1945.Google Scholar
(2) Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, Paul, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” Philosophy of Science, XV, 1948, p. 135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(3) Margenau, Henry, The Nature of Physical Reality. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1950.Google Scholar
(4) Nagel, E., “Mechanistic Explanation and Organismic Biology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XI, 1951, p. 327.10.2307/2103537CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, E., “Wholes, Sums, and Organic Unities,” Philosophical Studies, III, 1952, p. 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(5) Sandow, A. (ed.), “Muscular Contraction,” An. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 57, 1947, p. 665.Google Scholar
(6) Szent-Gyorgyi, A., Chemistry of Muscular Contraction. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1951.Google Scholar
(7) Woodger, J. H., Biological Principles. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1929.Google Scholar