Dismissed by some as the last of the anti-Darwinians, his fame as a rigorous biologist even tainted by an alleged link to National Socialist ideology, it is undeniable that Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944) was eagerly read by many philosophers across the spectrum of philosophical schools, from Scheler to Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze and from Heidegger to Blumenberg and Agamben. What has then allowed his name to survive the misery of history as well as the usually fatal gap between science and humanities?
This collection of essays attempts for the first time to do justice to Uexkülls theoretical impact on Western culture. By highlighting his importance for philosophy, the book aims to contribute to the general interpretation of the relationship between biology and philosophy in the last century and explore the often neglected connection between continental philosophy and the sciences of life. Thanks to the exploration of Uexkülls conceptual legacy, the origins of cybernetics, the overcoming of metaphysical dualisms, and a refined understanding of organisms appear variedly interconnected.
Uexkülls background and his relevance in current debates are thoroughly examined as to appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers in fields such as history of the life sciences, philosophy of biology, critical animal studies, philosophical anthropology, biosemiotics and biopolitics.
Introduction. A Foray into Jakob von Uexkülls Heritage; PART
1. Jakob
von Uexküll and His Historical Background;
1. Jakob von Uexküll, an
Intellectual History;
2. Kantian Ticks, Uexküllian Melodies and the
Transformation of Transcendental Philosophy;
3. Uexkülls Legacy: Biological
Reception and Biophilosophical Impact; PART
2. Jakob von Uexkülls Relevance
for Philosophy;
4. Creative Life and the Ressentiment of Homo Faber. How Max
Scheler integrates Uexkülls Theory of Environment;
5. Closed Environment and
Open World: On the Significance of Uexkülls Biology for Helmuth Plessners
Natural Philosophy;
6. Ernst Cassirers Reading of Jakob von Uexküll: Between
Natural Teleology and Anthropology;
7. The Philosophers Boredom and the
Lizards Sun. Martin Heideggers Interpretation of Jakob von Uexkülls Umwelt
Theory;
8. Animal Behavior and the Passage to Culture: Merleau-Pontys
Remarks on Uexküll;
9. The Organism and its Umwelt: A Counterpoint between
the Theories of Uexküll, Goldstein and Canguilhem;
10. From Ontology to
Ethology: Uexküll and Deleuze & Guattari;
11. Hans Blumenberg: The
Transformation of Uexkülls Bioepistemology into Phenomenology;
12. Giorgio
Agamben: The Political Meaning of Uexkülls "Sleeping Tick";
13. Jakob von
Uexküll and the Study of Primary Meaning-Making;
14. Jakob von Uexkülls
Theory of Umwelt Revisited in the Wake of the Third Culture: Staging
Reciprocity and Cooperation between Artistic Agents; Afterword. A Future for
Jakob von Uexküll.
Francesca Michelini is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kassel (Germany). Her main fields of research are the antireductionist theories of life and the bridging of continental philosophy and science. She is author of many publications on the topic of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of the life sciences, teleological explanations in nature, and autonomy in biology (among others: The Living and the Deficiency. Essays on Teleology 2011, in Italian).
Kristian Köchy is a biologist and Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Kassel (Germany). His research focuses on the areas of philosophy of science and the history of the life sciences, natural philosophy and the philosophy of animal-human relations. He is author of an introduction on Biophilosophy (2008, in German) and co-editor of a three-volume collection on the philosophy of animal research (Philosophie der Tierforschung, 2016-2018).
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