Homeostasis and the Forgotten Vitalist Roots of Adaptation

Abstract

Through most of the twentieth century, biology’s image as a valid science has been gauged by how closely it adheres to the norms of “objective” sciences like physics, chemistry and mathematics. Strains of biological thought that depart from this norm are deemed non-scientific. This presumes that life is fundamentally a physical, chemical and thermodynamic phenomenon. While this approach has been very fruitful, it is questionable that it can lead to a coherent theory of biology. This is particularly the case for certain obvious (self-evident?) properties of living systems, including purposefulness, design, and intentionality. The tendency has been to treat these phenomena as illusions, as in numerous invocations of “apparent” design, “apparent” purposefulness and “apparent” intentionality. I argue in this essay that these phenomena are far from illusory, but are in fact quite real. I further argue that a coherent theory of biology must account for purpose, design and intentionality, and I offer one possible way to do so through the fundamental phenomenon of homeostasis.