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Morphological and Functional Aspects of Living Matter and Whitehead's Category of Actual Entity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Heinz Herrmann*
Affiliation:
Yale University

Extract

It may seem trivial to state that one of the major trends in biological investigation consists in an attempt to explain the structural and functional aspects of living matter in chemical terms, in an effort to obtain insight into the equivalent of macroscopic phenomena on the molecular level. I am sure you are aware of, and this meeting of the Association has brought ample additional evidence, in how many fields this tendency has become apparent. It can be recognized in genetics with the molecular analysis of chromosomes and the enzymatic or metabolic interpretation of hereditary properties like the eyecolor of Drosophila. In a purely morphological branch like histology we do not ask merely for a differentiation of stained cell structure but we ask for the nature of the staining reaction; in nerve physiology we try to interpret conduction as alterations of protein lipoid layers; or in pathology where the age old syndrome of inflammation is explored with biochemical methods. I should mention molecular models of membranes and cell surfaces, the molecular interpretation of secretion and of the macroscopic phenomena of metabolism. Yet insofar as this yield of data could be designated as a trend, it would rather seem to be the natural outcome to be expected from the application of the analytic method of science. In one instance, however, this approach has been carried farther than in all the other fields, and it would seem to be worthwhile to pause for one moment to ask whether this case is important merely because of its technical implications or whether it is meaningful in a wider sense.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1947

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Footnotes

Presented at Boston before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dec. 1946.

References

1 V. A. Engelhardt, 1946, Adenosinetriphosphatase Properties of Myosin. Advances in Enzymology, Vol. 6, pg. 147.

2 W. E. Agar, Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, 1936, Quart. Rev. Biol., Vol. 11, pg. 16. W. E. Agar, The Concept of Purpose in Biology, 1938, ibid. Vol. 13, pg. 255. J. Needham, A Biologist's View of Whitehead's Philosophy, in The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 3, Ed. P. A. Schilpp. 1941.

3 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929.

4 Loc. cit. pg. 33.

5 Loc. cit. pg. 34.

6 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, pg. 322.

7 Loc. cit. pg. 35.

8 R. Schönheimer, The Dynamic State of the Body Constituents, 1942.

9 J. H. Woodger, Biological Principles, 1929, pg. 327.

10 R. Das, The Philosophy of Whitehead, 1937, pg. 35.

11 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, pg. 129.

12 Loc. cit. pg. 322.

13 Loc. cit. pg. 320.

14 Loc. cit. pg. 129.

15 W. Köhler, The Place of Value in a World of Facts, 1938.