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Form – A Matter of Generation: The Relation of Generation, Form, and Function in the Epigenetic Theory of Caspar F. Wolff

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2008

Elke Witt
Elke Witt*
Affiliation:
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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Argument

The question, how organisms obtain their specific complex and functional forms, was widely discussed during the eighteenth century. The theory of preformation, which was the dominant theory of generation, was challenged by different alternative epigenetic theories. By the end of the century it was the vitalist approach most famously advocated by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach that prevailed. Yet the alternative theory of generation brought forward by Caspar Friedrich Wolff was an important contribution to the treatment of this question. He turned his attention from the properties of matter and the forces acting on it towards the level of the processes of generation in order to explain the constitution of organismic forms. By regarding organic structures and forms to be the result of the lawfulness of ongoing processes, he opened up the possibility of a functional but non-teleological explanation of generation, and thereby provided an important complement to materialist and vitalist approaches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 649 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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