Is Evolution Fundamental When It Comes to Biological Ontology? No

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Biological Ontology

Prescriptive Power: Biologism, Biopsychiatry and Drug-centred Psychopharmacology

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
Health Discourse

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.

scholarly journals Nutritive and Sentient Soul in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 2.5

Phronesis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 324-354
Author(s):  
Sophia M. Connell
Keyword(s):  
Biological Ontology

Abstract This paper argues that focusing on Aristotle’s theory of generation as primarily ‘hylomorphic’ can lead to difficulties. This is especially evident when interpreting the association between the male and sentient soul at GA 2.5. If the focus is on the male’s contribution as form and the female’s as matter, then soul becomes divided into nutritive from female and sentient from male which makes little sense in Aristotle’s biological ontology. In contrast, by seeing Aristotle’s theory as ‘archēkinētic’, a process initiated by the male, the development of nutritive and sentient capacities emerges as intertwined, neither capacity originating in only one sex.

scholarly journals TWO PHASES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEDWIG CONRAD-MARTIUS’ ONTOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION ON HUMAN BEING AND LIVING THINGS

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 398-424
Author(s):  
SIMONA BERTOLINI ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Structure Change ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Ontological Categories ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Theoretical Results

Interest in the ontological constitution of living beings (with particular reference to the human being) characterizes the whole development of Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ philosophy. Several works written by the philosopher over the years deal with both the phenomenological description and the ontological foundation of the difference between plants, animals, and humans. Specifically, the ontological structure of the human being is investigated as a layered structure which presupposes those of plants and animals while overcoming them in a more complex and spiritual unity, on which human freedom and human knowledge depend. Although this topic maintains a crucial role in Conrad-Martius’ thought, the way the philosopher addresses it and the theoretical results of her phenomenological-ontological inquiry about it do not remain unchanged. Indeed, the ontological structure at the basis of phenomenal differences as well as the metaphysical foundations of this structure change over the decades. This paper aims at distinguishing between two phases, characterized by different ontological categories, through which Conrad-Martius’ anthropology and biological ontology develop. In the first phase, at the beginning of the twenties (precisely in her work Metaphysical Dialogues), the essential differences between plants, animals, and humans are explained with reference to a vital origin preceding the constitution of reality; to describe it Conrad-Martius employs terms such as “abyss” and “under-earthly realm.” In the second phase, exemplified by some writings published in the forties and the fifties, the reference to such a dimension disappears and the eidetic variety within the living world, including human specificity, is exclusively traced back to the finalistic substantiation of essences in the natural beings.

Symbiosis, Transient Biological Individuality, and Evolutionary Processes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Biological Individuality ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Paradigm Case ◽  
Temporal Scales ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
Symbiosis Research ◽  
New Research

Whereas individual organisms have acted as the paradigm case to make us think about biological individuality, multi-organism assemblages such as colonies and communities force us to reconsider how biological individuality can emerge. Symbiosis research has given philosophers of biology tools for rethinking the nature of biological individuality. This chapter discusses how the adaptations linked to symbiotic communities highlight a new research dilemma: should we think of a biological ontology focused on individuals and their traits (even if this means positing non-orthodox individuals with non-standard properties)? Or should we move beyond individuals and focus instead on intersecting evolutionary processes? While reasons are offered to favour the former option, it is explained why this dilemma highlights the question of the different temporal scales at which evolution occurs and how this forces us to consider the transient and intermittent biological individuals generated by evolution, as well as the significance of the processes that generate them.

AN ONTOLOGY FOR SEMANTIC INTEGRATION OF LIFE SCIENCE WEB DATABASES

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 275-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZINA BEN MILED ◽  
YUE W. WEBSTER ◽  
YANG LIU ◽  
NIANHUA LI
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Biological Databases ◽  
Web Databases ◽  
Data Format ◽  
Data Formats ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Biological Ontology

The incompatibilities among complex data formats and various schema used by biological databases that house these data are becoming a bottleneck in biological research. For example, biological data format varies from simple words (e.g. gene name), numbers (e.g. molecular weight) to sequence strings (e.g. nucleic acid sequence), to even more complex data formats such as taxonomy trees. Some information is embedded in narrative text, such as expert comments and publications. Some other information is expressed as graphs or images (e.g. pathways networks). The confederation of heterogeneous web databases has become a crucial issue in today's biological research. In other words, interoperability has to be archieved among the biological web databases and the heterogeneity of the web databases has to be resolved. This paper presents a biological ontology, BAO, and discusses its advantages in supporting the semantic integration of biological web databases are discussed.

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