Final Cause and the Individual: the Problem of Organic Generation in the Early Modern Period

在17世纪，通过预形成的有机生成理论出现，并在大量自然哲学家和自然历史学家中流行。预形成是这样一种理论，即在创造时，上帝预形成了每一个将永远活着的有机体，在每一物种的第一个成员的生殖器官中包裹着一代又一代。对于预成论者来说，我们所见证并称之为生成的，仅仅是先前不可见的东西变得可见。 在世纪中期，这一学说重新出现，最常被引用的动机是这样一个事实：17-世纪早期的机制，特别是内在惰性物质按照一些简单的定律在外部运动的观点，不能解释特定种类的复杂有机形式的产生。因此，我们必须依靠外部设计师来完成创造这种生物的任务。PI将进行个性化理论和目的论概念的研究，以确定一些自然哲学家（马勒伯朗士和莱布尼茨将是本研究的重点）支持预形成理论来解释物质个性化，因为功能，自给自足的有机体的模型提供了一个理想的模型。这两个自然哲学家追求这条路线的反应在笛卡尔的个人形而上学以及他的有机生成理论中发现的缺点。为了扩大研究，PI将对目的论的理论和历史进行研究，对莱布尼茨处理生成，个性化和目的论的文本，以及目的论在笛卡尔和马勒伯朗士中发现的生成理论和个体统一理论中的作用进行研究。智力优势：该项目将展示理解有机生成对于更深入地理解早期现代形而上学的重要性，它将提供一个持续的调查，以了解为什么17世纪的自然哲学家赞同预形成理论（因此，提供了一个更丰富的理解的复杂性发现预成论），它将扩大我们对生命科学在理解早期现代自然哲学中的重要性的理解，并将为最近对目的论在早期现代自然哲学中的作用的研究增加一个新的维度。更广泛的影响：该项目将（a）为研究18世纪Albrecht von Haller和Caspar Friedrich Wolff之间关于生成的争论提供更丰富的历史背景，这是PI更广泛研究计划的一部分，（B）它将为目的论，生成，个性化，这将丰富PI的次级研究，重点是早期现代女性哲学家的自然哲学（并间接地为人类世界的目的论研究奠定基础，以丰富PI对这些妇女的道德和政治哲学的研究）;及（c）继续为独立学院的教学革新作出贡献，把对17世纪自然主义者的研究带到我们对早期现代哲学家的研究中来。

In the seventeenth century, the theory of organic generation by preformation emerged and gained currency among a large number of natural philosophers and natural historians. Preformation is the theory that, at Creation, God pre-formed every organism that would ever live, encasing generation within generation in the reproductive organs of the first member of each species. For preformationists, what we witness as and call generation is merely the becoming visible of what was previously invisible. The motivation most often cited for the re-emergence of this doctrine in the mid-seventeenth century is the fact that early seventeenth-century mechanism, specifically the idea of inherently inert matter externally moved in accordance with a few simple laws, could not explain the generation of complex organic forms of specific kinds. Thus, we must rely upon an external designer up to the task of creating such beings. The PI will conduct research in theories of individuation and the concept of teleology in order to establish that some natural philosophers (Malebranche and Leibniz will be the focus of this research) endorse preformation theory to account for material individuation, because the model of a functioning, self-sufficient organism provides an ideal model of a material individual. These two natural philosophers pursue this route in reaction against shortcomings found in Descartes' metaphysics of individuals as well as his theory of organic generation. In order to expand upon research, the PI will conduct research on the theory and history of teleology, on Leibniz's texts that deal with generation, individuation, and teleology, and on the role of teleology in the generation theories and the theories of individual unity found in Descartes and Malebranche. Intellectual Merit: The project will show the importance of understanding organic generation for gaining a deeper understanding of early modern metaphysics, it will offer a sustained investigation of an under-appreciated motivation for why seventeenth-century natural philosophers endorsed the preformation theory (and consequently, offering a richer understanding of the complexity found in preformationism), it will expand our understanding of the importance of the sciences of life in understanding early modern natural philosophy, and it will add a new dimension to recent studies in the role of teleology in early modern natural philosophy. Broader Impacts: The project will (a) provide a richer historical background to a study of the eighteenth-century debate about generation between Albrecht von Haller and Caspar Friedrich Wolff which is part of the PI's broader research plan, (b) it will provide background to the issues of teleology, generation, individuation, and mechanism which will enrichen the PI's secondary research which focuses on the natural philosophies of early modern women philosophers (and, indirectly, will set the foundations for a study of teleology in the human world so as to enrichen the PI's research into those women's moral and political philosophies); and (c) it will continue to contribute to the PI's innovations in teaching, bringing an investigation of the work of seventeenth-century naturalists to bear on our studies of early modern philosophers.