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了，并在许多自然哲学家和自然历史学家中流行起来。预形成理论认为，在创世时，上帝预先创造了每一个会存在的生物，将一代又一代的生物包裹在每个物种的第一个成员的生殖器官中。对于预言论者来说，我们所见证并称之为“生成”的东西，仅仅是以前看不见的东西变成可见的。十七世纪中期这一学说重新出现的最常被引用的动机是十七世纪早期的机械论，特别是固有惰性物质根据一些简单的定律进行外部运动的观点，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将对个性化理论和目的论概念进行研究，以确定一些自然哲学家（Malebranche和Leibniz将是这项研究的重点）支持预形成理论来解释物质个性化，因为一个功能齐全、自给自足的有机体的模型提供了一个理想的物质个体模型。这两位自然哲学家追求这条道路，是对笛卡儿个人形而上学及其有机生成理论的缺陷的一种反动。为了扩大研究，PI将对目的论的理论和历史，莱布尼茨关于生成、个性化和目的论的文本，以及目的论在笛卡尔和马勒布兰奇的生成理论和个体统一理论中的作用进行研究。学术价值:该项目将展示理解有机生成对于获得对早期现代形而上学的更深入理解的重要性，它将提供一个被低估的动机的持续调查，为什么17世纪的自然哲学家支持预形成理论（因此，提供对预形成论的复杂性的更丰富的理解）。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，并将为最近关于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18世纪Albrecht von Haller和Caspar Friedrich Wolff之间关于世代的争论的研究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，世代，个性化和机制问题提供背景，这将丰富PI的次要研究，重点是早期现代女性哲学家的自然哲学(间接地，将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)；(c)它将继续为PI在教学方面的创新做出贡献，将对17世纪博物学家作品的研究与我们对早期现代哲学家的研究联系起来。

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.