Abstract
The philosophical foundations of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis were built in opposition to an allegedly essentialist and teleological view of nature going back to Aristotle (Sober 1980). Because essentialism and teleology were regarded as core hindrances for a science of evolution, neo-Darwinian approaches endorsed a view in which evolutionary directionality arose solely from the differential reproduction of individuals in populations (Mayr 1959). This view was in turn based on a strict separation between development and reproduction, and thus between developmental causality and evolutionary causality (Griesemer 2005). However, this separation has recently broken down across various research fields, including epigenetic theories of inheritance, niche construction theory, and evolutionary developmental biology. These critical developments in evolutionary theory have led to a revival of Aristotelianism among some philosophers of biology attempting to forge an alternative conceptual framework for developmental evolution (Austin 2016, Nuño de la Rosa 2010, Walsh 2006). In this talk, we argue that the concept of “inherited dispositions,” derived from our interpretation of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals (Connell 2016), can play a core role in this enterprise. First, we claim that the Aristotelian focus on organisms as bearers of inherited dispositions aligns with current claims about organisms as directing causes of development and evolution (Laland et al 2015). Second, we discuss the active role of the female body in the work of Aristotle (Connell 2020). On the one hand, we argue that the generative power attributed to female matter provides interesting resources to conceptualize the formative capacities of tissues and the importance of “material overlap” between generations (Griesemer 2000). On the other, we discuss the role of the female body in sexual reproduction, and argue that, in contrast with container views of pregnancy, Aristotle’s view fits with contemporary perspectives on developmental niches as directing, and not merely enabling, factors in reproduction (Nuño de la Rosa et al 2021). Finally, we survey Aristotle’s views on environmental variation in connection with teleological constraints. Although Aristotle has been accused of having a rigid idea of species that excludes many inherited features as “accidental,” we show that his teleological explanation of environmental variations is indeed amenable to current conceptualisations of developmental plasticity. To that end, we discuss Aristotle’s explanation of monsters (Connell 2018) as evidence of functional and developmental tendencies that resonates with recent work on teratologies in evo-devo (Alberch 1989). We conclude that an Aristotelian notion of inherited dispositions provides a bridge for integrating teleology in an understanding of evolution where development and reproduction are meaningfully relinked.
