Buffon, Species and the Forces of Reproduction.

Throughout the Histoire naturelle Buffon was ever aware of epistemological issues involving the reproduction of species, the only beings in nature. By the 1760s he had come to believe that empirical evidence, the source of all human knowledge, revealed that reproduction was a physical process, involving a common living (minute, active, and lively) matter and material forces, all of which he traced to the foundational force of gravitational attraction.

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology.

Natural history, loosely defined as the observational study of organisms in the habitats where they occur, is recognized at the roots of ecology. Although the centrality of natural history in ecology has shifted over time, natural history is currently in resurgence: many again consider it to be the foundation of ecological and evolutionary inquiry and advocate the value of organism-centered approaches to address contemporary ecological challenges. Educators identify natural history as the foundational entryway into the practice of ecology, for example in the Ecological Society of America's Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework. A strong natural history foundation can help generate testable hypotheses to refine mechanistic understanding of the drivers regulating species distributions and abundances and to inform restoration and conservation efforts. Given the resurgence of natural history as the foundation for ecological knowledge and practice, it is important to recognize that natural history has a long history of racism that has impacted ecological thought and priorities. This history shapes not only who conducts ecological science but also foundational ecological concepts. For example, natural history's emphasis on pristine nature untouched by humans disregards or appropriates stewardship and knowledge of most of the world's population. Because of the legacy of chattel slavery, this exclusion is particularly strong for people of African descent. This exclusion narrows ecological inquiry, limits the capacity to find solutions to ecological problems, and risks interventions that perpetuate the relation between eugenics, ecological knowledge, and natural systems. If ecology is to become an inclusive, responsive, and resilient discipline, this knowledge gap must be addressed. We here present the colonial and racist underpinnings of natural history and offer strategies to expand inclusion in the study of nature. Natural history was steeped in racism, providing a hierarchy of cultures and a taxonomy of races. Complementing growing interest in traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge, we focus on Black ecological knowledge, for example in the study of "maroon ecologies." Addressing the racist history of natural history is necessary for removing structural and racist barriers to diverse participation and expanding ecological knowledge bases in service of better and more just science.

Theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition.

Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon's mechanism, (ii) Reimarus' theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying their position. These theoretical virtues have received little to no attention in the literature on eighteenth-century animal cognition, but figure prominently in the justification of the mechanist, instinctive, and sensationalist theories of animal behavior. Through my philosophical study of the role of theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition, we obtain a deeper understanding of how theoretical virtues were conceptualized in eighteenth-century science and how they influenced the justification of theories of animal cognition.

Reproduction versus metamorphosis: Hegel and the evolutionary thinking of his time.

Several problems with Hegel's conception of the organism in the Encyclopaedia are due to the separation between individual life in Nature and the universal life of the Concept. This discontinuity between ontogenesis and phylogenesis in his dialectics of organic life will be studied here by following his presentation of physiological development, especially reproduction, and by reconstructing the historical model he criticizes-Leibniz's organic machines and their development in Buffon's Natural History-a model that was also of crucial importance to the philosophy of nature of Schelling and his followers.

Between biology and chemistry in the Enlightenment: how nutrition shapes vital organization. Buffon, Bonnet, C.F. Wolff.

This paper seeks to characterize how the study of nutrition processes contributed to revisit the problem of vital organization in the late eighteenth century. It argues that focusing on nutrition leads to reformulate the problem of the relation between life and organization in terms of processes, rather than static or given structures. This nutrition-centered approach to life amounts to acknowledge the specific strategic role nutrition played in the development of a materialist approach to the generation of vital organization. The paper proposes a clarification of the multiple meanings of the concept of organization in the context of Enlightenment physiology and nascent biology, before focusing on the century long analogy between nutrition and generation. It shows how, by contrasting different uses of this analogy, nutrition was employed as a key vital phenomenon in the development of epigenetic theories of generation, i.e. how a nutritive modeling of generation was used in the undermining of preformationism. To this purpose I contrast two seemingly opposite theories of generation, Buffon's and Bonnet's, and show that despite the obvious metaphysical discontent, their views of generation share a common mechanical conceptual frame in which nutrition is conflated with growth and repair. I then turn to the role nutrition played in the epigenetic conception of generation in C. F. Wolff's embryology and analyze this rival understanding of nutrition as an organizing process.

A blooming and buzzing confusion: Buffon, Reimarus, and Kant on animal cognition.

Kant's views on animals have received much attention in recent years. According to some, Kant attributed the capacity for objective perceptual awareness to non-human animals, even though he denied that they have concepts. This position is difficult to square with a conceptualist reading of Kant, according to which objective perceptual awareness requires concepts. Others take Kant's views on animals to imply that the mental life of animals is a blooming, buzzing confusion. In this article I provide a historical reconstruction of Kant's views on animals, relating them to eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition. I reconstruct the views of Buffon and Reimarus and show that (i) both Buffon and Reimarus adopted a conceptualist position, according to which concepts structure the cognitive experience of adult humans, and (ii) that both described the mental life of animals as a blooming, buzzing confusion. Kant's position, I argue, is virtually identical to that of Reimarus. Hence Kant's views on animals support a conceptualist reading of Kant. The article further articulates the historical antecedents of the Kantian idea that concepts structure human cognitive experience and provides a novel account of how the ideas of similarity and difference were conceptualized in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition.

The organism as reality or as fiction: Buffon and beyond.

In this paper, we reflect on the connection between the notions of organism and organisation, with a specific interest in how this bears upon the issue of the reality of the organism (or in contrast the status of these notions as constructs, whether heuristic or otherwise scientifically useful). We do this by presenting the case of Buffon, who developed complex views about the relation between the notions of "organised" and "organic" matter. We argue that, contrary to what some interpreters have suggested, these notions are not orthogonal in his thought. Also, we argue that Buffon has a view in which organisation is not just ubiquitous, but basic and fundamental in nature, and hence also fully natural. We suggest that he can hold this view because of his anti-mathematicism. Buffon's case is interesting, in our view, because he can regard organisation, and organisms, as perfectly natural, and can admit their reality without invoking problematic supernaturalist views, and because he allows organisation and the organismal to come in kinds and degrees. Thus, his view tries to do justice to two cautionary notes for the debate on the reality of the organism: the need for a commitment to a broadly naturalist perspective, and the need to acknowledge the interesting features of organisms through which we make sense of them.

La discontinuidad entre lo humano y lo animal en la Historia natural de Buffon / The discontinuity between humans and animals in Buffon's Natural history

Resumen Según Buffon, la diferencia entre las capacidades cognitivas del hombre y las de los demás animales no podía ser explicada por causas naturales. La constatación de esas diferencias obligaba a aceptar que el Creador había dotado al hombre de un alma inmaterial que no tenía parangón en los animales. Aquí se pretende mostrar que esa claudicación del naturalismo buffoniano no responde a un presupuesto teológico, sino a la imposibilidad de compatibilizar esa supuesta heterogeneidad existente entre las facultades cognitivas animales y humanas con la explicación materialista del origen de las especies que Buffon fue delineando a lo largo de sus escritos. Si se piensa al hombre como algo excepcional, su origen también tendrá que ser entendido como algo milagroso.

Abstract According to Buffon, the difference between man’s cognitive abilities and those of other animals could not be attributed to natural causes. Noting these differences necessarily meant accepting that the Creator had endowed man with an immaterial soul that was unparalleled among animals. This article seeks to show that Buffon’s abandonment of naturalism was not the result of a theological premise but of the impossibility of reconciling the presumed heterogeneity between animal and human cognitive faculties with the materialist explanation of the origin of species that Buffon outlined in the course of his writings. If man is assumed to be an exceptional being, the origin of the human race must also be seen as miraculous.

Historia natural y temporalización: consideraciones sobre la Historia natural de Buffon / Natural history and temporalization: reflections on Buffon's Natural history

Presenta una relectura de la Historia natural de Buffon a la luz de los conceptos de reversibilidad e irreversibilidad temporal. El objetivo es determinar hasta qué punto Buffon introduce en dicha obra una concepción transformista de las formas naturales. A tales efectos, se analizan los puntos principales de la historia natural clásica y de la doctrina de los gérmenes preformados. Posteriormente, se considera el uso de la variable temporal que realizaba Buffon. Se demuestra, a partir de este examen, que pese a su rechazo de la teoría preformista y del sistema escolar de clasificación, Buffon continúa utilizando categorías que remiten a una matriz temporal de carácter reversible.

This article presents a rereading of Buffon's Natural History in the light of the concepts of temporal reversibility and irreversibility. The goal is to determine to what extent Buffon introduces a transformationist concept of natural forms in this work. To that effect, the main points of classical natural history and the doctrine of preformed germs are analyzed. Subsequently, Buffon's use of the temporal variable is considered. This examination shows that despite his rejection of the theory of preformationism and the scholastic classification system, Buffon continued to use categories based on a reversible temporal matrix.

Los taxones como tipos: Buffon, Cuvier y Lamarck / Taxa as types: Buffon, Cuvier and Lamarck

Darwinianamente, los grupos taxonómicos son entendidos como entidades históricas que surgen en un momento de la evolución y que siempre pueden desaparecer. Pero esos grupos también fueron entendidos por muchos naturalistas como clases naturales; es decir, como tipos permanentes, a-históricos. Es mi interés señalar algunas de las formas que ese pensamiento tipológico de hecho ha tomado, subrayando que la adopción de esa perspectiva tipológica, además de no responder a compromisos teológicos, tampoco tiene porqué obedecer a la adopción de una ontología que pueda estar en conflicto con la ciencia natural. Analizaré así el modo en el que Buffon entendió las especies y el modo en los que Cuvier y Lamarck entendieron los órdenes taxonómicos superiores.

From a Darwinian point of view, taxonomic groups are understood as historical entities that arise at an evolutionary moment and that can always disappear. But these groups were also understood by many naturalists as natural kinds; in other words, as permanent, ahistorical types. I will explore some of the forms that this typological thought took, showing that this typological perspective neither depends on theological beliefs, nor obeys the adoption of an ontology that might contradict natural science. Thus I shall analyze Buffon's understanding of species and the ways in which Cuvier and Lamarck understood the higher taxonomic orders.

La miseria de la degeneración: el materialismo de Buffon y las 'limitaciones' de su transformismo / The misery of degeneration: Buffon's materialism and the 'limitations' of his transformism

En "De la degeneración des animales", de 1766, Buffon sostuvo un 'transformismo limitado' que, doce años después, en Las épocas de la naturaleza, sería complementado por una teoría materialista sobre el origen de la vida que ponía en evidencia que, para el cientista, esa alternativa estaba vedada: las condiciones bajo las cuales los seres vivos desarrollan sus existencias podrían explicar cómo las diferentes especies que componen los distintos géneros de animales se habrían formado a partir de la degeneración de una especie originaria. Pero, la constitución de esas múltiples cepas primigenias sólo podría explicarse por un súbito proceso de generación espontánea. Una limitación inherente al propio sistema de ideas que lo había llevado hasta ese transformismo limitado: la propia teoría de la generación y la reproducción que le servía de base inhibía la posibilidad de su radicalización.

In "Of the degeneration of animals" (1766), Buffon espoused a kind of limited transformism. Yet twelve years later, in Epochs of Nature, he supplemented this with a materialist theory on the origin of life that left no room for this alternative: the conditions under which living beings develop could explain how the different species within each animal genus had formed through the degeneration of an originating species. But the formation of these multiple, originating varieties could only be explained by a sudden process of spontaneous generation. A limitation inherent to the very system of ideas that had taken Buffon to limited transformism - the underlying theory of generation and reproduction - preempted the possibility of its radicalization.