Biological Philosophy

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

This article explores how French psychologists understood the state of their field during the first quarter of the twentieth century, and whether they thought it was in crisis. The article begins with the Russianborn psychologist Nicolas Kostyleff and his announcement in 1911 that experimental psychology was facing a crisis. After briefly situating Kostyleff, the article examines his analysis o...

Thinking technological and biological beings: Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of machines

The article proposes an investigation of the contributions of G. Simondon in the studies of Science and Technology. Leaving the contributions of cybernetics behind, Simondon investigates the processes of individuation, development and evolution of technology. According to his philosophy of machines, technical objects are contextualized both synchronically and diachronically. In contrast with ot...

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

This paper examines the claims of the Gestalt psychologists that there was a crisis in experimental psychology ca. 1900, which arose because the prevailing sensory atomism excluded meaning from among psychological phenomena. The Gestaltists claim that a primary motivation of their movement was to show, against the speculative psychologists and philosophers and Verstehen historians, that natural...

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Please cite this article in press as: Sturm, T. , & History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedic In this introductory article, we provide a historical and philosophical framework for studying crisis discussions in psychology. We first trace the various meanings of crisis talk outside and inside of the sciences. We then turn to Kuhn’s concept of crisis, which is mainly an analyst’s category...

Essays on Biological Evolution and the Philosophy of Science