“Typological thinking” and neoplatonism in the 20th century biology

Abstract

The modern synthesis was born in the vehement discussions between English-, German- and Russian-speaking scientists — biologists and philosophers of science, and therefore these disputes were by default not only theoretical, but also concerned worldviews. Thus, E. Mayr named several reasons why German biologists were opposed to the Modern synthesis: they boil down to the commitment of German natural scientists to idealistic morphology, equated with typology and essentialism. He believed that the conflict between “population” (founded by Darwin) and “typological” (developed by Goethe) thinking seemed to be the cornerstone of the entire history of Western philosophy and natural science, and he defined essentialism, which he considered to form the basis for “typological thinking”, as a special ideology akin to Plato’s doctrine. Consequently, “typological thinking” reflects the fundamental ”dealistic” understanding of nature itself, which is quite typical for German-speaking researchers (not only biologists, but also some physicists) due to the special tradition of natural philosophy in Germany. That is why the refutation of essentialism in the history of science and philosophy of the twentieth century reflected the methodological opposition of the champions of intuitive knowledge and consistent empirical research. Neo-Platonism, reinforced by Goethe’s creative method, made it possible to look differently at the principles of the formation of scientific knowledge, the canonical analysis of which was presented by I. Kant, and the Neoplatonic trends that influenced “typological thinking” (as Mayr understood it) opposed positivist-oriented Darwinism. However, the breeding ground of the idealist morphologists was essentially the soil of purely speculative natural philosophy, which was losing ground under the pressure of more and more substantiated empirical data. Hence, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the case form the history of German-speaking biology of the last century, which the paper discusses, was fully reflected one of the fundamental problems in the history of philosophy, namely: the opposition of intuitive, or creative and discursive, or natural epistemologies.