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“Kant outlined many interesting issues involving concepts, such as system, self-organization, teleology, etc. and today these are also relevant for systems biology. Kant mentioned for instance the reciprocal influences among the parts within an organism: the parts of a “thing as a natural product” (organism) “should so combine in the unity of a whole that they are reciprocally cause and effect of each other’s form” (Kant I. Critique of judgment. Digireads.com., Breinigsville, 2010, German 1790: §65). Here it becomes apparent that philosophy has already addressed questions that are also relevant for science. Looking back at such philosophical considerations is therefore crucial for science in order to get a clear view on basic questions. Of course, this is not relevant for many sophisticated, detailed models in systems biology. Nonetheless, keeping the big picture in mind is definitely an advantage.”
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Suggested Readings by Manfred Drack
Drack, M. (2015). Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s organismic view on the theory of evolution. Journal of Experimental Zoology. Part B, Molecular and Developmental Evolution, 324B, 77–90.
Drack, M., & Pouvreau, D. (2015). On the history of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s “General Systemology”, and on its relationship to cybernetics – Part III: Convergences and divergences. International Journal of General Systems, 44, 523–571.
Drack, M., & Wolkenhauer, O. (2011). System approaches of Weiss and Bertalanffy and their relevance for systems biology today. Seminars in Cancer Biology, 21, 150–155.
Acknowledgement
The research of MD was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P22955-G17. It is now funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre (SFB/Transregio) 141 ‘Biological Design and Integrative Structures’, project C02 ‘Organism concepts in biology and architecture as the basis for an interdisciplinary synopsis of constructional biomimetics.’
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Drack, M. (2017). An Affinity to Theories in Biology. In: Green, S. (eds) Philosophy of Systems Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47000-9_7
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