Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Origins and Development of the Idea of Organism-Environment Interaction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Entangled Life

Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences ((HPTL,volume 4))

Abstract

The idea of organism-environment interaction, at least in its modern form, dates only to the mid-nineteenth century. After sketching the origins of the organism-environment dichotomy in the work of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, I will chart its metaphysical and methodological influence on later scientists and philosophers such as Conwy Lloyd Morgan and John Dewey. In biology and psychology, the environment was seen as a causal agent, highlighting questions of organismic variation and plasticity. In philosophy, organism-environment interaction provided a new foundation for ethics, politics, and scientific inquiry. Thinking about organism-environment interaction became indispensable, for it had restructured our view of the biological and social world.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Geoffroy (1833a, 88–89n) quotes Blaise Pascal making a related point. However, this is not an accurate quotation but a loose reading of the earlier thinker’s well known remark, “I am very afraid that this nature might itself only be a first custom, just as custom is a second nature” (Pascal 1669, 199; Pascal 1991, 208).

  2. 2.

    For more on the connections between Comte, Blainville, and Lamarck, see Petit (1997) and Braunstein (1997).

  3. 3.

    Related German concepts and terminology would require a history of their own. Thomas Carlyle seems to have originally coined the word ‘environment’ to translate the German word ‘Umgebung’ (Pearce 2010a, 248). Phrases like “der Organismus und seine Aussenwelt” were used in medical writings beginning in the early 1800s: e.g., “the reciprocal determination of the organism and its external world” (Kilian 1802, 150). Philosophically inclined physicians such as Johann Christian Reil and Moritz Naumann also employed this Organismus-Aussenwelt dichotomy (Reil 1816, 63; Naumann 1821, 349, 1823, 162). Later in the century German translations used both ‘Aussenwelt’ and ‘Umgebung’ for Spencer’s ‘environment’ (Spencer 1880, 1:294, 365, 1882, 308, 380). The Organismus-Umgebung dyad is apparently absent from German texts prior to the reception of Comte and Spencer. The following is one early usage, before Spencer but after Comte: “form and activity, part and whole, organism and environment are in perfect harmony” (Köstlin 1851, 1:352). Peter Sloterdijk (2005) claims that Jakob von Uexküll (1909) invented the concept of environment, ignoring this rich nineteenth century background.

  4. 4.

    For evidence that Lewes—and not Spencer—wrote this particular article, see Pearce (2010a, 256n17).

  5. 5.

    For more on this period in the history of biology, see Bowler (1983), (1988), and Richards (1987, 331–503).

  6. 6.

    In their later debate, Weismann capitulated to Spencer on this point, formulating his theory of germinal selection—or selection on elements of the heritable material—as a means of “directing variation” at the organismic level (Weismann 1895, 432). For more on Weismann’s germinal selection theory, see Winther (2001).

  7. 7.

    Poulton to Henry Fairfield Osborn, 31 December 1891: Folder 11, Box 77, General Correspondence, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology Archives, American Museum of Natural History.

  8. 8.

    Osborn to Poulton, 12 June 1896: Folder 11, Box 77, General Correspondence, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology Archives, American Museum of Natural History.

  9. 9.

    Morgan to Poulton, 12 April 1896: C. Lloyd Morgan letters, Entomological Archives, Hope Entomological Library, Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The quoted points are on a separate sheet enclosed with the letter. Emphasis in original. In the original document, this passage is divided into 11 numbered points (nos. 6–17 of 21 total). I have collapsed them for ease of reading, but have not altered the sentence structure. Cf. Morgan (1896, 316–318).

  10. 10.

    Spencer to James Jackson Putnam, 26 May 1877, in Skrupselis and Berkeley (1992–2004, 4:564, original emphasis). See also James (1878).

  11. 11.

    Dewey’s mentor in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, the idealist philosopher George Sylvester Morris, was strongly opposed to Spencer’s philosophy. He saw it as British empiricism—which for Morris was vulnerable to a variety of standard idealist criticisms—dressed up with new scientific terminology (Morris 1880, 337–388).

  12. 12.

    For the classes taught by Dewey at the University of Michigan, see the relevant years of the Calendar of the University of Michigan. The class textbook is often listed in the calendar.

  13. 13.

    Dewey to Torrey, 16 February 1886, in Hickman (1999–).

  14. 14.

    Dewey, Speculative Psychology, Lecture 6 (16 March 1887), Box 2, Edwin C. Goddard Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Cf. Spencer (1880, 1:294). I have replaced abbreviations such as ‘Iv.’ and ‘Uv.’ with the terms for which they stand. A copy of these notes is held at the Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University—Carbondale.

  15. 15.

    Dewey, Speculative Psychology, Lectures 10/11 (13/15 April 1887). Dewey is here citing Spencer’s chapters “Life and Mind as Correspondence,” “The Correspondence as Direct but Heterogeneous,” and the opening of “The Correspondence as Extending in Space” (Spencer 1880, 1:291–305).

  16. 16.

    In the preface to this book, Dewey lists Alexander’s Moral Order and Progress among those books to which he is “especially indebted” (1891, vii).

  17. 17.

    This passage describing Dewey’s biological approach to philosophy foreshadows the “dialectical biology” of Richard Lewontin, who famously argued that dO/dt = f(O,E) and dE/dt = f(O,E). See Levins and Lewontin (1985, 104–105) and Godfrey-Smith (2001). For more on the Dewey-Lewontin connection, see Pearce (forthcoming).

References

  • Alexander, Samuel. 1889. Moral order and progress: An analysis of ethical conceptions. London: Trübner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen, Grant. 1890. The new theory of heredity. Review of Reviews 1 (June): 537–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyll, George Campbell, Duke of. 1867. The reign of law. London: Alexander Strahan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyll, George Campbell, Duke of. 1889. Acquired characters and congenital variation. Nature 41 (December 26): 173–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baldwin, James Mark. 1896. A new factor in evolution. American Naturalist 30 (June–July): 441–451, 536–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, Gillian A. 1993. Models of biological change: Implications of three recent cases of ‘Lamarckian’ change. Perspectives in Ethology 10: 229–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berman, Milton. 1961. John Fiske: The evolution of a popularizer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blainville, Henri-Marie Ducrotay de. 1822. De l’organisation des animaux, ou principes d’anatomie comparée, vol. 1. Paris: F.G. Levrault.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler, Peter J. 1983. The eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian theories in the decades around 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler, Peter J. 1988. The non-Darwinian revolution: Reinterpreting a historical myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braunstein, Jean-François. 1997. Le concept de milieu, de Lamarck à Comte et aux positivismes. In Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, 1744–1829, ed. Goulven Laurent, 557–571. Paris: CTHS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de. 1766. De la dégénération des animaux. In Histoire naturalle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du roi, vol. 14, 311–374. Paris: De l’imprimerie royale.

    Google Scholar 

  • Candolle, Augustin Pyrame de. 1820. Géographie botanique. In Dictionnaire des sciences naturelles, vol. 18, ed. Frédéric Cuvier, 359–436. Strasbourg: F.G. Levrault.

    Google Scholar 

  • Canguilhem, Georges. 1952. Le vivant et son milieu. In La connaissance de la vie, 160–193. Paris: Hachette.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, Sean B. 2005. Endless forms most beautiful: The new science of evo devo and the making of the animal kingdom. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comte, Auguste. 1838. La philosophie chimique et la philosophie biologique, Cours de philosophie positive, vol. 3. Paris: Bachelier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comte, Auguste. 1853. The positive philosophy of August Comte. 2 vols. Trans. Harriet Martineau. London: John Chapman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cope, Edward Drinker. 1887. The origin of the fittest: Essays on evolution. New York: D. Appleton.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cope, Edward Drinker. 1889. Lamarck versus Weismann. Nature 41 (November 28): 79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuvier, Georges. 1817. Le règne animal distribué d’après son organisation, pour servir de base à l’histoire naturelle des animaux et d’introduction à l’anatomie comparée. 4 vols. Paris: Deterville.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, Charles. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, Charles. 1875. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. 2 vols. 2nd ed. London: John Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1883. Knowledge and the relativity of feeling. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17 (January): 56–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1891. Outlines of a critical theory of ethics. Ann Arbor: Inland Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1894. Moral philosophy. In Johnson’s universal cyclopaedia: A new edition, vol. 5, ed. Charles Kendall Adams, 880–885. New York: A.J. Johnson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1896. The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psychological Review 3 (July): 357–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1925. Experience and nature. Chicago: Open Court.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1934. Art as experience. New York: Milton, Balch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, John. 1938. Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Henry Holt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyar, Harrison G. 1896. Stated meeting [March 9]. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 15: 137–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feuer, Lewis S. 1958. John Dewey’s reading at college. Journal of the History of Ideas 19: 415–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, John. 1874. Outlines of cosmic philosophy, based on the doctrine of evolution, with criticisms on the positive philosophy. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Étienne. 1833a. Considérations sur des ossemens fossiles, la plupart inconnus, trouvés et observés dans les bassins de l’Auvergne. Revue encyclopédique 59: 76–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Étienne. 1833b. Le degré d’influence du monde ambiant pour modifier les formes animales; question intéressant l’origine des espèces téléosauriennes et successivement celle des animaux de l’époque actuelle. Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences de l’Institut de France 12: 63–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1996. Complexity and the function of mind in nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2001. Organism, environment, and dialectics. In Thinking about evolution: Historical, philosophical, and political perspectives, ed. Rama S. Singh, Costas B. Krimbas, Diane B. Paul, and John Beatty, 253–266. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickman, Larry A. (ed.). 1999–. The correspondence of John Dewey, 1871–1953. Charlottesville: InteLex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Humboldt, Alexander von., and Aimé Bonpland. 1805. Essai sur la géographie des plantes; accompagné d’un tableau physique des régions équinoxiales. Paris: Levrault, Schoell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb. 2005. Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, William. 1878. Remarks on Spencer’s definition of mind as correspondence. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 12 (January): 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, William. 1880. Great men, great thoughts, and the environment. Atlantic Monthly 46(October): 441–459.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, William. 1904. The Chicago school. Psychological Bulletin 1: 1–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, William. 1988. Manuscript lectures. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kemp, James F. 1896. Extra meeting of the biological section. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 15: 123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kilian, Conrad Joseph. 1802. Entwurf eines Systems der gesammten Medizin. Jena: Friedrich Frommann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Köstlin, Otto. 1851. Gott in der Natur: Die Erscheinungen und Gesetze der Natur im Sinne der Bridgewaterbücher als Werke Gottes. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Paul Reff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste. 1801. Systême des animaux sans vertèbres, ou tableau général des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux. Paris: Deterville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste. 1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considérations relatives à l’histoire naturelle des animaux. 2 vols. Paris: Dentu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laubichler, Manfred D. 2010. Evolutionary developmental biology offers a significant challenge to the neo-Darwinian paradigm. In Contemporary debates in philosophy of biology, ed. Francisco J. Ayala and Robert Arp, 199–212. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • LeConte, Joseph. 1878. Man’s place in nature. Princeton Review 55 (November): 776–803.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levins, Richard, and Richard C. Lewontin. 1985. The dialectical biologist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewes, George Henry. 1851. Lyell and Owen on development. The Leader 2 (October 18): 996–997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewes, George Henry. 1852. Comte’s positive philosophy. Part XIV – The science of life. The Leader 3 (July 10): 665–666.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewes, George Henry. 1853. Comte’s philosophy of the sciences: Being an exposition of the principles of the Cours de philosophie positive of Auguste Comte. London: Henry G. Bohn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, G.E.R. (ed.). 1978. Hippocratic writings. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyell, Charles. 1832. Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation. vol. 2, London: John Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, C. Lloyd. 1891a. Animal life and intelligence. Boston: Ginn.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, C. Lloyd. 1891b. The nature and origin of variations. Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists’ Society 6: 249–273.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, C. Lloyd. 1893. Dr. Weismann on heredity and progress. The Monist 4 (October): 20–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, C. Lloyd. 1896. Habit and instinct. London: E. Arnold.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, George Sylvester. 1880. British thought and thinkers: Introductory studies, critical, biographical and philosophical. Chicago: S.C. Griggs.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moseley, Henry N. 1885. The continuity of the germ-plasma considered as the basis of a theory of heredity. Nature 33 (December 17): 154–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, John Clark. 1885. A handbook of psychology. Montreal: Dawson Brothers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Naumann, Moritz. 1821. Versuch zur Wiederlegung einiger Behauptungen in Kiefers System der Medicin. Isis von Oken 8: 344–351.

    Google Scholar 

  • Naumann, Moritz. 1823. Ueber die Grenzen zwischen Philosophie und Naturwissenschaften. Leipzig: Adolph Wienbrack.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, Clinton Eugene. 1977. John Fiske’s Harvard lectures: A case study of philosophical lectures. Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osborn, Henry F. 1891. Are acquired variations inherited? American Naturalist 25: 191–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Osborn, Henry F. 1895. The hereditary mechanism and the search for the unknown factors of evolution. In Biological lectures delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Holl in the summer session of 1894, 79–100. Boston: Ginn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascal, Blaise. 1669. Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion et sur quelques autres sujets. Paris: Guillaume Desprez.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascal, Blaise. 1991. Pensées. Paris: Bordas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, Trevor. 2010a. From ‘circumstances’ to ‘environment’: Herbert Spencer and the origins of the idea of organism–environment interaction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41: 241–252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, Trevor. 2010b. “A great complication of circumstances” – Darwin and the economy of nature. Journal of the History of Biology 43: 493–528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, Trevor. 2011. Ecosystem engineering, experiment, and evolution. Biology and Philosophy 26: 793–812.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, Trevor. Forthcoming. The dialectical biologist, circa 1890: John Dewey and the Oxford Hegelians. Journal of the History of Philosophy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petit, Annie. 1997. L’héritage de Lamarck dans la philosophie positive d’Auguste Comte. In Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, 1744–1829, ed. Goulven Laurent, 543–556. Paris: CTHS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reil, Johann Christian. 1816. Entwurf einer allgemeinen Pathologie. 3 vols. Halle: Curt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Robert J. 1987. Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romanes, George J. 1887. The factors of organic evolution. Nature 36 (August 25): 401–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Romanes, George J. 1888. Lamarckism versus Darwinism. Nature 38 (August 30): 413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwander, Tanja, and Olof Leimar. 2011. Genes as leaders and followers in evolution. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 26: 143–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skrupskelis, Ignas K., and Elizabeth M. Berkeley (eds.). 1992–2004. The correspondence of William James. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sloterdijk, Peter. 2005. Atmospheric politics. In Making things public: Atmospheres of democracy, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 944–951. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1852. A theory of population, deduced from the general law of animal fertility. Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review 57 (April): 468–501.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1855. The principles of psychology. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1872. The study of sociology. Popular Science Monthly 1 (May): 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1880. The principles of psychology. 2 vols. 3rd ed. New York: D. Appleton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1882. Die Principien der Psychologie. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Trans. Benjamin Vetter. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, Herbert. 1887. The factors of organic evolution. London: Williams and Norgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sully, James. 1884. Outlines of psychology. New York: D. Appleton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uexküll, Jakob von. 1909. Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Julius Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, Alfred Russell. 1889. Darwinism: An exposition of the theory of natural selection with some of its applications. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weismann, August. 1882. Studies in the theory of descent. 2 vols. Trans. Raphael Meldola. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weismann, August. 1883. Ueber die Vererbung. Jena: G. Fischer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weismann, August. 1885. Die Continuität des Keimplasma’s als Grundlage einer Theorie der Vererbung. Jena: G. Fischer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weismann, August. 1895. Heredity once more. Contemporary Review 68 (September): 420–456.

    Google Scholar 

  • West-Eberhard, Mary Jane. 2003. Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winther, Rasmus G. 2001. August Weismann on germ-plasm variation. Journal of the History of Biology 34: 517–555.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Youmans, Edward Livingston. 1872. Editor’s table. Popular Science Monthly 1 (May): 113–117.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Gillian Barker and Eric Desjardins for comments on this chapter. I also received helpful feedback on earlier versions from audiences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and at the “Romanticism & Evolution” conference at Western University. Research for the chapter was made possible by generous funding from the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Finally, thanks to the Center for Dewey Studies at SIU-Carbondale, the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and the American Museum of Natural History for providing access to archival materials and permission to reproduce some of those materials here.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

    Trevor Pearce

Authors
  1. Trevor Pearce
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trevor Pearce .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

    Gillian Barker

  2. Department of Philosophy, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

    Eric Desjardins

  3. Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

    Trevor Pearce

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Pearce, T. (2014). The Origins and Development of the Idea of Organism-Environment Interaction. In: Barker, G., Desjardins, E., Pearce, T. (eds) Entangled Life. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7067-6_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation