Teleology and the organism: Kant's controversial legacy for contemporary biology

Gambarotto, Andrea; Nahas, Auguste

doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.02.005

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…As has been suggested many times in these results, the vacuousness of the FEP is really a consequence of its generality, and that allows us to look at any system and ask what the FEP says about how we can understand its dynamics. This moves us towards a genuine teleology of self-organising systems [97], via a mechanistic understanding of how that self-organisation rests on-and is captured by-Bayesian beliefs.…”

Section: éLan Vital and The Fepmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Bayesian Mechanics: A Physics of and by Beliefs

Ramstead¹,

Sakthivadivel²,

Heins³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The aim of this paper is to introduce a field of study that has emerged over the last decade, called Bayesian mechanics. Bayesian mechanics is a probabilistic mechanics, comprising tools that enable us to model systems endowed with a particular partition (i.e., into particles), where the internal states (or the trajectories of internal states) of a particular system encode the parameters of beliefs about quantities that characterise the system. These tools allow us to write down mechanical theories for systems that look as if they are estimating posterior probability distributions over the causes of their sensory states, providing a formal language to model the constraints, forces, fields, and potentials that determine how the internal states of such systems move in a space of beliefs (i.e., on a statistical manifold). Here we will review the state of the art in the literature on the free energy principle, distinguishing between three ways in which Bayesian mechanics has been applied to particular systems (i.e., path-tracking, mode-tracking, and mode-matching). We will go on to examine the duality of the free 1

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Section: éLan Vital and The Fepmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Bayesian Mechanics: A Physics of and by Beliefs

Ramstead¹,

Sakthivadivel²,

Heins³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As has been suggested many times in these results, the vacuousness of the FEP is really a consequence of its generality, and that allows us to look at any system and ask what the FEP says about how we can understand its dynamics. This moves us towards a genuine teleology of self-organizing systems [111], via a mechanistic understanding of how that self-organization rests on-and is captured by-Bayesian beliefs.…”

Section: éLan Vital and The Free Energy Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

On Bayesian mechanics: a physics of and by beliefs

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of this paper is to introduce a field of study that has emerged over the last decade, called Bayesian mechanics. Bayesian mechanics is a probabilistic mechanics, comprising tools that enable us to model systems endowed with a particular partition (i.e. into particles), where the internal states (or the trajectories of internal states) of a particular system encode the parameters of beliefs about external states (or their trajectories). These tools allow us to write down mechanical theories for systems that look as if they are estimating posterior probability distributions over the causes of their sensory states. This provides a formal language for modelling the constraints, forces, potentials and other quantities determining the dynamics of such systems, especially as they entail dynamics on a space of beliefs (i.e. on a statistical manifold). Here, we will review the state of the art in the literature on the free energy principle, distinguishing between three ways in which Bayesian mechanics has been applied to particular systems (i.e. path-tracking, mode-tracking and mode-matching). We go on to examine a duality between the free energy principle and the constrained maximum entropy principle, both of which lie at the heart of Bayesian mechanics, and discuss its implications.

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“…In claiming that function is perspectival, Craver makes a move analogous to the one made in the third Critique, where Kant argues that teleology should be understood as a regulative principle that arises only within the epistemic field of human cognition, not as real things in the world. To proper-function theorists, who believe that natural selection provides the objective ground Kant lacked in order to give teleology a naturalistic foundation (Gambarotto & Nahas, 2022), perspectivists like Craver (2013, p. 135) respond that etiological histories are not enough to ground naturalism about function: functions are always perspectival, "imposed from without by creatures seeking to understand how a given phenomenon of interest is situated in the causal structure of the world. "…”

Section: Subjective Purpose and Perspectivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teleology and mechanism: a dialectical approach

Gambarotto

2023

Synthese

Self Cite

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The paper proposes a dialectical approach to our understanding of the relation between teleology and mechanism. This approach is dialectical both in form and content. In form, it proposes a contemporary interpretation of Hegel’s metaphysical account of teleology. This account is grounded in a dialectical methodology, which consists in scrutinizing the inherent limitations of a theoretical position that lead it to suppress itself and evolve into a better one. I apply the same methodology to the function debate. For Hegel, teleology can be understood in three main variants, which can be fruitfully mapped onto the three main positions in the function debate, the key conceptual distinction being whether teleological principles are understood as extrinsic or intrinsic. When it comes to autonomous systems, i.e. systems that embody the regime of Geist, extrinsic functionality must be grounded in intrinsic functionality. My approach is dialectical also in content, insofar as it concludes that intrinsic functional ascriptions rely on the relation of co-determination between the parts and the whole of a system, as well as between the system and its environment.

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Teleology and the organism: Kant's controversial legacy for contemporary biology

Cited by 17 publications

References 40 publications

On Bayesian Mechanics: A Physics of and by Beliefs

On Bayesian Mechanics: A Physics of and by Beliefs

On Bayesian mechanics: a physics of and by beliefs

Teleology and mechanism: a dialectical approach

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