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> 
> CALL FOR PROPOSALS
> A new volume of essays is being planned for Cambridge Studies in Philosophy
> and Biology, edited by Michael Ruse, entitled Conception, Substance, and
> Cause: The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy. As the
> title suggests, the proposed volume has as its concern the way in which the
> early modern science of generation, which included the study of animal
> conception, inheritance, and fetal development, influenced the
> contemporaneous treatment of traditional philosophical questions, and,
> conversely, the way in which philosophical presuppositions about substance
> and cause informed the interpretations of those conducting empirical
> research on animal reproduction. A number of prominent scholars, including
> James Lennox, Catherine Wilson, Francois Duchesneau, and others, have been
> invited to contribute essays to the collection, which will be edited by
> Justin Smith. We are also interested in receiving proposals for
> contributions from other scholars of early modern philosophy.
> Over the past two decades, historians of early modern philosophy have been
> paying increasing attention to the relation of philosophy in this period to
> the specific sciences. While this attention has already yielded important
> new insights, there is much ground left to be covered. A great deal of work
> has been done on the relation of physics to philosophy in the 17th and 18th
> centuries, less on the nascent sciences of chemistry and biology. The
> science of generation has yet to receive much direct attention by
> historians of philosophy, and when it does at all it is generally treated
> only en passant in the discussion of the broader science of biology of
> which it is a part. Much fine work has been done on the science of
> generation by historians of science, but generally without the sympathy for
> or interest in the philosophical concerns that may have motivated the
> scientific research. It is surprising that historians of philosophy have
> largely overlooked the importance of this science, since arguably the
> problem of generation, or coming into being, lies at the very heart of all
> metaphysical questioning, and has certainly been looming since the
> pre-Socratic beginnings of the Western philosophical tradition. Scholars
> have come to recognize that Aristotle> '> s metaphysics of generation cannot be
> adequately understood without proper attention to his biological treatises.
> This book is motivated by the conviction that, similarly, certain problems
> in early modern metaphysics may be better illuminated through a
> consideration of contemporaneous research on animal reproduction.
> There are many different respects in which early modern philosophy and the
> science of generation are connected. This book will attempt to cover all of
> the most important respects. Some of these include:
> · The legacy of Aristotle> '> s metaphysics of generation and corruption,
> particularly in the work of William Harvey.
> · The search by the microscopists, particularly Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani,
> Hartsoeker, and Malpighi, for the primordium of life, and the way in which
> this search was influenced by the tradition of substantialist metaphysics.
> · The conflict between the defenders of epigenesis and the
> preformationists, in its relation to the vastly older theological and
> philosophical debate concerning the preexistence of souls.
> · The debate about spontaneous generation and its connection to the
> prominent theories of cause in the early modern period.
> · Descartes> '>  work on the inheritance of maternal traits within the context
> of his broader theory of perception.
> . The problem of generation within the context of mechanistic physiology,
> in Descartes and his followers.
> · The connection between theories of generation and theories of cause,> 
> particularly in Malebranche and Leibniz.
> · The study of the gradual articulation of the organs in the successive
> stages of development of chicken eggs in Harvey, Malpighi and others, and
> the implications of this study for science> '> s understanding of the concept
> of organism.
> · Swammerdam> '> s investigations on insect metamorphosis and their
> implications for the philosophers> '>  understanding of the problem concerning
> the persistence of individuals through change.
> · The emergence of scientific explanations of birth defects, and their
> relation to earlier, folk theories of > '> monstrosities> '>  as signs or omens.
> If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please send an e-mail
> to Justin Smith at [log in to unmask], no later than February 1, 2003,
> providing a tentative title for your paper and a brief description of its
> subject. By March 1, 2003, we will need a more complete abstract of the
> paper. We hope to have the final book proposal to the publishers no later
> than April, 2003.
> Please direct any further questions you may have to Justin Smith at
> [log in to unmask]
> 
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