Explications mécanistes et téléologiques de l'évolution de la forme
This dissertation of philosophy of biology deals with current evolutionary explanations in developmental evolutionary biology (Evo-Devo). We will seek to answer the following question: Can the evolutionary explanation be an exclusively mechanistic explanation or must it maintain teleological elements? In order to answer this question we will analyze current philosophical debates that attempt to solve the problem posed by the introduction of the study of development in the evolutionary explanation. We will adopt an epistemological approach. Then, we will expose the two sides of this problem, the mechanistic explanation and the teleological explanation. In the first chapter, we will identify the philosophical presuppositions of evolutionary biology and situate the current debate on the evolution of form in the continuity of philosophical debates raised by theories that have encountered similar obstacles like the theories of evolution of Ernst Haeckel and Kart Ernst von Baer. We will also briefly examine the debates between mechanistic conceptions and teleology in physiology in the 18th century and Kant's teleomechanist research program. The second chapter sets out the philosophical assumptions of the mechanistic explanation of the evolution of form as it is exposed by the contemporary biologist Sean B. Carroll. In the third chapter we will distinguish Platonic teleology and Aristotelian teleology, identify the peculiarity of organisms as an object of studies of biology and expose the teleological evolutionary explanation as it currently stands in the philosophy of biology.
Evo-Devo Philosophy Biology Mechanism Teleology Development Explanation Form Organism