Dual Causality and the Autonomy of Biology
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Dual Causality and the Autonomy of Biology Walter J. Bock1
Received: 28 September 2016 / Accepted: 19 December 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht (outside the USA) 2017
Abstract Ernst Mayr’s concept of dual causality in biology with the two forms of causes (proximate and ultimate) continues to provide an essential foundation for the philosophy of biology. They are equivalent to functional (=proximate) and evolutionary (=ultimate) causes with both required for full biological explanations. The natural sciences can be classified into nomological, historical nomological and historical dual causality, the last including only biology. Because evolutionary causality is unique to biology and must be included for all complete biological explanations, biology is autonomous from the physical sciences. Keywords Dual causality Proximate (functional) and ultimate (evolutionary) causes Nomological-deductive and historical-narrative explanations Nomological, historical nomological, and historical dual causality sciences Autonomy of biology
1 Introduction Ernst Mayr’s long career can be divided into three broadly overlapping syntheses (Haffer 2007: 1–3), namely: (1) ornithology, systematics and zoogeography; (2) evolutionary biology; and (3) history and philosophy of biology with each being
I would like to dedicate this paper to my colleague of 60 years, Professor Gerd von Wahlert (1925–2016), who always stressed the ecological aspects of evolutionary biology. & Walter J. Bock [email protected] 1
Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, 1212 Amsterdam Avenue, Mail Box 2428, New York, NY 10027, USA
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W. J. Bock
built on the others (see also Bock 2005, 2006, 2014). Mayr’s last synthesis was emphasized during his career at Harvard University beginning in 1953, and included an important, but largely misunderstood paper (Mayr 1961) on ‘‘Cause and effect in biology…’’ in which Mayr advocated the concept ‘‘dual causality’’ for biological explanations (see Beatty 1994 for an excellent treatment of Mayr’s intellectual history leading to his publication of dual causality). Closely associated with dual causality, was his position that biology was autonomous from the physical sciences (Mayr 1982: 8–23, 1996, 2004a, b), the last two publications appearing shortly before his death on 3 February 2005 at the age of 100 years. In spite of the central importance of dual causality in biology, this idea has been little appreciated and continues to be misunderstood, possibly because of Mayr’s choice of words and his original example of avian migration used to illustrate dual causality. Unfortunately Mayr never published a detailed paper on dual causality with additional examples. Herein, I would like to present a re-analysis of Mayr’s dual causality and to inquire into several related topics, which are: What are the different forms of explanations in science?; What are forms of explanations in the diverse fields of science?; and, Is biology autonomous from the physical sciences?
1.1 Dual causality in bio
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