Philosophy Biology

This book restores the name of Felix Le Dantec—a scientist, philosopher, and heretic of his age—to the living current of thought. At the dawn of the twentieth century, he dared to proclaim that life is not a riddle imposed by spirit upon matter, but that matter itself is spirit—learning, feeling, and recognizing itself through the processes of biology. He saw the organism not as a mechanism steered by circumstance, but as a meaning-making machine: life as an act of self-comprehension, matter awakening to its own awareness.

The Biology Book is packed with short, pithy explanations of more than 95 momentous ideas in science, from cell theory to evolution by natural selection. Themed chapters explore key areas of the life sciences including ecology, zoology and biotechnology, tracing the history of scientific thought and introducing the scientists who shaped the subject, such as Carl Linnaeus, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel. Coverage of topical issues such as cloning, neuroscience, human evolution and gene-editing brings the story right up to date.

A groundbreaking redefinition of what it means to be healthy that introduces the need for social health - the part of wellbeing that comes from feeling connected - to truly flourish. Exercise. Eat a balanced diet. Go to therapy. Most wellness advice is focused on achieving and maintaining good...

What is love? Is it something spiritual or wholly physical? Can our feelings be explained and quantified? Or are we all actually two halves of a whole? Ask Alice and Luke and you’d receive vastly different answers. Despite her world having been recently dismantled by a messy break-up, Alice...

A compelling investigation into one of our most coveted and cherished ideals, and the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue. We all recognize wisdom, but defining it is more elusive. In this fascinating journey from philosophy to science, Stephen S. Hall gives us a dramatic history of wisdom, from its sudden emergence in four different locations (Greece, China, Israel, and India) in the fifth century B.C. to its modern manifestations.