| article |
| Historical Contingency and Historical Constraints in Evolutionary Process |
| Historical Contingency and Historical Constraints in Evolutionary Process, Korean Journal For The Philosophy Of Science, vol.15-1(2012) 25-53 in Korean This paper presents an analyse of a causal argument in biological processes of evolution. Beatty’s concept of causality in evolution will be explained with Gould’s notion of historical contingency. Beatty has argued the idea that the historical contingency and causal-dependency are complementary to each other. I will show furthermore that their complementarity can be realized through my own concept of “historical constraints”. The idea of “historical constraints” can be defined as an evolutionary processes relying on the triangle-constructed idea consisted of (1) the concept of physical constraints of developmental biology, (2) Gould’s notion of historical contingency, and (3) Beatty’s notion of causal-dependency. I will argue that the notion of historical constraints would help to bridge between discontinuous processes in macro-evolution and continuous causation of micro-evolution. Historical constraints did not happen in random drift nor in proximate causation. It might give a new approach for the finding of ultimate causation in the evolutionary-geographical history. I furthermore try to accord the reversibility of physical constraints with the irreversibility of evolutionary process. Consequently I argue that the concept of historical constraints can unify the dichotomy between the micro-evolutionary causal mechanism and the modality of macro-evolutionary contingency in one explanatory spectrum. Key Words: Historical Contingency, Historical Constraints, Complexity of Causation, Irreversibility, Continuity of Evolution Amundson, Ron (1998), “Two Concepts of Constraint: Adatationism and the Challenge from Developmental Biology” in David Hull and Michael Ruse(ed.) The Philosophy of Biology. 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