von Uexkuell T
University of Ulm, Germany.
J Med Philos. 1990 Oct;15(5):473-80. doi: 10.1093/jmp/15.5.473.
Is Portmann's concept of inwardness objectively useful in understanding biological phenomena? If it is, it would seem that there is no unity to the physical sciences, because biology is as fundamental as physics. On the other hand, Portmann's interpretation of inwardness as a meaning or significance that we have to give our interpretation of biological phenomena suggests that it is sheerly subjective, and so should be reduced to objective correlates. This dilemma is false, however. One should realize that scientists construe physical and chemical processes as processes devoid of intrinsic meaning, just as they construe biological processes as having this meaning, which is Portmann's inwardness. From this angle we can integrate the significance of physical and biological processes in a way which does not reduce the latter to the former.
波特曼的内在性概念在客观上对理解生物现象有用吗？如果有用，那么似乎物理科学就不存在统一性了，因为生物学与物理学一样基础。另一方面，波特曼将内在性解释为我们赋予对生物现象的解释的一种意义或重要性，这表明它完全是主观的，因此应该简化为客观关联。然而，这种困境是错误的。人们应该认识到，科学家将物理和化学过程解释为没有内在意义的过程，就像他们将生物过程解释为具有这种意义（即波特曼的内在性）一样。从这个角度我们可以以一种不会将生物过程简化为物理过程的方式整合物理和生物过程的重要性。
