Sölch Dennis
J Hist Ideas. 2016 Jul;77(3):489-507. doi: 10.1353/jhi.2016.0021.
The case of William Morton Wheeler and Alfred North Whitehead represents a striking example of how biologists and philosophers engaged in a common enterprise in the early twentieth century. Both challenge the notion that the living world is composed of distinct organisms. Based on his studies of the behavior of social insects, Wheeler developed a concept of superorganisms that paved the way for a theory of emergent evolution. This paper argues that Whitehead, whose relation to academic biology has been largely ignored, drew on Wheeler's findings and integrated them into a universal philosophical cosmology.
威廉·莫顿·惠勒（William Morton Wheeler）和阿尔弗雷德·诺思·怀特海（Alfred North Whitehead）的例子显著体现了20世纪初生物学家和哲学家如何投身于一项共同事业。两人都对生物世界由不同生物体构成这一观念提出了挑战。基于对群居昆虫行为的研究，惠勒提出了超个体的概念，为突现进化论奠定了基础。本文认为，怀特海与学术生物学的关系在很大程度上被忽视了，他借鉴了惠勒的研究成果，并将其融入了一个普遍的哲学宇宙论中。
