De Cesare Silvia
Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST, UMR 8590), 13, rue du Four, 75006, France.
Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2019 Feb;73:44-53. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2018.10.011. Epub 2018 Dec 17.
The notion of "progress" can be defined as a directional change towards the better, implying both a descriptive and an axiological element. "Organic progress" refers to this notion applied to the history of life, whereas "technological progress" refers to this notion applied to the history of technological artifacts. This paper aims to disentangle conceptual questions about the notion of organic progress with respect to evolutionary theory, by proposing an epistemological perspective that also accounts for technological progress. My argument is set out in four sections. In section 2, drawing on the thought of some eminent evolutionary biologists, I will pinpoint a theoretical claim according to which a specific notion of organic progress is consistent with evolutionary theory. In section 3, I show some limits and problems that arise in the application of this theoretical claim to the organic domain. In section 4, I consider why these problems with application are often underestimated: I hypothesize that this is linked to the analogy frequently made between organic and technological progress. Finally, in section 5, I will carry on the analysis of this analogy by proposing a distinction between two levels of axiology. I claim that this distinction avoids several common confusions when talking about progress.
“进步”这一概念可被定义为朝着更好方向的定向变化，这意味着它兼具描述性和价值论要素。“有机进步”指的是这一概念应用于生命史，而“技术进步”指的是这一概念应用于技术人工制品的历史。本文旨在通过提出一种也能解释技术进步的认识论视角，梳理与进化理论相关的关于有机进步概念的概念性问题。我的论证分为四个部分。在第2节中，借鉴一些杰出进化生物学家的思想，我将指出一个理论主张，根据该主张，有机进步的特定概念与进化理论是一致的。在第3节中，我展示了将这一理论主张应用于有机领域时出现的一些局限性和问题。在第4节中，我思考了为何这些应用问题常常被低估：我推测这与有机进步和技术进步之间经常被做的类比有关。最后，在第5节中，我将通过提出价值论的两个层面之间的区分来继续对这一类比进行分析。我认为这种区分避免了在谈论进步时的几个常见混淆。
