This conference aims to contribute to the application of a dialectical approach to the science and philosophy of biology by facilitating an opportunity for scientists and academics to share their work on dialectical perspectives in general, and particularly exploring the Hegelian dialectic. 

The Dialectical Biologist was published by biologists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin in 1985. One of the significant contributions of this text was establishing a more dynamic bilateral relationship between organisms and the environment, where “the environment is a product of the organism, just as the organism is a product of the environment.” In conventional biology, the environment unilaterally determines the organism. Levin and Lewontin’s progressive perspective was based upon the authors’ understanding of dialectical philosophy: 

“Parts and wholes evolve in consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves. These are the properties of things that we call dialectical: that one thing cannot exist without the other, that one acquires its properties from its relation to the other, that the properties of both evolve as a consequence of their interpenetration.”

Although it has yet to be thoroughly explored, dialectical descriptions of nature can be extended to DNA-protein relationships, where both are dependent on and constitutive of the other. DNA provides the instructions for protein synthesis, while proteins organize, regulate, and give structure to DNA. Their properties arise only through this reciprocal interaction, not in isolation. A dialectic isn’t simply circular or a feedback loop. Rather, it’s a dynamic unity of opposites. Together they form a system that self-perpetuates and transforms, not reducible to either component alone. 

A result of dialectical biology that has garnered increasing attention in recent years is niche construction. Lewontin is credited with initially popularizing this phenomenon via publications throughout the 1970s and 80s, explaining that organisms actively modify and construct their environment rather than passively adapting to conditions. Later on, in 1988, this was formally termed “niche construction” by biologist John Odling-Smee. Among other phenomena at the forefront of 21st-century biology’s extended evolutionary synthesis, niche construction offers significant challenges to Neo-Darwinian evolution driven by natural selection.

Biomimicry is another manifestation of the organism-environment dialectic, where humans first observe nature’s numerous problem-solving strategies at varying scales of the environment (form, behavior, and system), apply relevant strategies to human problems, and then engineer technological, architectural, and social constructs based on biomimetic strategies that positively impact the environment while fulfilling human needs. Interestingly, biomimicry not only exemplifies the organism-environment dialectic — which can also be thought of as a self-other dialectic — but it also demonstrates a mind-matter (or subject-object) dialectic. Here, the individual is simultaneously shaping and shaped by its environment. As described in a recent paper by the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute, the self both influences and is influenced by its other. An observer or subject determines and is determined by the observed object. The subject perceives the object based upon the inherent categories of thought that it possesses, while the object impresses particular qualities upon the subject. Due to this interpenetrating dynamic, a kingfisher can be understood as a small and brightly colored tropical bird requiring preservation, a bad omen for the Dusun warriors of Borneo, a symbol of love in Greek mythos, a biomimetic model for Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train, or all of the above. Each group has a unique perception of the kingfisher depending on their particular needs and sociocultural context. In biomimicry, an observed object is a reflection of the observing subject, where, depending on the unique perspective and needs of the subject, the object appears differently. This demonstrates a mind-matter dialectic where thinking and being are inextricably intertwined.

G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) offers a perspective focused on the Concept that forms and informs nature. Here, understanding the truth of reality, of which nature is part, requires perceiving it as a whole that is not only positively existing substance, but also subject or cognition that negates the immediacy of existence. This leads to the dialectical unfolding of the dynamic relationship of subject/thinking/mind and substance/being/matter, which traverses logical, natural, and spiritual dimensions as the Absolute is revealed to Itself. Hegel’s dialectic goes further than Levin and Lewontin’s understanding, in that it describes the dynamic movement and self-unfolding of conceptual thinking. The triadic structure of this movement is sometimes simplified by Hegel’s commentators as thesis-antithesis-synthesis. In this dynamic movement — where each stage or moment is unfolded out of the previous — tension internal to an immediate stage of conceptual thinking (thesis) confronts and negates the immediacy (antithesis), which serves as mediation leading to a higher unity of thought where both stages are reconciled and preserved in the blossoming of a more comprehensive conception (synthesis). This conference hopes to explore the relevance of Hegel’s view for uncovering new insights about nature and its higher development. 

In Hegel’s philosophy, the Concept (Begriff) is the fundamental, dynamic, and self-organizing structure of all thought and reality. While in common parlance a “concept” refers to a static, abstract idea in our heads (i.e. the concept of “this” or “that”), for Hegel, Concept is the active and self-moving force of reason itself. It is not just a mental idea or abstraction, but the living, rational principle through which everything comes to be, develops, and is understood. In short, the Concept is the logical “soul” of the world. As continuous dynamic activity, the threefold structure of the Concept contains Universal, Particular, and Individual moments. Universality is pure undifferentiated potential; it is the simple and abstract identity of a thing. Particularity is the moment of difference and determination where the universal must divide itself into particulars to become real and the initial identity breaks apart into specific forms. Individuality or singularity is the moment of concreteness, where abstract identity (universality) and abstract differentiation (particularity) are united and sublated (aufheben) such that their features are preserved while their abstraction is negated by the concrete identity-in-difference that is individuality. For example, an individual lemon in your hand is an instatiation of both universal plant-ness and particular fruit-ness. It is simultaneously an instance of that which is indeterminate as well as that which has particular determination. This Hegelian conceptual perspective has concrete implications for inspiring deeper insights about plant grafting, animal hybridization, and other phenomena. For instance, “fruit cocktail trees” contain grafts of several different species of fruit tree onto a single tree that grows each kind of fruit simultaneously. Only certain kinds of fruit trees are compatible for growing together on a single tree, i.e. stone fruit cocktails (peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, cherries) and citrus cocktails (lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits). This shows the conceptual layers of the phenomena, where although they are all trees in a universal genus sense, the difference or likeness among particular kinds or species of fruit trees determines compatibility that manifests in the viability of individual grafting specimens. Plums and peaches are compatible, but lemons and peaches are not. The same principle can be observed in reproductive compatibility for animal hybridization. Horses (female) and donkeys (male) can produce mules while lions (male) and tigers (female) make ligers, but horses and tigers are not compatible. The Concept is inherently self-moving and self-contradictory, and the various aspects of its triadic structure contain real determination that matters to empirical reality. The Concept cannot remain in its abstract, universal state; it must move outward into particularity and then return to itself in a richer, more concrete individual form. From a more transcendental perspective, the Concept is the universal, living structure of self-determination. It is the essence of subjectivity itself, i.e. it is not tied to this or that finite form, but is the logic of infinite self-knowing Spirit.