Essentialism Vs Population Thinking

Jun 08

ChRIS CLÉiRIGhepistemology, general observations, suitable quotations 1 Comment

Western thinking for more than two thousand years after Plato was dominated by essentialism.  It was not until the nineteenth century that a new and different way of thinking about nature began to spread, so-called population thinking.  What is population thinking and how does it differ from essentialism?  Population thinkers stress the uniqueness of everything in the organic world.  What is important to them is the individual, not the type.  They emphasise that every individual in a sexually reproducing species is uniquely different from all others, with much individuality even existing in uniparentally reproducing ones.  There is no ‘typical’ individual, and mean values are abstractions.  Much of what in the past has been designated in biology as ‘classes’ are populations consisting of unique individuals.

Ernst Mayr ‘The Growth Of Biological Thought‘

One Comment (+add yours?)

  1. eldon
    Jun 08, 2011 @ 18:20:53

    well, this reminds me of a recent quotation which appeared at the end of one of my posts…

    It is clear now to many people that there are many catastrophic
    dangers which have grown out of the Occidental errors of
    epistemology. These range from insecticides to pollution, to atomic
    fallout, to the possibility of melting the Antarctic ice cap. Above
    all, our fantastic compulsion to save individual lives has created
    the possibility of world famine in the immediate future.
    Perhaps we have an even chance of getting through the next twenty years with no disaster more serious than the mere destruction of a nation or group of nations.
    I believe that this massive aggregation of threats to man and his ecological systems arises out of errors in our habits of thought at deep and partly unconscious levels.
    As therapists, we clearly have a duty.

    Gregory Bateson 1969 [1972]: “Steps to an ecology of mind”

    i’d say that greg was not stretching his neck out too far to suggest that nations and groups of nations might be destroyed in the 20 years following his tirade [from which the above is excerpted] at the Second Conference on Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific, at the East-West Center, Hawa’ii.
    perhaps some of those nations might be better classed as ethnic groups. and perhaps we are careful not to use the term ‘genocide’ when no conscious effort can be detected as to the destruction of a culture and its people.
    but i note that there have been some gallant efforts at reduction of sense of place, and consequent fleeing from traditional homes and livelihoods in the face of various disasters.
    gee. um.
    tibet..? yugoslavia no longer exists, i spose the serbs and croats haven’t calmed down yet.
    whatever happened to biafra?
    and then there were floods in the subcontinent.
    sudan? what IS happening there?
    live aid – i think ethiopia experienced a rather devastating famine in the last 20 years.
    we won’t even mention the SA’s of the world

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