Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Greg Rupik @gregoryrupik.bsky.social · 4d

Amazing to have Elliott Sober delivering his keynote "Richard Lewontin - Biologist, Philosopher, and Marxist" at the Dialectical Biology Today Conference! 🌱🐋 @ihpst-uoft.bsky.social

1 3 23

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 4d

Congrats Dan!

1 1

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Daniel J Nicholson @djnicholson.bsky.social · 4d

My little book on Schrödinger's famous classic 'What Is Life?' is out! Offering the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of the book's origins, reception, impact, and legacy, it uncovers Schrödinger's motivations in writing it, and shows how it has shaped our current understanding of the cell

<i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - <i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

www.cambridge.org

7 30 83

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Vera Straetmanns @yavannakemi.bsky.social · 6d

I'm very much looking forward to the BPC conference tomorrow and on Friday at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de! Everyone is welcome to attend and you can also watch the stream on zoom. I will give a talk at 4pm about early 20th century concepts of plant agency (featuring Arber, Ungerer and Francé). 🌿

Bartosz Radomski @bartoszradomski.bsky.social · Aug 27

We are organising the 1st Basic Principles of Cognition conference at RUB, Germany, 9-10 October 2025. Save the date! #MinimalCognition #BasalCognition #CognitiveScience #CogSci #Philosophy #Mind #Life #Organism #Evolution basicprinciplesofcognition.wordpress.com

#EPSA25 #ESPP #GAP12 #KogWiss

Basic Principles of Cognition

1st Basic Principles of Cognition Conference. October 9-10 , Bochum, Germany.

basicprinciplesofcognition.wordpress.com

4 9

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 9d

Recently discovered this critical glossary of key terms in evolutionary biology, which was edited by Keller and Lloyd, and inspired by Raymond Williams. Great resource

1 20

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 12d

Equilibria annihilate history. | Lewontin

1 3

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 13d

This is a terrific new paper on Marx's naturalism. I highly recommend it!

Mathew Abbott @mathewabbott.bsky.social · 14d

doi.org/10.1080/0969...

SPECIES-BEING AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

What is it to take ourselves as natural? This paper clarifies this question by drawing on resources from Marx and from some contemporary naturalist and humanist philosophy. I argue that for Marx ou...

doi.org

5

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 14d

The euphoria that has accompanied our ability, finally, to give a complete and unambiguous description of the allelic composition of a natural population for some arbitrarily chosen piece of the genome has hindered us from seeing that the problem of epigenesis has not been eliminated. | Lewontin

5

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Mathew Abbott @mathewabbott.bsky.social · 16d

heading to Berlin next week for a fellowship at the @cpkp.bsky.social. Looking forward to connecting with other scholars working across intellectual divides in philosophy!

1 3

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 15d

Why was natural selection compared to a composer by Dobzhansky; to a poet by Simpson; to a sculptor by Mayr, and to, of all people, Mr. Shakespeare by Julian Huxley? [...] To illustrate the essence of Darwinism – the creativity of natural selection. | Gould

3

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Philippe huneman @philippehune.bsky.social · Aug 2

If you missed that great Cognizing life conference in Tubingen organized by Christoph Hueck two weeks ago, here are the videos of the presentations. Talks by Denis Walsh, Joan Steigerwald, Dan Nicholson and many others.
www.clc2025.de/videos

1 6 12

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 16d

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words

1

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 16d

Thanks Jacob!

1

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 16d

My new article, “Marx’s Concept of Life,” is now out in EJP.

Marx's Concept of Life

This essay aims to reveal the conceptual unity of an ensemble of concepts of organic, animal, and anthropological life articulated by the young Karl Marx between 1842 and 1844. To lay the groundwork ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

2 9 25

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 17d

Whence came the mirage of a space between nature and nurture? How did this illusion become so deeply entrenched in our thinking, and why is it so resistant to dissolution? | Keller

1 3

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 18d

I’m excited to be part of this hybrid event celebrating Richard Lewontin’s legacy from October 10-12. I’ll be presenting a talk titled “Dialectical Biology as Ideology Critique” on Saturday morning. You can register for the Zoom link and see the program here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

1 8

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 22d

delighted to have finally found a clean affordable copy of this one

4

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 23d

Writers, poets, naturalists, have often declaimed about the wonderful, prodigal, breathtaking inventiveness of nature. They have seldom realized that they were praising natural selection. But a creative process runs the risk of failure... Miscreation in biology is death, extinction. | Dobzhansky

6

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 24d

In treating the forms that had been regarded as types of fixity and perfection as originating and passing away, the 𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴 introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion. | Dewey

1 2

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Greg Rupik @gregoryrupik.bsky.social · 26d

An awesome hybrid conference on the legacies of Richard Lewontin is coming to Toronto. Elliott Sober is the keynote! "Dialectical Biology Today" runs from October 10-12. Learn more and register below! #philbio 🐋🌱
@ihpst-uoft.bsky.social

ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

11 24

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · 26d

The Darwinian theory to be demonstrated as the practical proof of Hegel's account of the inner connection between necessity and chance. | Engels

3

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Jonathan Basile @jonothingeb.bsky.social · 29d

I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin.

It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

Conference title: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin, and image of Lewontin in Black and White with intense expression in front of a chalkboard holding up a fist,
When and Where
Friday, October 10, 2025 11:30 am to Sunday, October 12, 2025 2:00 pm
Music Room (218)
Goldring Student Centre
150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom

2 38 80

Chris Shambaugh @hylomorphic.bsky.social · Sep 12

Organisms not only respond to the environments they encounter, they change the encounter itself, in many cases to one more favorable for their own function. | Sultan

3

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

ROTO Research Group @roto-rub.bsky.social · Sep 10

New semester, new lecture series 🎉Starting next month, we welcome amazing scholars to give online talks in the history and philosophy of life sciences. Find all dates and registration links here: rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
We look forward to seeing you there 🤗
#PhilSci #HistSci #HPBio

Overview of the ROTO Lecture Series in the winter semester 2025/2026.

The talks will be:
- "Race Reification and Population Descriptors in Human Genomics" by Celso Neto (University of Exeter)
- "Understanding plant holobionts through complexity science" by César Marín (Universidad Santo Tomás)
- "What is Dialectical Biology?" by Chris Shambaugh (University of Oregon)
- "Learning from Partial Overlaps Between Knowledge Systems" by Charbel El-Hani (Federal University of Bahia)
- "21st century eugenics, scientific racism and the role of academia in promoting political ideology" by Rebecca Sear (Brunel University London)
- "The Organism and the System: Boundary Crossings in 20th Century Science" by Libby O’Neil (Mississippi State University)

2 31 45

Reposted by Chris Shambaugh

Jonathan Basile @jonothingeb.bsky.social · Sep 9

I have a new article out on Kafka! Basically, I argue that Derrida's reading of Before the Law/The Trial recognizes an undecidability that inhabits Benjamin's and Deleuze and Guattari's readings. Let me know if you'd like a copy!
doi.org/10.3366/olr....

1 4 14