La question de la vie et du vivant dans la pensée épistémologique d’André pichot

Abstract

The materialist/reductionist trend that plagues modern biology epistemologically deletes life and imposes a strict physico-chemical perspective on living beings. On the basis of this observation, we undertake to raise the problem of the status of life and living beings. The main question is: what theoretical framework can be defined in biology for a general conception of life and living beings that is holistic and in line with the true reality of life and living beings? By this question, we try to look at epistemological foundations of biology according to the question life and living beings. Drawing on approaches from different disciplines, we seek to understand life and living beings in an open way in consideration of new scientific discovers. Our field of work is philosophy of biology, as our helping author is André Pichot, specially his book Éléments pour une théorie de la biologie. By using an analytico-critical method, we attempt three main results : 1) reductionist trend of living beings is not in adequation with biology, and it is urgent to rebuild the bases of biology by considering life as the central task ; 2) bipolar monism looks like an adequacy framework for biology, for it considers that living beings is specific, and his conceptual horizon is universal ; 3) to make that life and living beings become again the center of biological quests, imposes to make reconciliation between materialism and vitalism, in order to take the path of a realist vitalism. Factually, one cannot deny that life has a part of objective immanent transcendence: before reason which think about life is involved, life already “is”.