Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Discussions of work commonly refer to institutionally organized human productive activity rather than to productive activity in the broader biological sense. This distinction is easily overlooked, leading social institutions to be credited—or blamed—for conditions that arise from more fundamental biological constraints. The necessity of productive activityContinue reading “Excursus 045 – On the Biological and Institutional Senses of Work”
Tag Archives: biology
Excursus 028 – On Individual Variations
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon, like many early modern thinkers, treated the human intellect as though its fundamental tendencies were largely uniform across individuals. He gave little attention to variation among persons or cultures, nor did he consider that cognitive dispositions might differ as a consequence of genetic differences, education,Continue reading “Excursus 028 – On Individual Variations”
Excursus 027 – On Teleology
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 In Aristotle’s philosophy, the final cause (causa finalis) referred to the end, purpose, or goal for which a thing existed. Together with the material, formal, and efficient causes, it formed one of the four fundamental modes of explanation in Aristotelian natural philosophy. Francis Bacon rejected theContinue reading “Excursus 027 – On Teleology”
Excursus 012 – On Transmutability
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The alchemists’ belief in the fixed “kinds” of metals drew upon the Platonic–Aristotelian tradition of essential forms, according to which each natural substance possessed a defining essence that determined its identity. The repeated failure to transmute one metal into another was taken by many as confirmationContinue reading “Excursus 012 – On Transmutability”
Excursus 011 – On the Concept of Species
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 In Aristotelian logic, the species infimae (“lowest species”) occupied the final level of the genus–species hierarchy—the most specific universals that could still apply to more than one individual. They marked the boundary between universal and particular, serving as the lowest kinds that could figure in scientificContinue reading “Excursus 011 – On the Concept of Species”
Hossein Jorjani 