Cuvier’s Situation in the History of Biology

Until the Modern Age, when the fossils began to be interpreted as the remains of organisms, these natural phenomena receive numerous interpretations that related to the mythology and magism. Even after the recognition of their organic origin, the natural historians practically not used them for the production of scientific knowledge. Only when the question of the occurrence of extinction in the natural world came to be debated vigorously, the role of fossils like data suppliers for the understanding of this and the other natural phenomena, could be perceived. But to prove the total disappearance of a species was necessary to apply methods of Comparative Anatomy. When Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) elaborated these comparative anatomy methods, which enabled the paleontological reconstructions, he promoted the definitive inclusion of the fossils in the biological world and the history of the Globe. This inclusion would provide a large amount of knowledge of the possible ways of organizing body, which was one of the most important cognitive goals of the Cuvier’s research program. To make this contribution, he formed a network of international cooperation, which has become a scientific community, formed with the dissemination and acceptance of their work’s results. Since then, this community began to use the Cuvier’s methods in the production of studies that resulted in confirmations of their work’s results. After decades of this practice of kuhnian normal science, some naturalists would discover natural phenomena that the theory guidind of the cuvierian paradigm could not explain. Then followed a questioning of Cuvier’s theory and research program, which aimed to achieve a classification system based on natural body organization rather than as genealogy come to rely on systems of taxonomic classification after acceptance of the Darwin’s Theory of Unit Type, when a new paradigm was installed in Paleontology.

Boletim ABFHiB, 2010

O texto aqui traduzido é um discurso lido por Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) em uma sessão do Instituto Nacional das Ciências e das Artes, sendo seu primeiro trabalho envolvendo uma espécie fóssil. Trata-se de um sumário de um trabalho que ele já havia apresentado em janeiro de 1796, mas que esperaria dois anos para sua publicação em sua forma completa.

At nineteen (1788) the French biologist Georges Cuvier outlined his program for natural history. Among other things, he wants biological classification to move from developing mere nomenclature to what he calls real science, that is an understanding of the relations between natural entities. Cuvier compares systems of classification with dictionaries, useful, but only to those who know the language. He himself, however, wants to learn not only how to read the language of nature, but how to speak it. Thus instead of the metaphor of the Book of Nature he uses that of the language of nature. In this paper I will present examples showing that Cuvier read Nature in light of Scripture. These examples suggest that Cuvier used two Scripture-derived attributes of God to interpret natural phenomena. These views are that God creates nothing without purpose and that God is free to create anything God wills. I will argue that this framework of interpretation affected his perception of nature as well as the content of his natural history. I conclude that while the two texts are part of a hermeneutical circle, this circle is open. This means that the interpretation of Nature does not entail a religious point of view.

An introduction to our coedited volume together with table of contents, Aug. 2018

In France, starting from the early 19 th century, the interaction between what we call today the "life sciences" and "philosophy" provoked several important controversies. Academic philosophers, physicians and naturalists frequently competed for the monopoly over common topics, and colleagues across faculties would thus interfere in each other's work. This conflictual interaction, which often involved the use of texts coming from the history of knowledge, resulted in the emergence of new disciplines, in the epistemological reframing of scientific theories and in the readjustment of philosophical concepts, pressured by empirical evidence. This chapter analyzes the five most important sequences of these interactions taking place from the beginning of the process of disciplinarization, at the start of the 19 th century. The first section, which spans 1830 to 1852, focuses on the strategies adopted by the academic philosophers in order to defend their area of competence, namely the "moral" part of man, from the physicians' attempts to naturalize human cognition and behavior. The second section analyzes how, between 1855 and 1864, philosophers were involved in controversies concerning both the difference between human and biological life and between biological life and unanimated matter. The third section shows how Claude Bernard's Introduction to Experimental Medicine (1864) pushed philosophers to adopt a more cautious approach, avoiding expressing claims about the nature of life. The fourth section concerns the limited fortune of the theory of evolution and the rejection of social Darwinism by philosophers and sociologists between 1865 and 1920. Finally, the fifth section exposes two apparently contradictory evolutions: on the one hand a growing attention towards the history of the transformation of biological concepts and theories, and, on the other hand, the return to bolder metaphysical claims about the nature of life and the organisms.

In this paper we analyze the scientific theories of Cuvier and Geoffroy, to comprehend the origin of the concepts of homology and analogy; for that matter the concepts of 'functional analogy' and 'formal analogy', will help us to understand the conflict between the two naturalists. The debate took place in 1829-1830 at the Academy of Science of France, and it was published as Principes de Philosophie Zoologique. Although the debates have an inconclusive finale, its realization and later diffusion allowed the development of the modern concepts of homology and analogy.

The history of the uneasy reception of Cuvier and Lamarck in Russia confirms that, despite a whole complex of social and cultural factors that affected the reception, Russian scholars were committed to universal norms and values of modern science – a decisive factor in a long-term historical perspective. Unlike Lamarck, Cuvier always believed that established facts and generalizations based on them were more important for science than a hypothesis that lacked a credible empirical base. That was the reason why, for about two centuries, it was Cuvier, a believer in the immutability of species, and not his opponent Lamarck, who exercised an ongoing influence upon the development of evolutionary ideas in Russia, and who became the source of inspiration for a strong intellectual current, neo-Catastrophism. With the loss of support from the Soviet authorities, Lamarckism virtually lost all its influence in the Russian-speaking part of the world.

Metascience, 2024

The Review of Politics, 2025

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2019