The Disappearance of Form? Some Methodological Considerations on a Lost Conceptual Dimension in Biology

Abstract

Introduction The concept of form belongs—apparently—to an older stage of biological concept formation. Paradoxically, it is even the insistence on the reference to form that shows its very disappearance. The more the functionalization, systematization, and finally algorithmization of modern biology advances, in the sense of systems biology, synthetic biology and bioinformatics, the less audible the call for a rehabilitation of the concept of form becomes. This technomorphic tendency, to deal with living entities in terms of artifacts, increasingly brought the concept of transformation into the forefront— articulated, e.g., in the formal sense by differential equations and their combination on all “levels” of the biological organization of living entities. It also coincidentally furthered the skepticism concerning the fundamental difference between artifacts and living entities. By explicitly denying or overlooking the conceptual necessity of this difference, the sensitivity for the peculiarity of living entities also dwindled, which in turn even in the