When: Thursday, November 13th, 2014; 5:00 p.m.
Where: College Hall 209, Penn Campus, Philadelphia
Featuring: Dr. Robert C. Koons, Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in philosophical logic and in the application of logic to long-standing philosophical problems, including metaphysics, philosophy of mind and intentionality, semantics, political philosophy and metaethics, and philosophy of religion.
Comment By: Dr. Harun Küçük, Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at Penn, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He has written extensively on issues relating to History of Early Modern Science, Science and Religion, and the Enlightenment.
Moderated By: Dr. Peter Dodson, Professor of Anatomy and Paleontology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-editor of The Dinosauria, a definitive scholarly resource, and the author or co-author of more than one hundred academic papers and books, including The Horned Dinosaurs (Princeton, 1996). He is a Senior Fellow at the Collegium Institute.
The Aristotelean notion of teleology explains the existence or functions of purposes in nature. This was a predominant view until the Galilean Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, and especially the death of vitalism and the rise of Darwinian evolutionary theory (in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively), when biologists started treating teleology as an outdated notion. At best, they have considered it a heuristic device or useful fiction. Professor Robert C. Koons believes that this position is untenable, for biological inquiry exists primarily for the sake of biological knowledge, and biological knowledge is inextricably bound up with teleological concepts, like that of gene or enzyme. During the event, Professor Koons will explain his view that the very possibility of rational thought and knowledge depends upon a teleological foundation. Through this interesting discussion, he will ultimately explain how this proposition has great implications for biomedical ethics and the vocation of the physician.