Chris Shambaugh

Even a plant must do something more than adjust itself 𝙩𝙤 a fixed environment; it must assert itself 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 its surroundings, subordinating them and transforming them into material and nutriment. | Alexander

The way from nature to society leads through the science of life… what organization really is can nowhere be shown more vividly than in the organism. | Schaxel

I bought a copy. I'll try to scan it this winter

I also think it is the text in the history of the philosophy of biology where organicism and dialectical materialism are closest together.

I had to return them to the library. But I was most impressed by the Entwicklung der Wissenschaft vom Leben. I think it's the first place he provides a political and economic contextualization of the Grundzüge's crisis of biology, which is re-cast as a "blurred conception of life in the present."

I knew he spent a year there but I didn’t know about these reviews. So exciting. Thanks for doing this work!

working on a translation of Julius Schaxel’s “Das biologische Individuum” (1930) on the natural-historical emergence of ‘the individual’ & the possibility of thinking its concept—by distinguishing it from individuality & dissolving the individual back into its constituent relations & movements!

Amazing to have Elliott Sober delivering his keynote "Richard Lewontin - Biologist, Philosopher, and Marxist" at the Dialectical Biology Today Conference! 🌱🐋 @ihpst-uoft.bsky.social

Congrats Dan!

<i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - <i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

My little book on Schrödinger's famous classic 'What Is Life?' is out! Offering the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of the book's origins, reception, impact, and legacy, it uncovers Schrödinger's motivations in writing it, and shows how it has shaped our current understanding of the cell

I'm very much looking forward to the BPC conference tomorrow and on Friday at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de! Everyone is welcome to attend and you can also watch the stream on zoom. I will give a talk at 4pm about early 20th century concepts of plant agency (featuring Arber, Ungerer and Francé). 🌿

Recently discovered this critical glossary of key terms in evolutionary biology, which was edited by Keller and Lloyd, and inspired by Raymond Williams. Great resource

This is a terrific new paper on Marx's naturalism. I highly recommend it!

The euphoria that has accompanied our ability, finally, to give a complete and unambiguous description of the allelic composition of a natural population for some arbitrarily chosen piece of the genome has hindered us from seeing that the problem of epigenesis has not been eliminated. | Lewontin

heading to Berlin next week for a fellowship at the @cpkp.bsky.social. Looking forward to connecting with other scholars working across intellectual divides in philosophy!

Why was natural selection compared to a composer by Dobzhansky; to a poet by Simpson; to a sculptor by Mayr, and to, of all people, Mr. Shakespeare by Julian Huxley? [...] To illustrate the essence of Darwinism – the creativity of natural selection. | Gould

If you missed that great Cognizing life conference in Tubingen organized by Christoph Hueck two weeks ago, here are the videos of the presentations. Talks by Denis Walsh, Joan Steigerwald, Dan Nicholson and many others.
 www.clc2025.de/videos

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words

Thanks Jacob!

Marx's Concept of Life This essay aims to reveal the conceptual unity of an ensemble of concepts of organic, animal, and anthropological life articulated by the young Karl Marx between 1842 and 1844. To lay the groundwork ...

My new article, “Marx’s Concept of Life,” is now out in EJP.

Whence came the mirage of a space between nature and nurture? How did this illusion become so deeply entrenched in our thinking, and why is it so resistant to dissolution? | Keller

I’m excited to be part of this hybrid event celebrating Richard Lewontin’s legacy from October 10-12. I’ll be presenting a talk titled “Dialectical Biology as Ideology Critique” on Saturday morning. You can register for the Zoom link and see the program here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

delighted to have finally found a clean affordable copy of this one

Writers, poets, naturalists, have often declaimed about the wonderful, prodigal, breathtaking in­ventiveness of nature. They have seldom realized that they were praising natural selection. But a creative process runs the risk of failure... Miscreation in biology is death, extinction. | Dobzhansky

An awesome hybrid conference on the legacies of Richard Lewontin is coming to Toronto. Elliott Sober is the keynote! "Dialectical Biology Today" runs from October 10-12. Learn more and register below! #philbio 🐋🌱
@ihpst-uoft.bsky.social

ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

The Darwinian theory to be demonstrated as the practical proof of Hegel's account of the inner connection between necessity and chance. | Engels

Conference title: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin, and image of Lewontin in Black and White with intense expression in front of a chalkboard holding up a fist, When and Where Friday, October 10, 2025 11:30 am to Sunday, October 12, 2025 2:00 pm Music Room (218) Goldring Student Centre 150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom

I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin.

It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

Organisms not only respond to the environments they encounter, they change the encounter itself, in many cases to one more favorable for their own function. | Sultan

Overview of the ROTO Lecture Series in the winter semester 2025/2026. The talks will be: - "Race Reification and Population Descriptors in Human Genomics" by Celso Neto (University of Exeter) - "Understanding plant holobionts through complexity science" by César Marín (Universidad Santo Tomás) - "What is Dialectical Biology?" by Chris Shambaugh (University of Oregon) - "Learning from Partial Overlaps Between Knowledge Systems" by Charbel El-Hani (Federal University of Bahia) - "21st century eugenics, scientific racism and the role of academia in promoting political ideology" by Rebecca Sear (Brunel University London) - "The Organism and the System: Boundary Crossings in 20th Century Science" by Libby O’Neil (Mississippi State University)

New semester, new lecture series 🎉Starting next month, we welcome amazing scholars to give online talks in the history and philosophy of life sciences. Find all dates and registration links here: rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
We look forward to seeing you there 🤗
#PhilSci #HistSci #HPBio

I have a new article out on Kafka! Basically, I argue that Derrida's reading of Before the Law/The Trial recognizes an undecidability that inhabits Benjamin's and Deleuze and Guattari's readings. Let me know if you'd like a copy!
doi.org/10.3366/olr....