A note on Ludwig von Bertalanffy and the form problem of life

Abstract

AbstractThe paper looks at two early books written and edited, respectively, by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, both published in 1928. They share an interest in the individuality of individual things and living beings and thus are both skeptical of a general substance able to explain existence and life. The first book is Bertalanffy's Critical Theory of Form Formation; the second, a small collection of texts written by Nicholas von Cusa and preceded by an introduction by Bertalanffy, which is as admiring of the Cardinal and Bishops diplomatic life as it is impressed by his philosophy containing many ideas which only later, and differently, became prominent by writers like Leibniz, Pascal, or Luther. Von Bertalanffy calls von Cusa the first philosopher with a notion of infinity, which proves to be pertinent both theologically and mathematically. The paper discusses the problem of the individuality of individual living beings within the context of the so‐called philosophy of organism, in which Plato is fascinated by the question of how organisms manage to distinguish themselves from a surrounding they at the same time depend on. The paper introduces Fritz Heider's notion of medium and George Spencer‐Brown's notion of form to show how a possible calculus of indications doubling as operations of reflexive negation relate to a medium of life which consists, among other things, of decaying forms of life.