AGNES ARBER, SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM, AND THE NEED FOR ARBERIA

Abstract

In our proposal (Plant Science Bulletin, September, I975, and Taxon, August, I975) for a new journal of structural botany, tentatively to be called ARBERIA, we solicited written replies but at time had no intention of offering formal rejoinders. However, we had not anticipated such misinterpretation of our proposal as appeared in recent reply of Hirsch (PSB, December, I975). We commend Hirsch for her reply and think that she raised some good points, but we also think that she missed thrust of our concept. Hirsch, in particular, misrepresents work and viewpoint of Agnes Arber, whom, along with her husband Edward Newell Arber, we wish to commemorate with ARBERIA. Certainly, as Hirsch points out, Arber did much original research, and her works characterized by an abundance of anatomical [and morphological] data. However, were Hirsch to look beyond Arber's well-known books, or were she even to look extensively into them, she would realize that Arber was also willing to synthesize, speculate, and philosophize when she deemed it appropriate. Descriptive data and hard cold facts (quoting Hirsch) were merely means to a philosophical, interpretative end. In her fifth book late in her career Arber, in fact, stated that morphology reaches its fullest reality in region of natural philosophy, where it converges upon metaphysics, to which it brings its own, distinctively visual, contribution (The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form, I950). In her next book, entitled The Mind and Eye (I954), Arber outlined six phases of scientific enquiry, observational or experimental search for relevant data being merely second stage, as opposed to contemplation, terminal stage of biological thinking in which all previous phases find their end and their justification. In this final stage the worker may attempt to realze his own individual findings in relation to those far-reaching problems which are common to vairous fields of thought; his activities at this level will then extend into territory of philosophy. Arber's last book, The Manifold and One (I957), is almost entirely metaphysical and, in fact, is currently issued by Theosophical Society in America.