Biological Cognition: Its Unity and Diversity

Abstract

A natural basis of biological cognition unity is furnished by the unity of life and the living things as the sphere of reality facing biological cognition. The concepts of “life” and “the living things”, paramount for biological cognition, cover an immense variety of objects, phenomena and processes, which are regarded as having unity in some important respects. The nature of such unity is, in terms of its content, revealed in different ways at various stages of development of biological cognition and under various general biological concepts. The very realization of this unity, preceding any specific biological study, is the most important premise, constitutive for biological cognition. Biological cognition uses the “living/non-living” opposition initially formed in mundane consciousness and rooted in the depths of centuries, in the sphere of man's active practical attitude toward the world. Categorizing, in terms of such opposition, is a first thought operation produced by man in coming across an as yet unknown object, with the results of categorizing also largely predetermining the man's attitude toward this object along with possible forms and methods of practical interaction with it. A collation of the Darwin's and Berg's concepts is also indicative of biological cognition being exposed in the course of its development to impulses emanating from other spheres of scientific knowledge. This permits a more detailed treatment of the impact upon the development of biology on the part of general scientific context thus, making it possible to represent the diversity of biological cognition from another viewpoint. The chapter discusses a number of vectors responsible for the development of modern biology.