| The elementary purpose of the thesis is to show that the theoretical bases of certain of the behavioural sciences, specifically comparative (or animal) psychology and sociology, can be analyzed in terms of the fundamental concepts of biology. The purpose is to indicate that the same theoretical assumptions, problems, and indeed solutions, arise in both biology and the behavioural sciences.;In the second chapter, two basic metaphysical theories of natural order are outlined, viz., that of Aristotle, positing continuity and causal necessity, and that of Peirce, positing discontinuity and chance or causal indeterminacy. It is then argued that the modern physical, and especially biological, concept of information, as distinct from energy, assumes a natural order that is discontinuous rather than continuous.;The third chapter pertains to the problem of ontogenesis in biology and the behavioural sciences. It is maintained that theories in these disciplines can assume either energic or informational analytic objects. If the former, change is construed ahistorically as a simultaneous relation between functions; is the latter, change is seen historically as a regularization of chance events.;The fourth chapter deals with the problems of telogenesis (or adaptation) and morphogenesis (or development) in biology and the behavioural sciences. It is averred that both theories of telogenesis and morphogenesis can assume either Aristotelian causation, or Peircean chance, as their basic causal rules. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).;The first chapter deals with Karl Popper's distinction between the logic and the psychology of science. Contra Popper, it is argued that the meaningful content, as well as truth-functional form, of theory is non-psychological, and that theory may have a pragmatic epistemological status in the discovery phase, prior to empirical testing. |
