Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781412920360)

This book demonstrates how and why vitalism--the idea that life cannot be explained by the principles of mechanism--matters now. Vitalism resists closure and reductionism in the life sciences while simultaneously addressing the object of life itself. The aim of this collection is to consider the questions that vitalism makes it possible to ask: questions about the role and status of life across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities and questions about contingency, indeterminacy, relationality and change. All have special importance now, as the concepts of complexity, artificial life and artificial intelligence, information theory, and cybernetics become increasingly significant in more and more fields of activity.

Author: Mariam Fraser
ISBN-10: 1412920361
ISBN-13: 9781412920360
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
Language: English
Published: 02/01/2006
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 9.18h x 6.36w x 0.73d

Review Citation(s):
Scitech Book News 06/01/2006 pg. 10