BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Date iCal//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.2// METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260308T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:calendar.1369.events_uoft_date.0@ihpst.utoronto.ca CREATED:20250716T201408Z DESCRIPTION:\nWhen and Where: \nFriday, October 10, 2025 11:30 am to Sund ay, October 12, 2025 2:00 pm \n Music Room (218) \n Goldring Student Cen tre \n 150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom \n\nD escription: \nHybrid Event - To obtain the Zoom information, click on the 'Register' button above or use the link at the bottom of the pageForty ye ars have passed since Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin published The Di alectical Biologist in 1985. At the time the publication was generally met with puzzlement and consternation, both for its radically transformed th eory of evolution, and for its recognition of the inextricability of scie nce and politics. In the intervening years, biology has changed, togethe r with its philosophy and history, in many ways foreshadowed by Levins an d Lewontin and many they could not have foreseen. Theoretical perspectives such as EvoDevo, niche construction theory, ecological developmental bi ology, the extended evolutionary synthesis, and the agency perspective i n evolution have sparked rich debates concerning the structure of evolutio nary theory, organism/environment relations, and the role of the organis m in evolutionary dynamics. There has even been a renewed attention among historians in the revival of early 20th century organicist thinking, and a re-evaluation of the foundation of the modern synthesis. We invite parti cipants to reconsider dialectical biology in light of contemporary biology , to re-evaluate contemporary biology in light of dialectical biology, a nd to reflect more broadly on the scientific, philosophical, and politic al legacies of the work of Lewontin and his many collaborators.Schedule (s ee titles and abstracts below)Friday, October 10thSession 1: Sonia Sultan , 12:30-2:00Respondent: Jacinda KalaherSession 2: Ana M. Soto & Carlos So nnenschein, 2:15-3:45Respondent: Hongyu ChenKeynote: Elliott Sober, 4-6C o-authors: Philip Gasper, Abiral Chitraker PhnuyalSaturday, October 11th Session 3: Rasmus Winther, 9-10:30Respondent: Emma SigsworthSession 4: Ch ristopher Shambaugh, 10:45-12:00Session 5: Denis Walsh, 1:15-2:30Session 6: Jonathan Basile, 2:45-4:00Session 7: Stuart Newman, 4:15-5:45Respond ent: David RattraySunday, October 12thSession 8: Alejandro Fábregas-Tejed a, 9-10:15Session 9: Andrea Gambarotto & Rebecca Riccardo Cuciniello (the y/them), 10:30-11:45Session 10: Fermín Fulda, 12-1:30Respondent: Cassand ra WilliamsRegister here for the zoom link (and so we can gauge in person attendance) Titles and abstractsFri Oct. 10 Sat Oct. 11 Sun Oct. 12Session 1: Sonia Sultan, 12:30-2:00Organism-Environment Co-Construction: Key Obs ervations and Research ChallengesIn the 1980's, Richard Lewontin describe d the relationship between an organism and its environment as a mutually f ormative one. Contemporary research in evolution, ecology and development al biology has provided a wealth of new insights confirming this co-constr ucting relationship. Environmental conditions shape individual organisms b y eliciting developmental, physiological and behavioral responses, withi n and across generations. At the same time, organisms shape the environme nts they experience, because in responding to those environments, they c hange them. Examples drawn from across living systems as well as recent th eory demonstrate how these reciprocating interactions give rise to ecologi cal communities and (co)evolutionary change. Recognizing the biologically intimate co-construction of organisms and their environments signals profo und, essential change in our understanding of living systems. Yet impleme nting this recognition is problematic, since empirical studies measure an d manipulate organisms and environments as distinct entities. Revising res earch approaches may provide practical solutions, but this paradox raises further conceptual questions.Session 2: Ana M. Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein , 2:15-3:45From the dialectical biologist to a theory of organismsForty y ears ago, reading The Dialectical Biologist (TDB) was both illuminating a nd reassuring. At the time, several issues were hindering the study of bi ological systems (i.e., genes as basic units of selection, parts pre-exi sting wholes, genetic determinism, mechanistic explanation). While writi ng The Society of Cells (TSC) in the mid 90's, we had meaningful discussi ons with Dick Lewontin. TDB encouraged us to explore agency and purpose. W hen we postulated the principle of biological inertia as the 'default stat e of all cells' (namely, constitutive cell proliferation and motility), we assumed that cells are purposive agents (TSC). To explain development a nd carcinogenesis we proposed reciprocal interactions, such as cell-cell\ , cell-tissue, and the organism-its parts.We will discuss the influence o f TDB and The Triple Helix in our trajectory from 'bourgeois science' to t he construction of the theoretical framework under which we design our exp eriments and gather understanding of living systems.Keynote: Elliott Sober (Co-authors: Philip Gasper, Abiral Chitraker Phnuyal), 4-6Richard Lewon tin - Biologist, Philosopher, and MarxistWe review Lewontin’s biological ideas on units of selection, race, and genetic determinism, his philos ophical ideas about reductionism, holism, and causation, and his Marxis t ideas about historical materialism and dialectical materialism.  We disc uss how Lewontin’s Marxism is related to his biological and philosophical ideas. Session 3: Rasmus Winther, 9-10:30Towards an Oceanic Philosophy of Nature with a Little Help from Levins and Lewontin’s DialecticsThis paper proposes an oceanic philosophy of nature that reorients philosophical inq uiry away from anthropocentric and hyper-abstract foundations toward a ric hly textured, ecologically embedded, and dialectically engaged view of l ife and the world. Taking inspiration from Levins and Lewontin’s The Diale ctical Biologist (1985), as well as from thinkers such as Arne Næss, Val Plumwood, and Ly\n Margulis, I argue for a philosophy of nature rooted in the oceans. One strand of this philosophy, inspired by Lewontin, is d ialectics: a mode of thought attuned to contradiction, interpenetration, and the generative tensions between organism and environment, science an d ethics, stability and change.Session 4: Christopher Shambaugh, 10:45-1 2:00Dialectical Biology as Ideology CritiqueIn the manuscripts that have c ome to be known as The German Ideology, Marx and Engels famously identifi ed philosophy as a primary avatar of ideological legitimation and distorti on in the modern world, alongside religion and the liberal state. Yet, i n much Marxist orthodoxy, natural science has been considered uniquely im mune to such ideological entanglement. In this presentation, I argue that Levins and Lewontin’s vision of dialectical biology offers a nuanced and powerful challenge to that assumption. More specifically, I contend that Levins and Lewontin defined dialectical biology by the essential aim of ad vancing science through the critique of scientific ideologies.In the first section, “I. Dialectics of Biology,” I begin with important historical and philosophical context for determining the basic contours of Levins and Lewontin’s concept of dialectical biology. In the second section, “II. E volution as Theory and Ideology,” I reconstruct Lewontin’s analyses of th e core tenets of classical and “superficial” Darwinism, before turning to his and Levins’ developed account of their ideological underpinnings and implications. In the third section, “III. A Dialectical Theory of Evoluti on,” I show that many of Levins and Lewontin’s contributions to evolution ary biology were informed by their critiques of scientific ideologies aris ing from the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, such as adaptationism and gen e-centrism. In the fourth section, “IV. Dialectical Biology and Biologica l Agency,” I briefly examine the legacy of dialectical biology in the pre sent, outlining the influence of Levins and Lewontin’s ideas in contempor ary ecological developmental biology, niche construction theory, and phi losophy of biology. I then close with some reflections on the social and p olitical implications of these recent developments.Session 5: Denis Walsh\ , 1:15-2:30The Constitutively Perspectival: A Metaphysics for Dialectical BiologyStarting from Lewontin's critique of the orthodox organism/environm ent relation, I argue that as agents organisms and their environment cons titute a causally intermingled system. The organism's experience of its wo rld is jointly constituted by the features (goals, capacities, structure s) of the organism, and those of the environment, in a way that resists decomposition. Drawing on related insights from Merleau-Ponty, Charles Ta ylor, and J.J. Gibson, I argue that to be an organism is in part to take a particular perspective on the environment. In taking this perspective o rganisms partially constitute the world they experience (hence the 'consti tutively perspectival'). We can make sense to the attempt in The Dialectic al Biologist to dissolve a range of traditional distinctions---organism/en vironment, nature/nurture, inheritance/development---if we understand th at it is implicitly positing a constitutively perspectival metaphysics.Ses sion 6: Jonathan Basile, 2:45-4:00Norms of Reaction and Reactionary Norms : Richard Lewontin, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Heritability EstimatesRichard Lewontin's work is defined by two motives that sometimes come into confli ct. His sweeping theoretical critiques destabilize basic concepts of evolu tionary science, and he sometimes must shy away from his own most radical insights in an attempt to put forward a positive vision for scientific pr actice. I will examine his critiques of heritability estimates and quantit ative genetics, focusing on his 1974 'The Analysis of Variance and the An alysis of Causes.' He puts forward sweeping criticisms there that have bee n repeated many times since—Evelyn Fox Keller's The Mirage of a Space betw een Nature and Nurture revisits similar debates, in 2010, while asking w hy the same misunderstands have recurred for at least a helf century. Lewo ntin suggests that the norm of reaction surpasses the genetic reductionism of heritability estimates, and Keller suggests that developmental biolog y allows to pose questions about how traits actually form that quantitativ e genetics has only obscured. Nonetheless, I will demonstrate that the di fferentiality and the abeyance of true causes returns in both developmenta l biology and in the representation of plasticity in the form of a norm of reaction. To this end, I will examine Sonia Sultan's recent work on the multi-generational or 'unscripted' norm of reaction, which displaces Lewo ntin's assumption that the norm of reaction can be grounded in the genotyp e.Session 7: Stuart Newman, (4:15-5:45)Agency in the Evolutionary Transit ion to MulticellularityThis talk will present an interpretation of the evo lution of multicellular organisms based on (i) the physical inherencies of cell aggregates, (ii) the conserved, intrinsic life-sustaining function alities of cells, and (iii) the self-motivated agency of cells and cell c ollectivities. Focusing on the metazoans, it will describe how morphologi cal motifs across all animal phyla -- tissue layers and cavities, segment s, appendages -- are physical attractor states in morphospaces of cell cl usters that arose with the successive appearance of the 'developmental too lkit' genes and their products (e.g., cadherins, Wnt, Notch). I will th en describe how partitioning and amplification of processes that are oblig atory at the cellular level generated, during multicellular evolution, f unctionally differentiated cells and organs (e.g., muscle, liver, kidne y). In contrast to the gradual appearance of novel forms and functions pos tulated by adaptationist population biological models, this newer perspec tive suggests that novelties arising from these often abruptly reconfigure d material and cellular inherencies come to characterize distinct evolutio nary lineages by serving as enablements for new kinds of organismal agency . This faculty is the basis of niche selection and other creative capabili ties that led Richard Lewontin to speak of the organism as subject, not j ust object, of evolution.Session 8: Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda, 9-10:15Is idore Nabi and the Metatheoretical Tendencies of Two Dialectical Biologist sOne of the least discussed chapters in The Dialectical Biologist is 'On t he Tendencies of Motion,' attributed to Isidore Nabi—originally printed i n Science and Nature in 1981 and signed by a made-up figure that became fa mous for bickering with E.O. Wilson about genetic determinism in the pages of Nature. This piece pointedly critiques the mathematical modeling appro aches of late-twentieth-century ecologists by way of parody: imagining wha t would've happened if Newton's laws of motion were to be 'discovered' by systems ecologists' way of doing science. Nabi's critique, I will argue i n this paper, is the perfect place to begin reconsidering Levins and Lewo ntin's metatheoretical commitments about the 'proper' epistemic activities of science and their relevance for contemporary biology and philosophy of biology. One way of pursuing this project will be to spell out in detail how Levins and Lewontin approached modeling and scientific theorizing in T he Dialectical Biologist and elsewhere. This reevaluation will serve to co ntextualize the scientific and philosophical legacies of Levins and Lewont in's own refurbishing of dialectical biology, as this workshop intends.Se ssion 9: Andrea Gambarotto & Rebecca Riccardo Cuciniello (they/them), 10: 30-11:45Autonomy in Evolution: A Dialectical ViewThe talk explores the com plex relationship between autonomy and evolution, an area historically un derdeveloped in biological autonomy literature. The concept of 'natural dr ift' introduced by Maturana and Varela in the early 1990s, stands as one of the few attempts to integrate evolution into discussions of autonomy. U nlike the Modern Synthesis (MS), which emphasizes genetic material shaped by natural selection, the idea of natural drift focuses on the role of o rganismal behavior in evolution. This approach challenges the neo-Darwinia n emphasis on populations and lineages, suggesting instead that evolution should be viewed as the historical dimension of intrinsic purposiveness-- -an expression of organismal agency across generations. Here, autonomy is seen as preceding both reproduction and natural selection, positioning t he organism as an active participant in its own evolutionary trajectory ra ther than merely an object of selective pressures.Session 10: Fermín Fulda , 12-1:30Life and the Dialectics of Matter and FormAlthough the neo-organ icist revival was originally conceived in the dialectical materialist term s of Levins and Lewontin, it has increasingly been developed within a neo -Aristotelian, hylomorphic framework. This essay interrogates that shift: is the turn to form a necessary development of the dialectical insight in to organismal activity, or does it represent a departure from the materia list core of that insight? I argue that this tension is rooted in a fundam ental disagreement over the locus of activity, crystallized in two opposi ng arguments: the “argument from passive matter” for hylomorphism and the “argument from active matter” for dialectical materialism. To articulate t his dialectic, I distinguish three historical grades of material involvem ent in each tradition, showing a convergent expansion of matter’s role. T he crucial test case is modern active-matter biophysics, whose life-like\ , self-driven dynamics initially seem to vindicate the dialectical-materia list vision. However, I contend that while active matter explains the phy sical mechanisms underlying autonomy, it cannot account for its purposive and normative dimensions. Rather than rendering form superfluous, active matter may provide its precise physical realizer.  \n\nSponsors \nIHPST, Philosophy, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts & Science \n150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom \n\nCateg ories \n Conferences \n\nAudiences \n Alumni and FriendsCommunityFacultyFi rst-Year StudentsGraduate StudentsProspective Graduate StudentsUndergradua te Students DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251010T113000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251012T140000 LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T165911Z LOCATION:150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom SUMMARY:Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin URL;TYPE=URI:https://ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/dialectical-biology-today-leg acies-richard-lewontin END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR