Abstract
THE keynote of Prof. Agar's book, in which he in has drawn freely upon the materials both of philosophy and biology, is frankness, directness and lucidity. At least some preliminary contact with the biological philosophy of Whitehead is demanded of the reader. The main thesis is that all living organisms are subjects, that all, possibly including even the simplest, are organizations of subjects, and that the characteristic activity of a subject is the act of perception. In this perception he sees the establishment by the subject of its causal relation with the external world. Even in inanimate objects, process is conceived as one of experience or feeling. In developing this thesis, in which Whitehead's philosophy of organism is freely invoked, many aspects of the organism, especially those of which we have knowledge from experimental investigation, are discussed with refreshing lucidity.
A Contribution to the Theory of the Living Organism
By Prof. W. E. Agar. Pp. 207. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1943.) 12s. 6d.
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A Contribution to the Theory of the Living Organism. Nature 154, 289 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154289b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154289b0