Concept
Life
Overview
matter capable of extracting energy from the environment for replication
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Life is discussed.
The definition of Richerand,--"Life is a collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body,"--is liable to the fatal criticism, that it equally applies to the decay which goes on after death. For this, too, is "a collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body." "Life," according to De Blainville, "is the two-fold internal movement…
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
After a while they succumb; they die. The creature is not equal to the task of indefinite self-renewal. But continuity of the life process is not dependent upon the prolongation of the existence of any one individual. Reproduction of other forms of life goes on in continuous sequence. And though, as the geological record shows, not merely individuals but also species die out, the life process continues in…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is
Life is a mode of existence of protoplasm and consists essentially in the constant renewal of the chemical constituents of this substance. Protoplasm is here understood in the modern chemical sense and comprises under this name all substances analogous to the white of an egg, otherwise called protein substances.
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
That life is a kind of mechanism I cordially agree. But is it the mechanism of parts artificially isolated within the whole of the universe, or is it the mechanism of the real whole? The real whole might well be, we conceive, an indivisible continuity.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
The tyranny of this idiosyncrasy, however, results in the theory of "adaptation" being pushed forward into the van of the argument, exploited; adaptation--that means to say, a second-class activity, a mere capacity for "reacting"; in fact, life itself has been defined (by Herbert Spencer) as an increasingly effective internal adaptation to external circumstances. This definition, however, fails to realise the real…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Life
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Yale University Press
- Fossil
- Animal
- BBC News
- Afterlife
- Genetics
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Henri Bergson
- Homeostasis
- Hierarchy
- Habitat
- Hylomorphism
- James Watson
- The Wall Street Journal
- Virus
- BBC
- Materialism
- Molecule
- Organism
- Matter
- Monadology
- Metabolism
- Microorganism
Place in the tradition
Part of Animism.