Hans Driesch the critical mechanist

"Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung"

pp. 32-34

in: Klaus Sander, Landmarks in developmental biology 1883–1924, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

In the realm of biology, Hans Driesch (1867–1941) is known for his early experiments on sea urchin embryos (see the previous Essay), and for his later credo that life —and particularly ontogenesis — depends on some immaterial vital force and thus cannot be fully understood in terms of physics and chemistry; that indeed it defies any materialist approach (the topic of the next Essay). What is rarely mentioned are his early theoretical writings on embryogenesis, only traces of which — such catchwords as prospective value and prospective potency,and the Fundamentalsatz that a cell's fate is a function of its position — have survived, the last owing to its happy re-incarnation in the mind of Lewis Wolpert (Wolpert 1986).