Two
Two
This chapter characterizes further the temporal-irreversible structure implied in teleological explanation. It focuses on the history of nineteenth-century thermodynamics and highlights the importance of the second law for the conceptualization of living organization. Any phenomenon of self-organization apparently violates the second law, since the complexity of the system is supposed to increased and the free energy is at least maintained. With the the theoretical frame provided by the second law and its cosmological generalizations, a neo-vitalistic explanation of the phenomenon of life emerged (for instance with Bergson).
Keywords: Thermodynamics, second law, time, energy, organization, vitalism
Fordham Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
