The Nature of Life : Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science (Paperback)

Preface; Acknowledgments; Sources; About the authors; Introduction; Part I. Classical Discussions of Life: 1. De Anima (selections) Aristotle; 2. Treatise on Man Rene Descartes; 3. Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment (selections) Immanuel Kant; 4. What is Life? (selections) Erwin Schrodinger; 5. The nature of life Alexander Oparin; 6. What is the meaning of 'life'? Ernst Mayr; 7. The Principles of Life (selections) Tibor Ganti; Part II. The Origin and Extent of Natural Life: 8. The origin of life: a review of facts and speculation Leslie E. Orgel; 9. Small molecule interactions were central to the origin of life Robert Shapiro; 10. Are the different hypotheses on the emergence of life as different as they seem? Iris Fry; 11. The universal nature of biochemistry Norman Pace; 12. Is there a common chemical model for life in the universe? Steven A. Benner, Alonso Ricardo and Matthew A. Carrigan; 13. Searching for life in the universe: lessons from Earth Kenneth H. Nealson; 14. The possibility of alternative microbial life on Earth Carol E. Cleland and Shelley D. Copley; 15. Introduction to the limits of organic life in planetary systems National Research Council of the National Academies; Part III. Artificial Life and Synthetic Biology: 16. Learning from functionalism: prospects for strong artificial life Elliott Sober; 17. Life, 'artificial life', and scientific explanation Marc Lange; 18. Alien life: how would we know? Margaret A. Boden; 19. Automatic design and manufacture of robotic life forms Hod Lipson and Jordan P. Pollack; 20. A giant step towards artificial life? David Deamer; 21. Approaches to semi-synthetic minimal cells: a review Pier Luigi Luisi, Francesca Ferri and Pasquale Stano; 22. Creating 'real life' Evelyn Fox Keller; Part IV. Defining and Explaining Life: 23. Definitions of life Carl Sagan; 24. The seven pillars of life Daniel E. Koshland; 25. A universal definition of life: autonomy and open-ended evolution Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Juli Pereto and Alvaro Moreno; 26. Does 'life' have a definition? Carol Cleland and Christopher Chyba; 27. Sentient symphony Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan; 28. Defining life Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths; 29. Universal Darwinism Richard Dawkins; 30. What is life? Was Schrodinger right? Stuart A. Kauffman; 31. Four puzzles about life Mark A. Bedau; Supplemental bibliography on life; Index.