[Synapse elist] vitality of zoe

[Monika Bakke]

Hi everybody,
There have been lots of questions raised by Oron,
Jens, and Roger.
Let me address some.
Roger mentions systems biology in relation to the
discussion on vitalism and for that it is very helpful
to mention Denis Noble, who gives a good description
of the situation reflected by our (the list) exchange:
'While vitalism no longer finds favour amongst
biologists, it is very much alive and well elsewhere
in society. I would like to convince some of my
readers in this camp that what they may be looking for
in seeing life as a whole rather than the sum of its
component parts may well be satisfied by the systems
biological approach. Life is wonderful enough. We
don?t need to endow it with mystery to appreciate
that.? (The Music of Life, 78)

Yes, we do not need a mystery and any mysterious (or
not) essence, which would prevail unchanged, as
essence is. Nevertheless 'elsewhere in society' the
idea of vitalism or, what I would rather advocate, the
practice of giving anti-essentialistic vitality
special position and attention may actually serve some
cognitive purposes. For vitalism I already expresed my
opinon in the previous post and here above but for
anti-essentialist vitality let me say some words.

Here the concept of zoe may come handy (and we move to
the next question). Jens already gave us a definition
quoted form Rabinow, also used by Susan Squire in her
book Liminal Lives. As much as I love this book, I
have to say that Squire is not really using the
concept of zoe in its nonanthropocentic
(trans-species) mode. She states that liminal lives
'all show the mark of the move from zoe (the fact of
being alive) to bios (life given a specific form by
biomedicine)' and biomedicine in respect to liminal
lives is totally anthropocentric! 

For nonanthropocentric and anti-essentialst approach
to zoe it is very instructive to read Rosi Baridotti
who talks about the return of 'real bodies' and the
return of zoe as she writes: 'What returns now is the
'other' of the living body in its humanistic
definition: the other face of bios, that is to say,
the generative vitality of non- or pre-human or animal
life.' (Transpositions 37). The power of zoe (its
vitality) is independent of rational control as it is
'impersonal' or 'apersonal' as it is shared by all
forms of life. (Braidotti writes in the tradition of
Deleuze therefore she talks of becoming not being -
just to point out the anti-essentialist aspect). 

Not to make this post too tiring I will hold the
question of contemporary zoe-philia for the next one.

Monika   



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ