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Ronald Cole-Turner
The Concept of Potency in Developmental Biology and Classical Metaphysics: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry


Abstract

The journal Science identified advances in induced pluripotency as the 2008 Breakthrough of the Year.  This scientific advance has shed new light on the classical concept of potency or potentiality, a concept central to Aristotle’s metaphysics and to medieval Aristotelians such as Thomas Aquinas.  With the rise of modern science and its general repudiation of Aristotle, however, concepts such as potency were rejected as unscientific.  Even in an area like developmental biology, where potency has such an intuitive appeal, such a metaphysical idea was generally rejected in favor of more reductionistic explanations, such as genetic programming.  This has changed, and as a result, somewhat ironically, the very reductionistic methods that began by rejecting notions such as potency have reinstated them, albeit with a meaning somewhat different from what Aristotle imagined. 

Section one is devoted to the scientific literature, not just to understand and summarize the science but more basically to analyze the rhetoric of those who are advancing this field of research.  Scientists now speak of the state of the potency of a cell-line in terms of the specific markers or genetic factors expressed by the cells.  This of course is especially significant in light of the finding (2006 and following) of “induced pluripotency.”  By boosting the expression of particular genes, it is possible to take a fully differentiated cell (no potency for further development) and de-differentiate it (that is, to induce a state of potency).   As a result, potency itself then becomes not just a variable but a manipulable state. 

Section two summarizes the concept of potency in classical metaphysics.Among the many distinctions Aristotle makes in his metaphysics is the distinction between potency and act.  Aristotle’s understanding of potency is complex, and this paper makes no claim to do justice to the entire scope of his ideas.  Our focus is on potency as dynamis or the power or capacity to change from one state to another. 

Section three is a critical comparison of the use of potency in developmental biology and classical metaphysics.  On the surface the similarity is remarkable, all the more so because of the widely held thought that modern science arises because Aristotle has been rejected.  The fact that developmental biology has landed on potency as a central category, and speaks of it in ways that are similar to classical metaphysics, is well worth noting.  But the differences are also highly significant.  The state of developmental potency is not merely affected by genetic factors—what Aristotle would see as efficient causality, and with which he would agree—but these factors are manipulable in a way that modifies or induces changes in the level of potency.  Here, several new themes arise: First, that potency of the same sort has degrees (toti-, pluri-, and multi-potency), and second, that the level or degree is an artifact, a result of techne or human action. 

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the value of detailed (or precise, point-to-point) transdisciplinarity and its promise to advance both fields—in this case metaphysics and science—by means of the clarifications and challenges that flow back and forth across the transdisciplinary bridge. 

Biography
Ronald Cole-Turner is the H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a position that focuses on the relationship between science and theology.  His research specialization is on biotechnology and other emerging technologies and their significance for human understanding and modification.  He is the author and editor of several books, including Design and Destiny: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Human Germline Modification (edited, MIT Press, 2008).  He is currently at work on a volume on emerging technologies such as synthetic biology, stem cell advances, and variant forms of embryonic life, and their impact on our understandings of human nature and of the human role in nature.  Professor Cole-Turner serves as a Vice President of the International Society for Science and Religion and as a member of the Academic Board of the Metanexus Institute. 


 

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