What do you think?
Rate this book
The Genesis Of Living Forms
The philosophy of Raymond Ruyer was an important if subterranean influence on twentieth-century French thought, and explicitly engaged with by figures such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Gilbert Simondon, and Gilles Deleuze. The Genesis of Living Forms is Ruyer’s most focussed and forceful analysis of a central but apparently paradoxical biological phenomenon that also presents serious problems for embryogenesis. When a cat develops from the early stages of fertilization to an adult, what is it that makes it the same cat? How is it that a living being can at once be the same and constantly changing?
Ruyer’s answer to these questions unfolds through a detailed set of encounters with major scientific fields, from particle physics to social psychology, arguing that the paradox can only be dissolved by seeing the role that form plays in the ongoing development of living beings. In Ruyer’s view, embryogenesis is a central problem not just in the life sciences; every thing must possess a relation to a form that is characteristic of it, from carbon atoms to embryos, and to embryologists themselves.
Ruyer’s answer to these questions unfolds through a detailed set of encounters with major scientific fields, from particle physics to social psychology, arguing that the paradox can only be dissolved by seeing the role that form plays in the ongoing development of living beings. In Ruyer’s view, embryogenesis is a central problem not just in the life sciences; every thing must possess a relation to a form that is characteristic of it, from carbon atoms to embryos, and to embryologists themselves.
- GenresSciencePhilosophyBiology
226 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2019
4 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Jon Roffe
18 books15 followersJon Roffe is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, an editor of the journal Parrhesia, and teaches at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 26, 2025
I wasn't surprised that Ruyer, in speaking about embryogenesis, completely forgot about the mother. I wasn't surprised there was talk of colonies. This much was to be expected.
Bad metaphors aside: what I did not expect was how this book would blow me away.
I don't think I'll go back from this one. This is one of those that really brings things together, or was that at least from me. Embryogenesis and morphogenesis, the unusual suspect that creates liaisons between the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Bergson, Simondon, Deleuze, Grosz, and more.
This is the alternate history of philosophy, everyone.
Bad metaphors aside: what I did not expect was how this book would blow me away.
I don't think I'll go back from this one. This is one of those that really brings things together, or was that at least from me. Embryogenesis and morphogenesis, the unusual suspect that creates liaisons between the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Bergson, Simondon, Deleuze, Grosz, and more.
This is the alternate history of philosophy, everyone.
Displaying 1 of 1 review