Abstract

The work of French philosopher Raymond Ruyer (1902–87) is making a belated appearance in English translation with the publication of these two works. Ruyer is a philosopher of science who continues a French tradition of finding Lamarck neglected and Darwin overrated. Ruyer is also among those who think the best hints for problems of evolutionary biology come from the theory of development. He advances arguments seldom aired in Anglophone philosophy, including a rehabilitation of biological teleology, a reformulation of the problem of consciousness, and a new statement of panpsychism. Finalist or teleological action advancing life-cycle goals is a primitive characteristic of life, and for Ruyer it is the primary expression of consciousness. He departs from default positions in Anglophone philosophy when he declines to equate consciousness with either mental representation or neurological action. Consciousness comes with organic form and is coextensive with life and even surpasses it, as Ruyer finds the activity characteristic of consciousness in all natural physical forms. This is his new panpsychism: nature is full of consciousness. Bergson lit the fuse of neofinalism when he dismissed biological finality as an inverted mechanism no less defective than its specular counterpart. What makes Ruyer's finalism new is its replacement of a Platonic-Christian teleology with a new theory based on a Stoic model, which includes the idea of a universe that is one ultimate domain of finality—a kosmos, with all finalist activity harmoniously one finalist activity: deus sive natura.