Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Theory in Biosciences (2023) 142:411–422 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-023-00406-z ORIGINAL ARTICLE Evolution by habit: Peirce, Lamarck, and teleology in biology Jana Švorcová 1  · Ľudmila Lacková 2  · Eliška Fulínová 3 Received: 5 July 2023 / Accepted: 10 September 2023 / Published online: 25 September 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023 Abstract In our paper, we analyse the relationship of the evolutionary philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce to Lamarckian natural philosophy and link it to concepts of teleology, focusing especially on Aristotelian and Peircean conceptions of the final cause. Peirce commented on evolution in many of his writings, especially in 1891–1893 in essays such as ‘Evolutionary Love’ (1893) or ‘Man’s Glassy Essence’ (1892). After introducing the three types of evolution distinguished by Peirce, we compare Peirce’s and Lamarck’s views on evolution, habit, and teleology. From a synthesis of concepts formulated by Peirce, Aristotle, nineteenth-century neo-Lamarckians, and current knowledge regarding epigenetics, there should emerge our own concept of biological teleology unburdened by panpsychism, subjective intentions, or determinism. We believe it could be a concept acceptable to current biology. Keywords Lamarck · Peirce · Aristotle · Habit · Teleology · Epigenetics Introduction This paper investigates Peirce’s views regarding evolution, especially his reading of Lamarckian philosophy. Peirce commented on evolution in many of his writings, 1 but none of his texts were dedicated exclusively to this subject. In a sense, he viewed evolution as just an integral part of a broader cosmological programme. He developed his own evolutionary theory based on three main principles and accordingly distinguished between three types of evolu- tion: tychastic, anancastic, and agapistic. Peirce commented mostly on Lamarck and Darwin, attributing evolution by chance (tychasm) to Darwin and evolution by law (anan- casm) to various forms of necessitarianism. Lamarckian natural philosophy, although featuring certain mechanistic aspects, was then viewed as representative of agapism, i.e. evolution defined by habit-taking processes. But all these types of evolution are intertwined and their separation is rather a matter of categorisation. Even so, Peirce views tychism and anancasm as derivative forms of agapism. In the following, we first present Peirce’s three types of evolution, focusing especially on Peirce’s relationship to Lamarckian natural philosophy. Based on our reading of the Zoological Philosophy (1914) and historical interpre- tations of Lamarck's writings, we conclude that Lamarck did not understand evolutionary causality teleologically; on the contrary, he was a mechanist and materialist. Although the concept of habit is at the centre of both his and Peirce's philosophy, they understood it differently. On top of that, Peirce then interpreted Lamarckian habit-taking processes quite creatively and attributed teleology to them. Such inter- pretation is more in line with Lamarck’s followers than with Lamarck himself. This brings us to the next section of the article, dedicated to the concept of organic memory, which was according to some scholars a mainstream paradigm of Peirce’s time and Peirce was certainly influenced by it. Fur- ther, using the Aristotelian concept of final cause—which is consistent with Peirce’s conception—we formulate a concept of teleology for current biology. In addition to these philo- sophical approaches, the concept finds support also in our current knowledge of epigenetics. * Jana Švorcová svorcova@natur.cuni.cz 1 Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic 2 Department of General Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, Palacký University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic 3 Centre for Theoretical Study, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic 1 Mostly between 1891 and 1893, published in The Monist and republished as a volume in several editions; for Peirce’s complete papers, see the Bisanz 2009 edition. For more on Peirce and evolu- tionary theories, see also Burks (1997).