Criticizing the Modern Synthesis: between Phenomenal Characteristics and Synthetic Principles

Starting from Denis Noble’s criticism on the modern synthesis, this article argues that (i) the author’s presentation of the modern synthesis focusses too one-sidedly on the phenomenal characteristics of the living, whereby it is made easily suitable to his criticisms, but risks to remain trapped in a territory-struggle; (ii) this criticism lacks an explicit focus on logical matters, and more in particular on the synthetic principles required to situate the relevancy or irrelevancy of phenomenal characteristics beyond territory-struggles. A brief sketch of how the principle of teleology calls for reflexivity allows us to reveal the tension in Noble’s account between, on the one hand, the way in which he stresses the importance of metaphors and language, and, on the other hand, the way in which he invokes empirical arguments to assess the illusory character of certain metaphors.