ABSTRACT
Abstract. The last century has witnessed a succession of revo'Iutionary transformations in the discipline of biology. However, the rapid expansion of our understanding of life and its nature has had curiously little impact on the way that questions about life and its significance have been discussed by philosophers. This paper explores the answers that biology· provides to central questions about our existence, and.it examines why the substitution of causal explanations for teleological ones appears natural and satisfying in the case of physical theory but meets widespread resistance in the case of biology.
