Footnote fdx1

fdx1. A Wikipedia article relates:

Organicism is the philosophical perspective which views the universe and its parts as organic wholes and, by analogy or literally, as living organisms. It can be synonymous with holism. Organicism is an important tradition within the history of natural philosophy, where it has remained as a vital current alongside reductionism and mechanism, the approaches that have dominated science since the 17th century. Plato is among the earliest philosophers to have regarded the universe as an intelligent living being (see Timaeus).

And the 19th Century philosopher Herbert Spencer, who favored a Lamarckain view of evolution, thought of human societies as organic wholes, which is to say, organisms.

Hence there was enough in the air for Ryle to have been influenced by the supposedly non-mechanistic theory of organicism.

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