Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Apr;41(2):172-91.
doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhv062. Epub 2016 Feb 4.

The Constitution of the Human Embryo as Substantial Change

David Alvargonzález  1
Affiliations

The Constitution of the Human Embryo as Substantial Change

David Alvargonzález. J Med Philos. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the transformation from the human zygote to the implanted embryo under the prism of substantial change. After a brief introduction, it vindicates the Aristotelian ideas of substance and accident, and those of substantial and accidental change. It then claims that the transformation from the multicelled zygote to the implanted embryo amounts to a substantial change. Pushing further, it contends that this substantial change cannot be explained following patterns of genetic reductionism, emergence, and self-organization, and proposes Gustavo Bueno's idea of anamorphosis as a means to encapsulate criticism against such positions.

Keywords: anamorphosis; blastocyst; morula; pre-embryo; substantial change.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Alexander S. 1920. Space, Time and Deity, vol. 2 London: Macmillan.
    1. Alvargonzález D. 2009. La Clonación, la Anticoncepción y el Aborto en la Sociedad Biotecnológica (Cloning, Contraception and Abortion in Biotechnological Society). Oviedo, Spain: Pentalfa.
    1. ——. 2010a. El comienzo del individuo humano y el aborto provocado (The beginning of the human individual and induced abortion). El Catoblepas 97:10.
    1. ——. 2010b. Acerca del aborto y la teleología orgánica. Respuesta a Gustavo Bueno (On abortion and organic teleology. A reply to Gustavo Bueno). El Catoblepas 99:17.
    1. ——. 2012. Alzheimer’s disease and euthanasia. Journal of Aging Studies 26:377–85. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources