This Briefs volume focuses on the maximum power principle, which was created by the mathematician and physical chemist Alfred Lotka, and further developed and utilized most prominently by the systems ecologist H. T. Odum, who applied it to different physical, biological, ecological and economic systems. They both described this principle providing a thermodynamic framework for evolutionary theory. This principle has a philosophical heritage that has, until now, gone unrecognized. The 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche viewed his concept of the will to power as an empirical principle that describes how organic and inorganic systems develop in ways that grow in power. This book describes this interdisciplinary story: it discusses the development of both principles, reviews the empirical and theoretical support for them, critically examines their alleged limitations, and describes their philosophical implications, evidenced in a particularly provocative manner by Nietzsche's and Odum's critiques of moral and religious values.
Introduction.- Energy in the History of Science and Philosophy.- The Historical Roots of Maximum Power.- Lotka and the Principle of Maximum Energy Flux.- Odum and the Synthesis of Power.- Nietzsche's Will to Power.- Odum and Nietzsche: Parallel, Differences, and Implications.- Conclusion.
Timothy McWhirter is a professor of philosophy in the World Languages and Philosophy department at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. He has a Ph. D. in philosophy from Florida State University and a B. A. in philosophy from the University of South Florida.
