Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy: Towards a New Paradigm. A Comprehensive Critical Review. Franco Fabbro (Author). Routledge · 2023

I. Structure and Overview: A Multi-Layered Argument

The book is divided into ten chapters, framed by a substantial preface and a concluding synthesis. The progression is carefully designed to lead the reader from a critique of the old paradigm, through the empirical realities of life and evolution, and finally to a new ontological and epistemological framework based on symbolic systems.

Chapters 1–2: The Critique of the Physico-Mathematical Paradigm

Fabbro begins by acknowledging the historical debt philosophy owes to mathematics and physics, from Plato's Academy inscription ("Let no one ignorant of geometry enter") to Kant's reliance on Newtonian mechanics. However, he argues that this paradigm has serious limitations: it dismisses secondary qualities (sensory experience) as illusory, it operates through idealized "physics in a box" abstractions that ignore the complexity of real systems, and it treats time as reversible—a stark contrast to the irreversible, existential temporality of living beings. He then reviews the foundational crises of modern physics (relativity, quantum mechanics, non-locality, the strange ontology of elementary particles) to show that even physics itself has moved away from naive realism and determinism. The message is clear: if physics cannot provide the absolute certainty it once promised, why should it remain the sole model for philosophical knowledge?

Chapters 3–4: The Tree of Life and Human Evolution

These chapters provide the biological and anthropological grounding for Fabbro's alternative. He traces life from its chemical origins (the LUCA — last universal common ancestor) through the emergence of multicellular organisms, the evolution of nervous systems, and the appearance of consciousness. He draws heavily on Gerald Edelman's theory of neuronal group selection and the idea that the brain is a "recognition system" that constructs adaptive models of the world rather than passively mirroring it. The hominid story—from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens—is presented with special attention to the role of bipedalism, brain expansion (especially the frontal lobes), and the social intelligence hypothesis (Robin Dunbar's work). Fabbro argues that the "cognitive revolution" around 80,000 years ago, marked by the explosion of symbolic artifacts, was likely driven by the invention of language—not as a gradual evolution but as a collective, almost playful invention by a sufficiently large group of children, as seen in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

Chapter 5: Stages of Social Organization

This chapter may surprise readers expecting a purely "biological" focus. Fabbro insists that human consciousness and thought cannot be understood outside the specific social structures in which they develop. He analyzes the transition from hunter‑gatherer bands (egalitarian, nomadic, with characteristic group sizes of ~15, ~150, and ~1500) to agricultural societies, cities, states, and empires. He draws on Lewis Mumford's concept of the "megamachine"—a hierarchical, almost mechanical organization of human labor that enabled monumental works (pyramids, the Manhattan Project) but also alienated individuals from their natural social capacities. Fabbro is sharply critical of modern mass societies and information technologies for exacerbating loneliness, inequality, and uncritical conformity. He provocatively suggests that any authentic democratic politics must respect the neurocognitive constraints of the human brain, for example by organizing society into small, self‑governing units of around 5,000 people (a figure he derives from Aristotle and Dunbar).

Chapters 6–7: Information and DNA as Symbolic Systems

These chapters form the theoretical core of the new paradigm. Fabbro reviews the history of information theory (Shannon, Wiener, Bateson) and argues that information is neither matter nor energy but a relational entity that only exists for an observer capable of detecting differences. He adopts and extends Gregory Bateson's famous definition: "information is a difference that makes a difference for someone." Crucially, Fabbro argues that the first such "someone" was the first self‑replicating macro‑molecule (RNA or DNA). The genetic code is a truly symbolic system because there is an arbitrary, conventional relationship between a triplet of nucleotides (the signifier) and an amino acid (the signified). This discovery, he emphasizes, was anticipated by John von Neumann, who argued that any self‑reproducing automaton must have a "symbolic code" that is physically distinct from the structure it builds.

Chapters 8–9: The Psyche and Language as Symbolic Systems

The psyche (mind) is presented as a second, nested symbolic system. Drawing on Kenneth Craik's model, Fabbro describes thought as a process of (1) translating external stimuli into internal symbols, (2) computing or simulating alternative scenarios, and (3) retranslating the results into action. He reviews evidence from predictive processing theories (Helmholtz, Friston) and from clinical neuroscience (e.g., the separation of ventral and dorsal visual pathways, the role of the hippocampus in spatial and episodic memory). Language is the third, outermost symbolic system. Fabbro follows the "instruction of imagination" theory (Daniel Dor): language did not evolve primarily for communication but for sharing the contents of imagination. It enables the construction of an intersubjective, narrative reality. However, language also has profound limitations: it is inherently ambiguous, it seduces us into believing that its categories map directly onto the world, and it can be used for systematic self‑deception. Fabbro is highly critical of the "digital philosophy" movement (Chaitin, Wolfram) that claims the universe is made of bits and that God is a programmer; he calls this a modern version of Pythagorean idealism that ignores the embodied, symbolic, and observer‑dependent nature of information.

Chapter 10: Conclusions — Toward a New Philosophy

The final chapter synthesizes the argument and outlines a new philosophical curriculum based on biology, neuroscience, and symbolic systems rather than on logic and physics alone. Fabbro introduces a diagram contrasting the "naive view" (physical world → biological world → psyche → language) with his "critical view" (language → psyche → DNA → physical world). The latter recognizes that our access to reality is always mediated by symbolic systems, the outermost of which is language. He concludes by calling for a "philosophy of the organism" that takes seriously the fundamental properties of life: autonomy, the distinction between inside and outside, the maintenance of structure (survival), the irreversible arrow of time, teleonomy (goal‑directedness), and the central role of information.

II. Major Theoretical Contributions

2.1 The Nested Symbolic Systems Framework. Perhaps the most innovative idea is that DNA, the psyche, and language are three instances of the same kind of phenomenon: a symbolic code that maps one set of entities (nucleotides, neural firing patterns, phonemes) onto another set (amino acids, objects and events in the world, meanings). This framework unifies domains that are usually studied in complete isolation. It also explains why knowledge is always "slippery": because the mapping is arbitrary and evolved for survival and reproduction, not for truth. Fabbro thus aligns himself with recent work in evolutionary epistemology (e.g., Donald Hoffman's "interface theory of perception") but grounds it in a more detailed biological and neuroscientific account.

2.2 The Primacy of the Observer in Information Theory. Fabbro's insistence that information requires an observer who can "make a difference" is a crucial corrective to the reductive tendency in some branches of computer science and physics. He shows that even Boltzmann's formulation of entropy implicitly depends on the observer's knowledge of possible microstates. By tracing the origin of information back to the first self‑replicating molecules, he provides a naturalistic account that avoids both Platonism (information as a transcendent substance) and eliminative materialism (information as merely physical).

2.3 A Neuroscientifically Informed Political Philosophy. The application of Dunbar's number and related findings to social and political organization is one of the most provocative and practically relevant parts of the book. Fabbro argues that the massive scale of modern states and cities violates the social capacities for which our brains evolved. He does not advocate a naive return to hunter‑gatherer life, but he does insist that any realistic political reform must work with our neurocognitive constraints rather than against them. This echoes ideas from Murray Bookchin's "libertarian municipalism" and from the ancient Greek polis, but Fabbro grounds them in empirical data about neocortical size and group dynamics.

2.4 A Detailed Critique of Digital Philosophy. While many philosophers have expressed skepticism about computationalism and the "it from bit" hypothesis, Fabbro provides a particularly clear and empirically grounded critique. He points out that a computer simulation of a cow produces no milk, whereas a simulation of a mathematician can produce a genuine proof. The difference is that the mathematician is an embodied, purposive, living system embedded in a social and historical context. Digital philosophy confuses the map for the territory and the tool for the agent.

III. Strengths of the Book

IV. Weaknesses and Open Questions

V. Significance for Contemporary Philosophy and Science

Despite these limitations, Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy is a significant and timely work. It arrives at a moment when many philosophers and scientists are disillusioned with both the reductionist ambitions of physicalism and the obscurantism of some postmodern thought. Fabbro offers a third way: a naturalism that takes consciousness and meaning seriously because it recognizes them as evolved, symbolic, and information‑based phenomena.

The book will be of particular interest to: Philosophers of mind seeking an empirically grounded alternative to both dualism and eliminativism; cognitive scientists who want to understand the broader philosophical implications of their research; biologists and neuroscientists curious about how their findings can inform epistemology, ontology, and ethics; and political theorists open to evolutionary and neurocognitive constraints on social organization.

In the classroom, the book could serve as a core text for an advanced course in neurophilosophy or philosophy of biology, supplemented by primary readings from Edelman, Deacon, Pattee, and others. Its clear structure and summaries make it suitable for graduate seminars and motivated undergraduates.