Krzysztof Chodasewicz (1982–2016) died young, but his publications strongly influenced the Polish scientific community in the field of the philosophy of life when life is understood as a biological process. This topic was an almost forgotten in Poland. It was Chodasewicz who, through the articles republished in the collection presented here, gave the Polish reader a picture of the current state of reflection on this issue. The articles are not only overviews of the contemporary positions; in each article Chodasewicz presents some of his new concepts. The main advantage of the published collection is a delicate form of making people aware of the range of possible views and problems, which in the subject of the essence and origin of life usually arouses great emotions and preliminary reservations. My paper is an overview of the topics and materials collected in the book, with my comments.

Currently, the “Lamarckian dimension” and “Lamarckian mechanisms” are vividly discussed, indicating that they are compatible with Darwinism. However, they require an extension of Modern Synthesis to Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Both the terms, unfortunately connected to Lamarck, really indicate a group of phenomena which can be symbolized by Jablonka’s wording: “some evolutionary changes are non-random in origin, or even result from instruction.” The Lamarckian mechanisms leading to these evolutionary changes arose, however, in the Darwinian way much earlier. This earlier stage is said too rarely, and the typical understanding of Lamarckism strongly suggests its lack. The term “Lamarckism” was and is understood very differently both at different times and in different national and ideological traditions but usually fraught with a simplified understanding of Lamarck. Most of the controversies in these issues arise from the insufficient precision of the utterance, and this from undervaluation of definition, specification of assumptions and abstract reasoning.