Neste trabalho, avaliamos as implicações que o debate filosófico acerca das explicações em termos de função e objetivo podem ter no contexto educacional, particularmente no ensino e aprendizagem de biologia. Para alcançar este objetivo, investigamos como três obras didáticas de biologia do Brasil utilizam a linguagem teleológica na formulação de explicações para os assuntos que são objeto de estudo dessa ciência. Na análise das obras, exploramos os enunciados teleológicos e funcionais a partir de dois projetos explanatórios discutidos na filosofia da (...) biologia contemporânea, a saber: (i) etiológico, que fornece uma abordagem essencialmente histórica de explicação biológica; e (ii) organizacional, que orienta o estudo acerca das capacidades de sistemas complexos mediante o apelo às funções de seus componentes, ou seja, a contribuição das partes para a realização de uma capacidade global. Nossos resultados mostram que poucas explicações podem ser qualificadas como etiológicas, em razão de que os autores preterem a discussão de temas segundo um tratamento evolutivo. Associado a esse resultado, a maioria dos enunciados foi localizada no contexto do projeto organizacional de explicação científica. Na análise das explicações, destacamos os principais problemas que elas apresentam, como a falta de clareza na identificação do explanandum e explanans, situação que pode prejudicar a compreensão dos assuntos pelos estudantes. Por fim, colocamos que a recontextualização das duas abordagens centrais sobre as explicações funcionais na filosofia da biologia, a perspectiva etiológica e a organizacional, podem fornecer um embasamento epistemológico consistente para as explicações biológicas no ensino médio. (shrink)

This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book ​A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views.

Uncontainable Life: A Biophilosophy of Bioart investigates the ways in which thinking through the contemporary hybrid artistico-scientific practices of bioart is a biophilosophical practice, one that contributes to a more nuanced understanding of life than we encounter in mainstream academic discourse. When examined from a Deleuzian feminist perspective and in dialogue with contemporary bioscience, bioartistic projects reveal the inadequacy of asking about life’s essence. They expose the enmeshment between the living and non-living, organic and inorganic, and, ultimately, life and death. (...) Instead of examining the defining criteria of life, bioartistic practices explore and enact life as processual, differential, and always already uncontainable, thus transcending preconceived material and conceptual boundaries. In this way, this doctoral thesis concentrates on the ontology of life as it emerges through the selected bioartworks: “semi-living” sculptures created by The Tissue Culture and Art Project and the performance May the Horse Live in Me by L’Art Orienté Objet. The hope is that such an ontology can enable future conceptualisations of an ethico-politics that avoids the anthropocentric logic dominant in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

A consensus exists among contemporary philosophers of biology about the history of their field. According to the received view, mainstream philosophy of science in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s focused on physics and general epistemology, neglecting analyses of the 'special sciences', including biology. The subdiscipline of philosophy of biology emerged (and could only have emerged) after the decline of logical positivism in the 1960s and 70s. In this article, I present bibliometric data from four major philosophy of science journals (Erkenntnis, (...) Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science), covering 1930-59, which challenge this view. (shrink)

There are two very different ways of thinking about perception. According to representationalism, perceptual states are representations: they represent the world as being a certain way. They have content, which may or may not be different from the content of beliefs. They represent objects as having properties, sometimes veridically, sometimes not. According to relationalism, perception is a relation between the agent and the perceived object. Perceived objects are literally constituents of our perceptual states and not of the contents thereof. Perceptual (...) states are not representations. My aim is to argue that if we frame this debate as a debate about the individuation of perceptual states, rather than the nature of perception, then we can reconcile these two seemingly conflicting ways of thinking about perception. (shrink)

Classifying is a fundamental operation in the acquisition of knowledge. Taxonomic theory can help students of cognition, evolutionary psychology, ethology, anatomy, and sociobiology to avoid serious mistakes, both practical and theoretical. More positively, it helps in generating hypotheses useful to a wide range of disciplines. Composite wholes, such as species and societies, are “individuals” in the logical sense, and should not be treated as if they were classes. A group of analogous features is a natural kind, but a group of (...) homologous features is not. Imposing hypotheses justified only on the basis of nominalist, realist, phenomenalist, or conceptualist metaphysics upon the neurophysiology of organisms or upon the causes of behavior exemplifies the “psychologist's fallacy” of William James. Levels should be distinguished from their members and from classes of levels, and the ontological status of entities ranked at levels should be made clear. It is important not to confuse such categories as substance and process with one another. Several genetical terms, such as “gene” and chromosome,” are even more equivocal than has been realized. Discussions about units of selection, behavior, and thinking suffer from the ambiguity of a “unit of” an entity. An important source of misunderstanding about natural selection is the habit of treating it as an “agent”: in an important sense, natural selection does not “act” at all. (shrink)

Despite many years of discussion, the species problem has still not been adequately resolved. Why is this the case? Here I discuss two recent suggested answers to this question that place the blame on the species problem's empirical aspects or on its philosophical aspects. In contrast, I argue that neither of these two faces of the species problem constitute the principal cause of the species problem's persistence. Rather, they are merely symptoms of the real cause: the species problem has not (...) yet gone away because of a failure to recognize that not one but a number of distinct concepts are at the heart of the problem. To illustrate this point, a recently proposed solution to the problem is examined: the suggestion to understand the concept of species as a family resemblance concept. BioEssays 26:300–305, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The aim of teleosemantics is to give a scientifically respectable, or ‘naturalistic’ theory of mental content. In the debates surrounding the scope and merits of teleosemantics a lot has been said about the concept of indication (or carrying information). The aim of this paper is to focus on the other key concept of teleosemantics: biological function. It has been universally accepted in the teleosemantics literature that the account of biological function one should use to flesh out teleosemantics is that of (...) etiological function. My claim is that if we replace this concept of function with an alternative one (that we have independent reasons to accept) and if we also restrict the scope of teleosemantics, we can arrive at an account of biologizing mental content that is much less problematic than the previous attempts. (shrink)

The writings of Joseph Henry Woodger (1894–1981) are often taken to exemplify everything that was wrongheaded, misguided, and just plain wrong with early twentieth-century philosophy of biology. Over the years, commentators have said of Woodger: (a) that he was a fervent logical empiricist who tried to impose the explanatory gold standards of physics onto biology, (b) that his philosophical work was completely disconnected from biological science, (c) that he possessed no scientific or philosophical credentials, and (d) that his work was (...) disparaged – if not altogether ignored – by the biologists and philosophers of his era. In this paper, we provide the first systematic examination of Woodger’s oeuvre, and use it to demonstrate that the four preceding claims are false. We argue that Woodger’s ideas have exerted an important influence on biology and philosophy, and submit that the current consensus on his legacy stems from a highly selective reading of his works. By rehabilitating Woodger, we hope to show that there is no good reason to continue to disregard the numerous contributions to the philosophy of biology produced in the decades prior to the professionalization of the discipline. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists widely hold that artifact categories – just like biological categories – are individuated by their function. But recent empirical findings in psychology question this assumption. My proposal is to suggest a way of squaring these findings with the central role function should play in individuating artifact categories. But in order to do so, we need to give up on the standard account of artifact function, according to which function is fixed by design, and replace it with a (...) more context-sensitive account, according to which function attributions depend on the explanatory context and, as a result, categorization also depends on the explanatory context, just as the empirical findings from psychology suggest. I argue that the recent ‘modal theory of function’ originally proposed to explain biological function, is capable of providing such an account of artifact function. (shrink)

An examination of the post-Darwinian history of biological taxonomy reveals an implicit assumption that the definitions of taxon names consist of lists of organismal traits. That assumption represents a failure to grant the concept of evolution a central role in taxonomy, and it causes conflicts between traditional methods of defining taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. Phylogenetic definitions of taxon names (de Queiroz and Gauthier 1990) grant the concept of common ancestry a central role in the definitions of taxon (...) names and thus constitute an important step in the development of phylogenetic taxonomy. By treating phylogenetic relationships rather than organismal traits as necessary and sufficient properties, phylogenetic definitions remove conflicts between the definitions of taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. The general method of definition represented by phylogenetic definitions of clade names can be applied to the names of other kinds of composite wholes, including populations and biological species. That the names of individuals (composite wholes) can be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient properties provides the foundation for a synthesis of seemingly incompatible positions held by contemporary individualists and essentialists concerning the nature of taxa and the definitions of taxon names. (shrink)

In the present article I have surveyed several approaches to modeling the clinical diagnostic process. I have argued that at this point of the field's development, logics which simulate the reasoning patterns and knowledge base of expert clinicians represent research programs that are most likely to succeed. No logic of diagnosis has yet attained the status of being definitive; in spite of striking progress much more research and testing is required. On the basis of various existing logics, I have attempted (...) to articulate a number of desiderata which an ideal diagnostic logic should satisfy. In spite of these criticisms, I would maintain that programs such as MYCIN and INTERNIST have already matured to the point where they are useful both in consultations and in teaching diagnostic reasoning. (shrink)

Within evolutionary biology a distinction is frequently made between proximate and ultimate causes. One apparently plausible interpretation of this dichotomy is that proximate causes concern processes occurring during the life of an organism while ultimate causes refer to those processes (particularly natural selection) that shaped its genome. But ultimate causes are not sought through historical investigations of an organisms lineage. Rather, explanations referring to ultimate causes typically emerge from functional analyses. But these functional analyses do not identify causes of any (...) kind, much less ultimate ones. So-called ultimate explanations are not about causes in any sense resembling those of proximate explanations. The attitude, implicit in the term ultimate cause, that these functional analyses are somehow superordinate to those involving proximate causes is unfounded. Ultimate causes are neither ultimate nor causes. (shrink)

When natural selection theory was presented, much active philosophical debate, in which Darwin himself participated, centered on its hypothetical nature, its explanatory power, and Darwin's methodology. Upon first examination, Darwin's support of his theory seems to consist of a set of claims pertaining to various aspects of explanatory success. I analyze the support of his method and theory given in the Origin of Species and private correspondence, and conclude that an interpretation focusing on the explanatory strengths of natural selection theory (...) accurately reflects neither Darwin's own self-consciously held views, nor the nature of his support. Darwin's methodological and philosophical arguments were at once consistently empiricist and more sophisticated than such interpretations credit to him. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments against the claim that computers can think is that while our intentionality is intrinsic, that of computers is derived: it is parasitic on the intentionality of the programmer who designed the computer-program. Daniel Dennett chose a surprising strategy for arguing against this asymmetry: instead of denying that the intentionality of computers is derived, he endeavours to argue that human intentionality is derived too. I intend to examine that biological plausibility of Dennett’s suggestion and show (...) that Dennett’s argument for the claim that human intentionality is derived because it was designed by natural selection is based on the misunderstanding of how natural selection works. (shrink)

The longstanding species problem in biology has a history that suggests a solution, and that history is not the received history found in many texts written by biologists or philosophers. The notion of species as the division into subordinate groups of any generic predicate was the staple of logic from Aristotle through the middle ages until quite recently. However, the biological species concept during the same period was at first subtly and then overtly different. Unlike the logic sense, which relied (...) on definitions of the essence of both genus and species, biological species from the time of Epicurus were consistently considered to involve a reproductive element: in short, living species relied not on essential definitions, but on the generative cause, which might not be definable. I term this the generative conception of species: species were the generation by reproduction of form. This undercuts the claim that species before Darwin were essentialist, and divorces the notion of a type from that of essence. In fact, as late as the end of the nineteenth century, logicians explicitly treated biological “species” as a homonym only of logical essentialist species, and permitted considerable deviation from the type or form. At every point, species in logic were thought to be a subset, in effect, of some more general notion. I sketch a history of both philosophical and biological traditions of the species concept, before turning to the current conceptions. These are reconsidered in the light of this history, and in particular Mayr’s changing views are shown to be somewhat Whiggish, historiographically. Of the many touted biological species concepts, only one of which (Mayr’s) is called _the_ Biological Species Concept, none appears to capture all the relevant facts, intuitions, and operational requirements of biology. Cladistic conceptions, however, have much in common with the older philosophical literature, in that the natural group of cladism is the clade, or monophyletic group. After considering the Individuality Thesis, and the metaphysics of species, we see that species are the most particular terminal taxa in a clade, and that they are “defined” in terms of the particular synapomorphies, or evolved characters, that are causally responsible for keeping the lineages that organisms form distinct from one another. In this way, we can remain within the generative conception of species that has been in play for over two millennia, and yet avoid the pitfalls of prior attempts to find a universal conception of species. (shrink)

This MPhil dissertation presents a novel account of teleological explanations in biology. I outline the “shorthand approach” to such explanations, on which they are taken to convey implicit evolutionary explanations. “Selected effects” accounts of teleological explanation dominate recent literature, but they struggle to accommodate teleological explanations of complex traits built through cumulative selection. I articulate the general notion of a landscape explanation, which, applied to biology, explains the evolution of complex features in a population by citing salient features of the (...) population’s fitness landscape. I show that such explanations lend themselves to a teleological shorthand. I close with remarks concerning when a teleological explanation of a trait is legitimate, and why teleological language strikes us as appropriate when we give evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

Three metascientific concepts that have been object of philosophical analysis are the concepts oflaw, model and theory. The aim ofthis article is to present the explication of these concepts, and of their relationships, made within the framework of Sneedean or Metatheoretical Structuralism (Balzer et al. 1987), and of their application to a case from the realm of biology: Population Dynamics. The analysis carried out will make it possible to support, contrary to what some philosophers of science in general and of (...) biology in particular hold, the following claims: a) there are "laws" in biological sciences, b) many of the heterogeneous and different "models" of biology can be accommodated under some "theory", and c) this is exactly what confers great unifying power to biological theories. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on teleology and functions in biology. More precisely, it focuses on the scientific legitimacy of teleofunctional attributions and explanations in biology. It belongs to a multi-faceted debate that can be traced back to at least the 1970s. One aspect of the debate concerns the naturalization of functions. Most authors try to reduce, translate or explain functions and teleology in terms of efficient causes so that they find their place in the framework of the natural sciences. Our approach (...) here is radically different, as we question the premise that teleological explanations are disguised causal explanations. On the contrary, we defend that they are acceptable in natural sciences and in biology in particular. We challenge the idea that teleological explanations are immature causal explanations, as well as the idea that teleology and functions are some sort of intentional explanations. We therefore reject the accusations of anthropomorphism, vitalism and finalism. On the contrary, we defend that teleology, causality and intentionality correspond to different, autonomous and complementary modes of representation of the outside world. -/- ———[FRANÇAIS]——— -/- Ce travail de thèse porte sur la téléologie et les fonctions en biologie. Plus précisément, il porte sur la légitimité scientifique des attributions et des explications téléofonctionnelles en biologie. Il s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un débat à plusieurs facettes que l’on peut faire remonter au moins jusqu’aux années 1970 et qui est encore très actif aujourd’hui. L’un des aspects du débat porte sur la naturalisation des fonctions, c’est-à-dire sur la manière de les réduire, de les traduire ou de les expliciter en termes de causes efficientes de sorte qu’elles trouvent leur place dans le cadre des sciences de la nature. Notre approche ici est radicalement différente, car nous remettons en question la prémisse selon laquelle les explications téléologiques seraient des explications causales déguisées. Nous défendons au contraire qu’elles sont acceptables en tant que telles aussi bien de façon générale que dans le domaine scientifique et en particulier en biologie. De façon générale, nous remettons en question l’idée selon laquelle la pensée téléologique serait une pensée causale immature, ainsi que sa dépendance présumée vis-à-vis de la psychologie, c’est-à-dire de l’intentionnalité. Nous rejetons donc les accusations d’anthropomorphisme, de vitalisme et de finalisme formulées contre elle. Nous défendons au contraire que la téléologie, la causalité et l’intentionnalité correspondent à des modes différents, autonomes et complémentaires de représentation du monde extérieur. (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis provides a pilosophical account of the structure of the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 40s. The first, more historical part analyses how classical genetics came to be integrated into evolutionary thinking, highlighting in particular the importance of chromosomal mapping of Drosophila strains collected in the wild by Dobzansky, but also the work of Goldschmidt, Sumners, Timofeeff-Ressovsky and others. The second, more philosophical part attempts to answer the question wherein the unity of the synthesis consisted. I argue (...) that it exemplifies a weak of form of explanatory unification. (shrink)

Teleosemantic theories of representation are often criticized as being “too liberal”, i.e. as categorizing states as representations which are not representational at all. Recently, a powerful version of this objection has been put forth by Tyler Burge. Focusing on perception, Burge defends the claim that all teleosemantic theories apply too broadly, thereby missing what is distinctive about representation. Contra Burge, I will argue in this paper that there is a teleosemantic account of perceptual states that does not fall prey to (...) this problem, and that we can arrive at this account by combining some of Burge’s insights with a producer-oriented version of teleosemantics. The resulting theory turns out to be attractive and perfectly coherent. By contrast, the coherence of Burge’s own anti-teleosemantic approach becomes quite doubtful under closer examination—or so I will argue. (shrink)

This study will focus on the differences in the way that Roman Paganism and Christianity organize systems of beliefs. It rejects the theory that “beliefs” have no place in the Roman religion, but stresses the differences between Christian orthodoxy, in which mandatory dogmas define group identity, and the essentially polythetic nature of Roman religious organization, in which incompatible beliefs could exist simultaneously in the community without conflict. In explaining how such beliefs could coexist in Rome, the study emphasizes three main (...) conceptual mechanisms: polymorphism, the idea that gods could have multiple identities with incompatible attributes, orthopraxy, the focus upon standardized ritual rather than standardized belief, and pietas, the Roman ideal of reciprocal obligation, which was flexible enough to allow Romans to maintain relationships simultaneously with multiple gods at varying levels of personal commitment. (shrink)

Holism and reductionism are usually seen as opposite and mutually exclusive approaches to nature. Recently, some have come to see them as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In this book I have argued that, even stronger, they should be seen as mutually dependent and co-operating research programmes. I have discussed holism and reductionism in biology in general and in ecology in particular. After an introductory chapter I have provided an overview of holistic and reductionistic positions in biology, and of the (...) reduction problems to which they relate. I have argued that it is extremely important to distinguish between ontological, epistemological and methodological aspects of these problems. The overview has shown that there are actually several approaches to reduction problems in biology, which can be characterized as more or less radically or moderately holistic or reductionistic. It has shown also that there are three major ’contradistinctions’ between holism and reductionism in biology, to wit the doctrine of emergence versus the reduction thesis; functional explanations versus causal explanations; and phenomenology versus mechanicism. In later chapters I have shown that these ’contradistinctions’ are not really contradistinctions at all. In the next chapters I have discussed the terms ’reduce’ and ’reduction’ in science. In chapter 3 I have discussed the reduction of laws and theories. I have shown that there are many different types of reduction depending on the auxiliary hypotheses that are being used in addition to the reducing theory: approximation-, aggregation, correlation and/or identification-hypotheses. The distinctions between these types has later, in chapter 5, proved to be of great importance in defining the concept of ’emergence’. The major conclusion of chapter 3 was that reduction is an epistemological issue, pertaining to logical relations between statements or systems of statements. It should not be confused, therefore, with ’ontological reduction’, certainly not in one of its ordinary senses, such as diminishing, devaluating or the like. Scientific reductions are, with the exception of instrumentalistic reductions, kinds of explanation, and, moreover, non-eliminative kinds of explanation. This means that a reduced law or theory is not eliminated by the reducing theory but rather consolidated or even reinforced. The ontology of the reduced law or theory is thereby also being consolidated. In chapter 4 I have argued that the same holds for reductions of concepts. Concept reductions are supposed to be accomplished by means of so-called ontological identity relations, which are in turn supposed to connect terms in the law or theory to be reduced, which do not occur in the reducing theory, with theoretical terms of the reducing theory. Because they are called ontological identity relations, several philosophers have thought that concept reductions imply some form of ontological reduction. And because they often occur in the context of micro-reductions, some have even thought that concept reductions are themselves micro-reductions. As a result, the idea has arisen that ontological identity relations are connections between macro-concepts and micro-concepts. However, concept reductions by means of ontological identity relations cannot be micro-reductions, because micro-reduction is, by definition, reduction with an aggregation step. Moreover, ontological identity relations are relations between different representations of and the same type of thing or attribute. That is, they express different epistemological sides of the same ontological coin. Therefore, concept reductions cannot be considered ontological reductions either, certainly not in the ordinary sense of diminishing, devaluating or the like. Thus, concept reduction is, like law or theory reduction, an epistemological issue: it pertains to relations between, in this case, different concepts or representations of one and the same type of thing or attribute. ’Ontological reduction’, then, may, in the context of scientific reductions, actually be considered a contradiction of terms. In chapter 5 I have linked this conclusion to the emergence thesis and to the alleged contradistinction between this thesis and the reduction thesis. I have shown that the doctrine of emergence actually consists of two separate claims, namely an ontological thesis stating that a whole has emergent properties which the component parts do not possess, neither separately nor in other partial combinations; and an epistemological thesis stating that emergent properties of wholes are ’in principle’ irreducible. I have argued that the first claim may be regarded as a valid, universal thesis about relations between properties of wholes and properties of parts, but that the second claim is untenable. I have discussed many emergent properties of wholes, biological as well as physico-chemical, that have proved to be explainable in terms of micro-theories about the component parts and auxiliary hypotheses. Once again, however, it is important to realize that reduction is an epistemological issue, whereas emergence, in the sense of thesis, is an ontological one. It is not ’wholes’ or ’emergent properties of wholes’ that are being reduced but statements about them. Reduction is a kind of explanation, not of explaining-away. Thus, it leaves the ontology of whatever is reduced fully intact. I have developed a new definition of the term ’emergence’ which expresses emergence in terms of the auxiliary hypotheses that may be used in reductions, in particular aggregation-, correlation- and identification-hypotheses. This has even lead to two very remarkable conclusions. First, emergence may be considered the opposite of ontological identity. And second, if there were no emergence, there wouldn’t be any reductions either. to reduce.) In this respect, therefore, there is absolutely no contradistinction between holism and reductionism. On these grounds I have introduced my thesis that holism and reductionism should rather be seen as mutually dependent, and hence co-operating, research programmes than as conflicting views of nature or of relations between sciences. Holistic programmes play an important role in science as guide programmes for reductionistic programmes by discovering or developing macro-laws or -theories about phenomena at the level of wholes, which they themselves, however, cannot explain. For these explanations they depend on the fruits of reductionistic programmes. If the latter succeed in providing the explanations they act as supply programmes for the holistic guide programmes. Reductionistic programmes depend in turn on holistic programmes for providing the macro-laws or -theories that call for these explanations. In chapter 6 I have discussed an example of this mutual dependency in the form of the reduction of the Bohr-effect in animal physiology. I have shown that this law has been reduced to the theory of allostery, applied to hemoglobin molecules in red blood cells, and that this application of the theory of allostery has been reduced to the theory of chemical bonding. I have also shown that at least six research programmes were involved in these reductions, and that the relations between these programmes can be characterized very well in terms of the model of holistic guide programmes and reductionistic supply programmes. The only, but highly significant, qualification appearing from example was that the terms ’holistic’ and ’reductionistic’ are extremely relative and should always be related to a certain given level of organization. In chapter 7 I have resolved the remaining contradistinction between holism and reductionism in biology, viz. the need for functional explanations and the demand that explanations be causal. I have shown that functional explanations are perfectly legitimate explanations which in a sense can be reconstrued as causal explanations. I have argued that functional explanations are indispensable components of more comprehensive, causal-evolutionary explanations, because the latter appeal to the adaptive value, and hence the function, of the property to be explained. In that sense functions can be regarded as adaptations, and functional explanations can be regarded as a sort of ’short-hand’ for evolutionary explanations. Finally, I have shown that in the context of functional explanations, too, co-operation of holistic and reductionistic research programmes occurs. In part 2 I have applied my thesis to ecology. I have shown that in ecology too, holismreductionism disputes notwithstanding, co-operation of holistic and reductionistic research programmes occurs, or, in so far as this appears to be not the case, that it should be strived after. In chapter 8 I have given an overview of reduction problems in ecology and of the various approaches to these problems. I have noticed that in ecology, too, there are several, radical, moderate and anti-reductionistic research strategies, with respect to the levels of both ecosystems, communities and populations. I have also noticed, however, that concrete solutions to reduction problems in ecology are frustrated by what is called the intellectual immaturity or the anomalous status of ecology. This refers to the almost complete lack of general laws and theories in ecology, at least at the higher levels of communities and ecosystems. Of a number of possible causes I have lifted out two, which lend themselves to philosophical analysis and clarification. The first one is the ambiguity of a major part of the ecological vocabulary. This was the subject of chapters 9 and 10. The second is the inhibitory effect which holism-reductionism disputes have on the growth of knowledge. This was the subject of chapter 13. In chapter 9 I have discussed the concept of an community. It appeared that the term ’community’ is used for several different entities at various levels of organization. This ambiguity alone seems to be sufficient for the lack of ’general’ laws and theories about ’communities’. My purpose in chapter 9 was to try and contribute to a solution of this problem. In doing so I have argued, first, that it seems wise to use the term ’community’ only for groups of species belonging to a single taxonomic or phylogenetic group, and to use the term ’biocoenosis’ for the higher level of organization, defined as the biotic component of an ecosystem. Next I have argued that, although species within communities may of course interact with each other, interaction is itself not a necessary or sufficient condition for community membership. Finally, I have hit upon what is known as the most notorious problem in community ecology, to wit the boundary problem, as well as the problem of heterogeneity. I have found that the cause of these problems lies in the fact that communities are almost invariably being seen as groups of populations occurring together in space and time, whereas the empirical fact is rather that populations of different species mostly do not occur together in the same space, and, moreover, that the species composition of communities changes continuously. This has lead to the suggestion that a community had better be defined as the group of individuals of two or more species occurring in the area of intersection of populations of these species. It is only in such intersection areas that one can really talk of the co-occurrence of species. I have shown the empirical adequacy of this definition by discussing various salt marsh plant communities on the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog. In chapter 10 I have clarified two other important, yet highly controversial, concepts in ecology, to wit habitat and niche. It appeared that there are at least four different habitat concepts in ecology, and as many niche concepts, the additional complication being that two of these habitat concepts correspond to two of these niche concepts, whence the distinction between habitat and niche is blurred. In addition, different habitat concepts appeared to correspond to different environment concepts and also to different biotope concepts. My purpose in chapter 10 was to disentangle all these concepts from one another and to supply each of them with a suitable term. I have done so by keeping a close eye on commonly accepted notions about habitat differentiation and niche differentiation, two ’principles’ allowing one to explain the coexistence or non-coexistence of species in communities. The results can be found in boxes 5 and 7 in chapter 10. In chapter 11 I was finally able to substantiate my claim that in ecology, too, co-operation of holistic and reductionistic research programmes occurs. I have discussed the reduction of the classical competition model of Lotka and Volterra to modern niche theory. The Lotka/Volterra model is a phenomenological model: it describes the possible effects of competition between two species. Modern niche theory, on the other hand, is a mechanistic theory, in which both the objects of competition and a mechanism are being specified. I have shown that the reduction was established with the help of a relatively simple identification hypothesis and two relatively simple aggregation hypotheses, making it yet another example of heterogeneous microreduction in biology. In the reduction, the Lotka/Volterra model acted as a holistic guide programme and modern niche theory acted as a reductionistic supply programme. In chapter 12 I have discussed another example of co-operation in the form of the approximative reduction of MacArthur and Wilson’s equilibrium theory of island biogeography. I have argued that this can be seen as a holistic model, which has been of great unifying and especially heuristic value, but which in time has been found to be a bit too simple and in some respects had to be corrected. Therefore, it can also be seen as an idealization in the sense of the model of idealization and concretization, which subsequent research programmes have concretized. Because these concretizations have a reductive character, we can see in this structure of idealization and concretization yet another example of the co-operation of holistic and reductionistic research programmes in ecology. A philosophically interesting side-conclusion was that the model of idealization and concretization thus appears to apply also to relations between research programmes, and not only to programme-internal developments. In chapter 13 I have discussed an example of the inhibitory effect that holism-reductionism disputes may have on the growth of knowledge. The example concerns a controversy in island biogeography over the role of interspecific competition in structuring communities. This controversy has lasted for about ten years, appeares to have died out rather than to have been resolved, and has produced nothing new in the field of explanations of community structure. I have shown that the major factors underlying the controversy were differing, in casu holistic and reductionistic, views of communities. Though this presented a problem for my thesis, I have argued that, ultimately, the controversy can be resolved, and in a sense has been resolved, in a way that corroborates my thesis. In the epilogue, finally, I have mentioned some remaining problems concerning the adequacy of the present reduction model in dealing with reduction in ecology. These problems pertain to the question of specificty of ecological laws and theories, the likelihood that reductions in ecology generally occur on the basis of several reducing micro-theories, and the possible relationship between the former two points. (shrink)

Which domains of biology do philosophers of biology primarily study? The fact that philosophy of biology has been dominated by an interest for evolutionary biology is widely admitted, but it has not been strictly demonstrated. Here I analyse the topics of all the papers published in Biology & Philosophy, just as the journal celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. I then compare the distribution of biological topics in Biology & Philosophy with that of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of (...) Science of the USA, focusing on the recent period 2003–2015. This comparison reveals a significant mismatch between the distributions of these topics. I examine plausible explanations for that mismatch. Finally, I argue that many biological topics underrepresented in philosophy of biology raise important philosophical issues and should therefore play a more central role in future philosophy of biology. (shrink)

A number of areas of biology raise questions about what is of value in the natural environment and how we ought to behave towards it: conservation biology, environmental science, and ecology, to name a few. Based on my experience teaching students from these and similar majors, I argue that the field of environmental ethics has much to teach these students. They come to me with pent-up questions and a feeling that more is needed to fully engage in their subjects, and (...) I believe some exposure to environmental ethics can help focus their interests and goals. I identify three primary areas in which environmental ethics can con- tribute to their education. The first is an examination of who (or what) should be considered to be part of our moral community (i.e., the community to whom we owe direct duties). Is it humans only? Or does it include all sentient life? Or all life? Or ecosystems considered holistically? Often, readings implicitly assume one or more of these answers; the goal is to make the student more sensitive to these implicit claims and to get them to think about the different reasons that support them. The second area, related to the first, is the application of the different answers concerning the extent of the ethical community to real environmental issues and problems. Students need to be aware of how the different answers concerning the moral community can imply conflicting answers for how we should act in certain cases and to think about ways to move toward conflict resolution. The third area in which environmental ethics can contribute is a more conceptual one, focusing on central concepts such as biodiversity, sustainability, species, and ecosystems. Exploring and evaluating various meanings of these terms will make students more reflective and thoughtful citizens and biologists, sensitive to the implications that different conceptual choices make. (shrink)

I examine the branch of evolutionary epistemology which tries to account for the character of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans by extending the biological theory of evolution to the neurophysiological substrates of cognition. Like Plotkin, I construe this branch as a struggling science, and attempt to characterize the sort of theory one might expect to find this truly interdisciplinary endeavor, an endeavor which encompasses not only evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and developmental neuroscience, but also and especially, the computational modeling (...) of artificial life programming; I suggest that extending Schaffner''s notion of interlevel theories to include both horizontal and vertical levels of abstraction best fits the theories currently being developed in cognitive science. Finally, I support this claim with examples drawn from computational modeling data using the genetic algorithm. (shrink)

The recognition of species proceeds by two fairly distinct phases: (1) the sorting of individuals into groups or basic taxa (‘discovery’) (2) the checking of those taxa as candidates for species-hood (‘justification’). The target here is a rational reconstruction of phase 1, beginning with a discussion of key terms. The transmission of ‘meaning’ is regarded as bimodal: definition states the intension of the term, and diagnosis provides a disjunction of criteria for recognition of its extension. The two are connected by (...) a spectrum, with purely theoretical definition at one pole and purely ‘operational’ diagnosis at the other, with the more operational elements explained by the more theoretical. The current plethora of species concepts provides a good example. Accepting the Ghiselin–Hull thesis, that a species is an individual, a basic taxon is therefore also an individual with organisms as its parts. In a generalised synchronic individual its parts are conceptually integrated by an integrating principle (IP), which consists of a relation applying within a plan or rule. Fully developed, such an IP ensures the maximisation of the information content of the individual. A diachronic individual is then the set of its component synchronic parts, and its IP is provided by near-identity in an appropriate space-time (not necessarily physical). The integration of parts of an individual is illuminated by Gasking's concept of a proper group (in this case a chain-group), whose members are related by the relation serially fitting together with, the IP completed by an appropriate plan or rule. Gasking also applied the term cluster to a proper group persisting over a substantial period of time, individuated by any member acting as focus. A basic taxon is therefore a cluster of individuals, integrated by the relation significantly taxonomically similar and the rule in character-space-time. The nature of those concepts is discussed and defended. A species will inherit certain of the attributes of the preceding basic taxon (taxa). In at least the synchronic version its parts (individuals) will resemble each other significantly, providing the intuitive applicability of ‘members of’ and ‘instances of’ a species. Also, the notion that a species’ name is given by pure ostension, via a name-bearer (holotype) is empirically incoherent: the name cannot be applied in practice without an appropriate set of diagnostic traits. (shrink)

At the interface of developmental biology and evolutionary biology, the very criteria of scientific knowledge are up for grabs. A central issue is the status of evolutionary genetics models, which some argue cannot coherently be used with complex gene regulatory network (GRN) models to explain the same evolutionary phenomena. Despite those claims, many researchers use evolutionary genetics models jointly with GRN models to study evolutionary phenomena. This dissertation compares two recent research projects in which researchers jointly use the two kinds (...) of models. I use methods from the empirical social sciences, such as digital corpus analysis, content analysis, and structured case analysis. I infer three primary conclusions about projects of the kind studied. First, they employ an implicit concept of gene that enables the joint use of both kinds of models. Second, they pursue more epistemic aims besides mechanistic explanation of phenomena. Third, they don’t work to create and export broad synthesized theories. Rather, they focus on phenomena too complex to be understood by a common general theory, they distinguish parts of the phenomena, and they apply models from different theories to the different parts. For such projects, seemingly incompatible models are synthesized largely through mediated representations of complex phenomena. (shrink)

At least three different issues are commonly referred to by the term “the species problem”: one concerns the necessary properties of species, a second the processes responsible for the existence of species, and a third methods for inferring species limits. Solutions have recently been proposed to the first two problems, which are conceptual in nature (the third is methodological). The first equates species with metapopulation lineages and proposes that existence as a separately evolving metapopulation lineage be considered the only necessary (...) property of species. The second views the species category as a cluster concept and proposes that no single process or set of processes be considered necessary for the existence of species. Although these two solutions have been portrayed as being in conflict, they are, in fact, highly compatible. Moreover, the proposals in question clarify the problem concerning methods for inferring the limits of species, which has for a long time been confused with the problem concerning the necessary properties of species. Together these proposals provide the opportunity for biology to move beyond debates about the definition of the species category and focus on estimating the boundaries and numbers of species as well as studying the diverse processes involved in their origin and persistence. BioEssays 27:1263–1269, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The current widespread belief that taxonomic methods used before Darwin were essentialist is ill-founded. The essentialist method developed by followers of Plato and Aristotle required definitions to state properties that are always present. Polythetic groups do not obey that requirement, whatever may have been the ontological beliefs of the taxonomist recognizing such groups. Two distinct methods of forming higher taxa, by chaining and by examplar, were widely used in the period between Linnaeus and Darwin, and both generated polythetic groups. Philosopher (...) William Whewell congratulated pre-Darwinian taxonomists for not adhering to the rigid ideal of definition used in the mathematical sciences. What he called the method of types is here called the method of exemplars because typology has been equated with essentialism, whereas the use of a type species as the reference point or prototype for a higher category was a practice inconsistent with essentialism. The story that the essentialism of philosophers dominated the development of systematics may prove to be a myth. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically those (...) involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

Catherine Elgin has recently argued that a nonfactive conception of understanding is required to accommodate the epistemic successes of science that make essential use of idealizations and models. In this paper, I argue that the fact that our best scientific models and theories are pervasively inaccurate representations can be made compatible with a more nuanced form of scientific realism that I call Understanding Realism. According to this view, science aims at (and often achieves) factive scientific understanding of natural phenomena. I (...) contend that this factive scientific understanding is provided by grasping a set of true modal information about the phenomenon of interest. Furthermore, contrary to Elgin’s view, I argue that the facticity of this kind of scientific understanding can be separated from the inaccuracy of the models and theories used to produce it. (shrink)

This is the second of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. In the first part, I focussed on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I consider the (...) creativity of natural selection to be a key component of what has traditionally counted as “Darwinism.” I argue that the creativity of natural selection is best understood in terms of selection initiating evolutionary change, and selection directing evolutionary change, for example by creating the variation that it subsequently acts upon. I consider the respects in which both of these claims sound non-Darwinian, even though they have long been understood by supporters and critics alike to be virtually constitutive of Darwinism. (shrink)

This article identifies several critical problems with the last 30 years of research into hostile communication on the internet and offers suggestions about how scholars might address these problems and better respond to an emergent and increasingly dominant form of online discourse which I call ‘e-bile’. Although e-bile is new in terms of its prevalence, rhetorical noxiousness, and stark misogyny, prototypes of this discourse—most commonly referred to as ‘flaming’—have always circulated on the internet, and, as such, have been discussed by (...) scholars from a range of disciplines. Nevertheless, my review of this vast body of literature reveals that online hostility has historically posed a number of conceptual, methodological, and epistemological challenges due to which scholars have typically underplayed, overlooked, ignored, or otherwise marginalised its prevalence and serious ethical and material ramifications. Fortunately, lessons learned from my analysis suggests promising approaches for future research into this challenging form of new media discourse. (shrink)