Hierarchical organization is an essential characteristic of living things. Although most biologists affirm the concept of living things as hierarchically organized structures, there are widespread differences of interpretation in the meaning of hierarchy and of how the concept of hierarchy applies to living things. One such basic difference involves the distinction between the concept of control hierarchy and classification hierarchy. It is suggested that control hierarchies are distinguished from classification hierarchies in that while the former involve authority relationships between levels, (...) the latter do not. This is illustrated in an analysis of proposed hierarchies of replicators and interactors.The analysis of levels of hierarchies and their relationships also brings up the part-whole problem. An authority relationship between levels implies that the whole has a determining influence on the parts that make up the whole, and that parts have no independent, meaningful existence apart from the whole. The concept of an authority relationship in a part-whole relationship introduces the question of the independence or sovereignty of the components of the subordinate levels in a hierarchically organized living thing. This problem is discussed along with an analysis of the rather novel theory of enkapsis proposed by H. Dooyeweerd, in which he distinguishes part-whole relationships from enkaptic relationships. (shrink)

Over the past fifteen years there has been a considerable amount of debate concerning what theoretical population dynamic models tell us about the nature of natural selection and drift. On the causal interpretation, these models describe the causes of population change. On the statistical interpretation, the models of population dynamics models specify statistical parameters that explain, predict, and quantify changes in population structure, without identifying the causes of those changes. Selection and drift are part of a statistical description of population (...) change; they are not discrete, apportionable causes. Our objective here is to provide a definitive statement of the statistical position, so as to allay some confusions in the current literature. We outline four commitments that are central to statisticalism. They are: 1. Natural Selection is a higher order effect; 2. Trait fitness is primitive; 3. Modern Synthesis (MS)-models are substrate neutral; 4. MS-selection and drift are model-relative. (shrink)

The first two sections of this paper investigate what Newton could have meant in a now famous passage from “De Graviatione” (hereafter “DeGrav”) that “space is as it were an emanative effect of God.” First it offers a careful examination of the four key passages within DeGrav that bear on this. The paper shows that the internal logic of Newton’s argument permits several interpretations. In doing so, the paper calls attention to a Spinozistic strain in Newton’s thought. Second it sketches (...) four interpretive options: (i) one approach is generic neo-Platonic; (ii) another approach is associated with the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More; a variant on this (ii*) emphasizes that Newton mixes Platonist and Epicurean themes; (iii) a necessitarian approach; (iv) an approach connected with Bacon’s efforts to reformulate a useful notion of form and laws of nature. Hitherto only the second and third options have received scholarly attention in scholarship on DeGrav. The paper offers new arguments to treat Newtonian emanation as a species of Baconian formal causation as articulated, especially, in the first few aphorisms of part two of Bacon’s New Organon. If we treat Newtonian emanation as a species of formal causation then the necessitarian reading can be combined with most of the Platonist elements that others have discerned in DeGrav, especially Newton’s commitment to doctrines of different degrees of reality as well as the manner in which the first existing being ‘transfers’ its qualities to space (as a kind of causa-sui). This can clarify the conceptual relationship between space and its formal cause in Newton as well as Newton’s commitment to the spatial extended-ness of all existing beings. While the first two sections of this paper engage with existing scholarly controversies, in the final section the paper argues that the recent focus on emanation has obscured the importance of Newton’s very interesting claims about existence and measurement in “DeGrav”. The paper argues that according to Newton God and other entities have the same kind of quantities of existence; Newton is concerned with how measurement clarifies the way of being of entities. Newton is not claiming that measurement reveals all aspects of an entity. But if we measure something then it exists as a magnitude in space and as a magnitude in time. This is why in DeGrav Newton’s conception of existence really helps to “lay truer foundations of the mechanical sciences.”. (shrink)

Continuously from the 1940s, Michael Polanyi comments on topics that have resonated later since the 1960s in the works of his fellow theorists of science, philosophers of natural sciences, and epistemologists. First part of this article provides a brief reconstruction of Polanyi’s concept of „personal knowledge“ which focuses mainly on the interconnection of the individual level of scientific research with its social dimension. My aim is to evaluate the potential of this concept for the interpretation of research fields where sciences (...) are in close contact with other disciplines. I am convinced that Polanyi’s original approach to the problem of reality should be read as an advocacy of diversity of thought. In my interpretation, Polanyi carries out some form of philosophical therapy of science and its self-concept, which, like the whole of Western society, has undergone dramatic changes over the last century. (shrink)

Recentemente, sulla rivista «Nature», i progressi empirici della teoria dell’evoluzione sono stati descritti nei termini di un confronto tra «riformisti», i quali auspicano una revisione dell’approccio neodarwiniano standard attraverso l’inclusione di fattori e processi fino ad ora trascurati, e «conservatori», secondo i quali l’attuale programma di ricerca evoluzionistico, basato sulla variazione genetica e sulla selezione naturale, «va bene così». Il dissidio, che concerne principalmente il problema del riduzionismo genetico, sembra non portare a nessun risultato. I riformisti mettono in luce dei (...) fattori molto importanti, ma paiono non portare ancora nessuna proposta coerente quanto alla struttura di questa versione estesa della teoria evoluzionistica a venire. I conservatori si mettono sulla difensiva, facendo affidamento soltanto su quelle aggiunte che non modificano il nucleo neodarwiniano quanto ai suoi tratti essenziali, mantenendolo ben saldo nei vecchi connotati. Analizziamo qui il suddetto dibattito, proponendone un’interpretazione. La biologia evoluzionistica è un campo di ricerche in rapida espansione. L’oggetto del contendere è la modalità di estendere e aggiornare il nucleo centrale dell’eredità darwiniana. La nostra ipotesi è che, nel campo della biologia evoluzionistica attuale, si stia producendo un avanzamento del programma di ricerca, la cui struttura è composta da una serie di pattern evolutivi integrabili e compatibili tra di loro. Nel corso della sua storia la biologia evoluzionistica si è infatti accresciuta tramite l’inclusione progressiva di modelli diversi, senza che questo significasse una revisione del nucleo della teoria. La «teoria gerarchica» di Niles Eldredge è un esempio di struttura globale che si propone come fine quello di incorporare e unificare i pattern evoluzionistici attualmente accettati. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

We argue that the concepts of `human equality' and `inequality' play an important role in the structure of science and philosophy. When the value of `human inequality' predominates, scientific categories are formed in accordance with the principle of `hierarchical differentiation' and concepts remain closely tied to the objects they are referring to. Following Mirowski we define this as the `anthropometric stage' of human thought and development. Contrary, Mirowski's `syndetic stage' refers to societies where the value of `human equality' prevails. Here (...) concepts appear that are universally applicable. However, because of their conventional nature these concepts cannot be `grasped' any longer by human intuition. Between the `anthropometric' and `syndetic' stages, a `lineamentric stage' appears, a period of transition from `human equality' to `human inequality'. Being both a bridge and gap between the two other stages, the `lineamentric' stage contains many contradictions between an `abstract attitude' and `concrete categories'. In this paper we examine the anthropometric, lineamentric and syndetic stages and discuss several examples taken from philosophy, logic, mathematics and physics. (shrink)

We are concerned with two modes of describing the dynamics of natural systems. Global descriptions require simultaneous global coordination of all dynamical operations. Global dynamics, including mechanics, remain invariant in the absence of external perturbation. But, failing impossible global coordination, dynamical operations could actually become coordinated only locally. In local records, as in global ones, the law of the excluded middle would be strictly observed, but without global coordination it could only be fullfilled sequentially by passing causative factors forward onto (...) subsequent contiguous operations.The local dynamics of sequential operations would be indefinite with regard to how commitments will be made which will avoid violating the law of the excluded middle, but any resulting record will be as definite as if there had been global coordination. While maintaining an agential capacity for making contingent choices internally, local dynamics could be cumulated into a global record of seemingly simultaneous operations. Natural selection within a framework of local dynamics would have a capacity for making opportunistic commitments, but its effects in a posterior record can be reduced to the mechanistic neodarwinian version as if there had been a global dynamics. However, the resulting global description falsifies the actual material nature of the dynamics. (shrink)

Ecology has had a lower profile in Biology & Philosophy than one might expect on the basis of the attention ecology is given in public discussions in relation to environmental issues. Our tentative explanation is that ecology appears theoretically redundant within biology and, consequently, philosophically challenging problemsrelated to biology are commonly supposed to be somewhere else, particularly in the molecular sphere. Richard Levins has recognized the genuine challenges posed by ecology for theoretical and philosophical thinking in biology. This essay sets (...) the stage for appreciating his work; it was preceded by four articles published in Biology & Philosophy 15(2),and is followed by a personal reminiscent. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that thewestern view of humanity's place in nature isdominated by a dualistic opposition between nature andculture. Historically this has arisen fromexternalization of nature in both productive andcognitive practices; instances of such externalizationhave become generalized. I think the dualism can bedecomposed by identifying dominant elements in eachparticular instantiation and showing that their strictseparation evaporates under close scrutiny. The philosophical challenge this perspective presents isto substitute concrete socioecological analysis forfoundational metaphysics. A review of majorinterpretations of the history of (...) the dualism inWestern thought indicates that the legacy is moremultistranded than is usually admitted. Modern scienceis often assumed to lie squarely within the dualism,but this is unfounded. In contrast, science providestools for contextual analysis on how human activitiesand natural processes merge. The dualism thusevaporates in actual research practice. Nevertheless,the foundational metaphysics needs to be challenged,primarily because of its paralyzing effect onenvironmental philosophy. (shrink)

Research in animal behavior begins by identifying what animals are doing. In the course of observation, the observer comes to see animals as performing a particular activity. How does this process work? How cn we be certain that behavior is identified correctly? Wittgenstein offers an approach to these questions. looking at the uses of certainly rather than attempting to find rules that guarantee it. Here two stages in research are distinguished: first, watching animals, and second, reporting the results to other (...) scientists. Certainly about what animals are doing, has different uses at each stage. (shrink)

Developments in genetic engineering may soon allow biologists to clone organisms from extinct species. The process, dubbed “de-extinction,” has been publicized as a means to bring extinct species back to life. For theorists and philosophers of biology, the process also suggests a thought experiment for the ongoing “species problem”: given a species concept, would a clone be classified in the extinct species? Previous analyses have answered this question in the context of specific de-extinction technologies or particular species concepts. The thought (...) experiment is given more comprehensive treatment here. Given the products of three de-extinction technologies, twenty-two species concepts are “tested” to see which are consistent with the idea that species may be resurrected. The ensuing discussion considers whether or not de-extinction is a conceptually coherent research program and, if so, whether or not its development may contribute to a resolution of the species problem. Ultimately, theorists must face a choice: they may revise their commitments to species concepts or they may recognize de-extinction as a means to make progress in the species problem. (shrink)

Grene's Two Evolutionary Theories (1958), a philosophical analysis of the nature of scientific disputes, itself contributed directly to discourse in evolutionary theory. I conclude that Grene's descriptions of two rival theories of evolutionary paleontologists — those of George Gaylord Simpson, who stressed traditional Darwinian continuity, and of Otto Schindewolf, who stressed discontinuity in paleontological data — were entirely accurate. But I further argue that both Simpson, as well as Mayr and Dobzhansky, had incorporated notions of discontinuity into their earlier work, (...) but later removed, or at least de-emphasized discontinuity, in their later work. Grene's analysis, published in the year of the Darwinian centennial, was initially treated as a provocative sore point. The paper kept the issue of discontinuity alive in evolutionary theory, and directly influenced work in the 1960s and 1970s, which restored and further elaborated on the significance of discontinuity in evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This paper explains the metaphysical implications of the view that species are individuals (SAI). I first clarify SAI in light of the separate distinctions between individuals and classes, particulars and universals, and abstract and concrete things. I then show why the standard arguments given in defense of SAI are not compelling. Nonetheless, the ontological status of species is linked to the traditional "species problem," in that certain species concepts do entail that species are individuals. I develop the idea that species (...) names are rigid designators and show how this provides additional motivation for SAI. (shrink)

Our goal in this article is first to give a broad outline of some of Hume’s major positions to do with justice, sympathy, the common point of view, criticisms of social contract theory, convention and private property that continue to resonate in contemporary political philosophy. We follow this with an account of Hume’s influence on contemporary philosophy in the conservative, classical liberal, utilitarian, and Rawlsian traditions. We end with some reflections on how contemporary political philosophers would benefit from a more (...) explicit consideration of Hume. (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)

According to the standard and largely traditional interpretation, Aristotle’s conception of nous, at least as it occurs in the Posterior Analytics, is geared against a certain set of skeptical worries about the possibility of scientific knowledge, and ultimately of the knowledge of Aristotelian first principles. On this view, Aristotle introduces nous as an intuitive faculty that grasps the first principles once and for all as true in such a way that it does not leave any room for the skeptic to (...) press his skeptical point any further. Thus the tradi- tional interpretation views Aristotelian nous as having an internalist justificatory role in Aristotelian epistemology. In contrast, a minority (empiricist) view that has emerged recently holds the same internalist justificatory view of nous but rejects its internally certifiable infallibility by stressing the connection between nous and Aristotelian induction. I argue that both approaches are flawed in that Aristotle’s project in the Posterior Analytics is not to answer the skeptic on internalist justificatory grounds, but rather lay out a largely externalist explication of scientific knowledge, i.e. what scientific knowledge consists in, without worrying as to whether we can ever show the skeptic to his satisfaction that we do ever possess knowledge so defined. (shrink)

This paper examines Descartes's third primary notion and the distinction between different kinds of knowledge based on different and mutually irreducible primary notions. It discusses the application of the notions of clearness and distinctness to the domain of knowledge based on that of mind-body union. It argues that the consequences of the distinctions Descartes is making with regard to our knowledge of the human mind and nature are rather different from those that have been attributed to Descartes due to the (...) influential Rylean picture of Cartesian mind-body dualism. (shrink)

My dissertation has two main parts. In the first half, I draw out an underlying presupposition of Descartes' philosophy: what I term "atomism of thought." Descartes employs a radical procedure of doubt in order to show that the first principle of his philosophy, the cogito, is an unshakeable foundation of knowledge. In the dialogue that follows his dissemination of the Meditations, Descartes reveals that a whole set of concepts and rational principles innate in our minds are never doubted. These fundamental (...) units of thought are indivisible, distinct, and isolated, and enable the possibility of any rational demonstration. Atoms of thought are perfectly individuated because God has created them as such. Likewise, our minds have been fashioned such that we necessarily have a clear and distinct perception every time we alight upon these simple notions. In the second part of the dissertation, I take up critiques of Descartes' view given by Nietzsche and Heidegger. In the chapter on Nietzsche, I attempt to fill a lacuna in scholarship about Nietzsche's commentary on Descartes. More specifically, I argue that once the foundation of God is displaced, the basis for accepting atomism of thought dissolves. In the final chapter, I analyze Heidegger's critique of Cartesian atomism. I first look at Heidegger's critique of classical truth as correspondence from Being and Time, and show how it is relevant to a critique of atomism. Then I show how the early Heidegger's holistic philosophical framework can provide an alternative that avoids the pitfalls of atomism. While I limit the scope of my analysis to Descartes' particular formulation, atomism of thought was an influential doctrine throughout modern philosophy. This aspect of Cartesianism has persisted and continues to be a significant theoretical underpinning of many contemporary views. It is my contention that Nietzsche and Heidegger have important contributions to make to this area of thought, and the relative neglect of their work in recent scholarship is a detrimental oversight. (shrink)

Philosophical biologists have attempted to define the distinction between life and non-life to more adequately define what it is to be human. They are reacting against idealism, but idealism is their point of departure, and they have embraced the reaction by idealists against the mechanistic notion of humans developed by the scientific materialists. Theoretical biologists also have attempted to develop a more adequate conception of life, but their point of departure has been within science itself. In their case, it has (...) involved efforts to overcome the reductionism of scientific materialism to develop a form of science able to identify and explain the distinctive characteristics of living beings. So, while both philosophical biologists and theoretical biologists are struggling to overcome scientific materialism, they are approaching the question: What is Life? from different directions. Focussing on the work of Robert Rosen, I will try to show what revisions in our understanding of science theoretical biologists need to accept in order to do justice to the insights of the philosophical biologists. I will suggest that not only will this involve major revisions in what we understand science to be, but that scientists must accept that science is indissociable from natural philosophy, and that to properly comprehend life mathematics must ultimately be subordinated to stories. (shrink)

Exceptions are often cited as a counterargument against formal causation. Against this I argue that Aristotle explicitly allows for exceptions to essences in his biological writings, and that he has a means of explaining them through formal causation – though this means that he has to slightly elaborate on his general case theory from the Posterior Analytics, by supplementing it with a special case application in the biological writings. Specifically for Aristotle an essential predication need not be a universal predication. (...) Rather an essential predication is where a property belongs essentially to a species or genus. This essential predication serves a causal and explanatory role, and is not dependent on a corresponding universal predication. (shrink)

This paper considers whether elements of T 1.2 Of the Ideas of Space and Time in Hume’s Treatise is inconsistent with skepticism regarding the external world in T 1.4.2 Of Scepticism with regard to the Senses. This apparent tension vexes commentators, and efforts to resolve it drives the recent scholarship on this section of Hume’s Treatise. To highlight this tension I juxtapose Hume’s “Adequacy Principle” with what I call his “skeptical causal argument” in T 1.4.2. The Adequacy Principle appears to (...) state that we can form conclusions about objects through the comparison of our ideas of them, while Hume’s skeptical causal argument asserts that we cannot form any conclusions about objects using ideas. Is Hume being inconsistent? I argue that he is not. My paper has three parts. First, I give a general reading of the Adequacy Principle in light of Hume’s peculiar claim that it is “the foundation of all human knowledge.” I then explain why the Adequacy Principle itself is not inconsistent with Hume’s skeptical causal argument by explaining how the term “object” should not be strictly read as “external” object but merely the “the object of inquiry” or even “the matter under consideration.” Second, I sketch Hume’s employment of the Adequacy Principle in his Divisibility Argument, explaining how this is also not at odds with his skeptical causal argument. In the third and final part I explore various interpretations in the literature and consider whether “finite extensions” need necessarily be read as external objects. (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)

This article aims to clarify how aspects of current chemical understanding relate to some important contemporary problems of philosophy. The first section points out that the long-running philosophical debates concerning how properties stay together in substances have neglected the important topic of structure-determining closure. The second part describes several chemically-important types of closure and the third part shows how such closures ground the properties of chemical substances. The fourth section introduces current discussions of structural realism (SR) and contextual emergence: the (...) final sections reconsider the coherence of the properties of substances and concludes that recognition that structures qualify as determinants of specific outcomes—as ‘causes’ as that designation is used in Standard English—clarifies how properties stay together in chemical entities, and by analogy, how characteristics cohere in ordinary items. (shrink)

This chapter examines the mechanistic psychology of Descartes in the _Passions_, while also drawing on the _Treatise on Man_. It develops the idea of a Cartesian “psychology” that relies on purely bodily mechanisms by showing that he explained some behaviorally appropriate responses through bodily mechanisms alone and that he envisioned the tailoring of such responses to environmental circumstances through a purely corporeal “memory.” An animal’s adjustment of behavior as caused by recurring patterns of sensory stimulation falls under the notion of (...) “learning,” behavioristically conceived. Indeed, Descartes’s animal-machine hypothesis may well be a distant ancestor to Watsonian behaviorism, via T. H. Huxley (1884). The final two sections of the chapter take stock of what psychological capacities Descartes ascribed to mind, body, or both, and consider those capacities that we might now plausibly construe as being explicable by nonmentalistic mechanisms as opposed to those that at present remain unreducedly mentalistic. -/- This chapter derives from a lecture delivered at the University of King's College (Halifax, Nova Scotia) as part of a year-long series on Descartes and the Modern. The lecture series was co-sponsored by the programs in History of Science and Early Modern and Contemporary Studies. (shrink)

By the 1960s many, perhaps most, philosophers had adopted 'physicalism' – the view that physical causes fully account for mental activities. However, controversy persists about what counts as 'physical causes'. 'Reductive' physicalists recognize only microphysical (elementary-particle-level) causality. Many, perhaps most, physicalists are 'non-reductive' – they hold that entities considered by other 'special' sciences have causal powers. Philosophy of chemistry can help resolve main issues in philosophy of mind in three ways: developing an extended mereology applicable to chemical combination; testing whether (...) 'singularities' prevent reduction of chemistry to microphysics; and demonstrating 'downward causation' in complex networks of chemical reactions. (shrink)

This chapter considers philosophical problems concerning non-human (and sometimes human) animals, including their metaphysical, physical, and moral status, their origin, what makes them alive, their functional organization, and the basis of their sensitive and cognitive capacities. I proceed by assuming what most of Descartes’s followers and interpreters have held: that Descartes proposed that animals lack sentience, feeling, and genuinely cognitive representations of things. (Some scholars interpret Descartes differently, denying that he excluded sentience, feeling, and representation from animals, and I consider (...) the evidence for these interpretations as well.) Given that Descartes denied any sort of soul to animals, his other philosophical commitments entailed that he must explain the vital and sensitive powers of non-human animals through purely material causes. Indeed, he welcomed this task, for he was engaged in the larger project of providing purely mechanistic explanations for all natural phenomena of the material world. Animal bodies form functional unities that are adapted to environmental circumstances. In his new physics, Descartes sought to discover or hypothesize material mechanisms that would explain the physiological and behavioral capacities of animals, including how they maintain themselves by seeking food and drink, reproduce themselves, and modify their behavior to fit current circumstances. Metaphysically, his new perspective raised the problem of accounting for the functional unity of the animal body considered as a purely material construction, devoid of an active, organizing power such as the sensitive soul. Descartes’s project becomes even more challenging if we ask whence come such mechanisms that are capable of performing the functions of living things. Officially, Descartes endorsed the accepted theological orthodoxy, that God designed and created the bodily mechanisms of humans and animals. However, in his natural philosophy he set himself the task of explaining the origin of animals as part of the natural development of the universe out of an original chaotic soup of material particles. Within this naturalistic perspective, he must explain how, through purely material processes, the functionally organized bodies of living things (plants and animals) could be produced from non-living matter. Without a designing creator, how do animal bodies arise that are capable of digesting food, growing, reproducing, and performing the behaviors needed to preserve life and health? (shrink)

Philosophers have long debated ‘substrate’ and ‘bundle’ theories as to how properties hold together in objects ― but have neglected to consider that every chemical entity is defined by closure of relationships among components ― here designated ‘Closure Louis de Broglie.’ That type of closure underlies the coherence of spectroscopic and chemical properties of chemical substances, and is importantly implicated in the stability and definition of entities of many other types, including those usually involved in philosophic discourse ― such as (...) roses, statues, and tennis balls. Characteristics of composites are often presumed to ‘supervene on’ properties of components. This assumption does not apply when cooperative interactions among components are significant. Once correlations dominate, then adequate descriptions must involve different entities and relationships than those that are involved in ‘fundamental-level’ description of similar but uncorrelated systems. That is to say, descriptions must involve different semantics than would be appropriate if cooperative interactions were insignificant. This is termed ‘Closure Henri Poincaré. Networks of chemical reactions that have certain types of closure of processes display properties that make other more-complex coherences possible. This is termed ‘Closure Jacques Cauvin.’ Each of these three modes of closure provides a sufficient basis for warranted recognition of causal interaction, thus each of them has epistemological significance. Other modes of epistemologically-important closure probably exist. It is important to recognize that causal efficacy generally depends on closure of relationships of constituents. (shrink)

Recent debates between proponents of the modern evolutionary synthesis (the standard model in evolutionary biology) and those of a possible extended synthesis are a good example of the fascinating tangle among empirical, theoretical, and conceptual or philosophical matters that is the practice of evolutionary biology. In this essay, we briefly discuss two case studies from this debate, highlighting the relevance of philosophical thinking to evolutionary biologists in the hope of spurring further constructive cross-pollination between the two fields.

The focus of this article is René Descartes’ bold claim that his method as presented in the Discourse on Method, will revolutionize science as well as philosophy. The author of this article reviews each chapter of the Discourse trying to establish what exactly Descartes had in mind and if he delivered what he had promised. The findings of the article are disappointing. Descartes skillfully uses rhetorical techniques to win his audience and to gain publicity, yet in fact he proposes no (...) more than just four rules of conducting research inserted in chapter II. The remaining five chapters are either loosely connected with the main theme (chapters I and IV) or are entirely off the topic (chapters III, V and VI). Chapter IV, probably the most famous in the Discourse because of its cogito ergo sum principle, also has little in common with Descartes’ pledge. The author concludes that if there is anything worthy in the Discourse, it is its adolescent boldness and challenge to the establishment of Descartes’ time. If, however, we take his Discourse at face value, then we must conclude that Descartes fails to fulfill his promise and engages mainly in self-promotion. (shrink)

Die im Beitrag behandelte Frage, ob sich die organische Natur des Menschen sowie seine Gesundheits- und Krankheitszustände naturalistisch auffassen lassen, erscheint zunächst irritierend. Ist nicht der Mensch als Säugetier ein natürliches Phänomen par excellence? Wie alle anderen Tiere kann der Mensch gesund oder krank sein, weil er einen Körper hat, dessen vielfältige biologische Funktionen störungsanfällig sind. Was sollte es hier noch zu naturalisieren geben? Integrieren sich Organismus, Gesundheit und Krankheit nicht gleichsam von selbst in ein naturwissenschaftliches Weltbild? Die zu klärende (...) Frage ist, welche begrifflichen und theoretischen Mittel den biologischen Naturalismus in die Lage versetzen, Organismen zu individuieren und Gesundheits- und Krankheitszustände an ihnen zu unterscheiden. In der Philosophie der Biologie wird weithin die Auffassung vertreten, dass der Begriff der Funktion hier die zentrale Rolle spielt. Steht nun die Reichweite und Erklärungskraft eines naturalistischen Verständnisses der genannten Phänomene zur Debatte, so muß die zentrale Frage lauten, ob der Funktionsbegriff innerbiologisch definierbar und also naturalistisch akzeptabel ist. (...) . (shrink)