In this paper, I argue that ‘art’, though an open concept, is not undefinable. I propose a particular kind of definition, a disjunctive definition, which comprises extant theories of art. I co-opt arguments from the philosophy of science, likening the concept ‘art’ to the concept ‘species’, to argue that we ought to be theoretical pluralists about art. That is, there are a number of legitimate, perhaps incompatible, criteria for a theory of art. In this paper, I consider three: functionalist definitions, (...) procedural definitions, and an intentional-historical definition. The motivation for this pluralism comes from an analysis of practice, because the term is of apparent value to practitioners. However, a closer analysis of the concept reveals that, while disjunctive definitions help us to understand how we use certain terms, they lack ontological import. In sum, I attempt to glean lessons from the philosophy of science about the philosophy of art. If my analysis is correct, we ought to be eliminative pluralists about art as a concept. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to re-think the question of the world of persons with schizophrenia from the perspective of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler and that of the Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura. So far, no comparison between these two authors has been made, even though there are several convergences and evidence of Scheler’s indirect influence on Bin Kimura through Viktor von Weizsäcker. In recent years, Dan Zahavi, Louis Sass, and Josef Parnas have interpreted the modus vivendi of schizophrenic patients (...) in relation to a disturbance on the level of the “minimal self”. Subsequently, the discussion has highlighted the importance of disorders on the level of intercorporeality and intersubjectivity (Thomas Fuchs) and on the level of “existential feelings” (Matthew Ratcliffe). This paper argues that Max Scheler and Bin Kimura allow us to focus on an aspect which has been neglected so far: that of a “relational self” that relates to the very foundation of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality and that can thus be reborn in the encounter with the other and may position itself differently in the world. In Scheler’s perspective, the world of persons with schizophrenia is the result of an axiological disorder (valueception) that impairs contact with the primordial life impulse (Lebensdrang). As a consequence, they are incapable of attuning emotionally and socially with others: this prevents the singularity from being reborn in the encounter with the other and forces them to position themselves in their own solipsistic universe. Moving in a similar direction, Bin Kimura interprets the world of persons with schizophrenia as the result of a disorder of aida (one of the central concepts of Japanese culture that indicates the space of being in between). The disorder of aida compromises the basic relationship (Grundverhältnis in the sense of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and hinders what Bin Kimura calls festum, i.e. the birth of subjectivity, so that it is experienced by persons with schizophrenia only as ante festum. Starting from these two perspectives, I argue the existence of an axiological and anthropogenetic dimension of psychopathology. I begin with a discussion of Zahavi’s concept of minimal self and the thesis that reveals the disorders on this level of subjectivity as the origin of the world of persons with schizophrenia. I, then, analyze Max Scheler’s position and its historic importance for the emergence of phenomenological psychopathology. Thereafter, I introduce the concepts of “disorder of aida” (Bin Kimura) and “disorder of ordo amoris” (Max Scheler). Finally, I develop the concept of a “psychopathology of ordo amoris” by also comparing it with Ratcliffe’s thesis of “existential feelings”. (shrink)

Se ha impuesto la imagen del código de barras para hacer referencia a una secuencia de ADN mitocondrial que es utilizada para medir la distancia genética entre poblaciones animales. Según la interpretación esencialista de esta analogía, este método de medición serviría, por sí mismo, no solo para la rápida identificación de ejemplares, o muestras fragmentarias, de especies previamente clasificadas, sino también para el descubrimiento de nuevas especies. Los taxónomos integrativos han rechazado este último uso del método del código de barras (...) de ADN, dado que la complejidad biológica impide aplicarlo con precisión en eventos de especiación recientes. Argumentaré, sin embargo, que el método falla por razones conceptuales y no meramente empíricas. Aunque no existiera ese impedimento empírico, el código de barras de ADN no podría ser un método de descubrimiento de especies. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I address the question of how to construct scientific theories of emotions that are both conceptually sound and empirically fruitful. To do this, I offer an analysis of the main challenges scientific theories of emotions face, and I propose a meta-theoretical framework to construct scientific concepts of emotions as explications of folk emotion concepts. Part I discusses the main challenges theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience encounter. The first states that a proper scientific theory of emotions (...) must explain all and only the phenomena under the vernacular term ‘emotion’ with a common set of conceptual resources and under an overarching generic concept of emotion. The second demands that each emotion category corresponds to well-coordinated sets of neural, physiological, and behavioral patterns of responses. I argue that none of the best contemporary theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience overcomes these challenges. As a result, a new theory of emotions is required. In Part II, I develop the meta-theoretical framework to construct a theory of emotions that overcomes the challenges above. First, I propose a pluralistic account of scientific kinds based on different patterns of projection that various disciplines may take to justify inductive inferences. These are essentialist, historical, and social patterns. Each of these patterns provides a framework to construct different types of scientific concepts. I argue that among the frameworks for scientific kinds available, the one that is best suited to explicate emotion concepts is a functional framework. Consequently, I conclude by recommending scientists pursue functionalist theories of emotions over essentialist, historical, or social theories. (shrink)

The standard perception of the dichotomy between population thinking and essentialism (typological thinking) in evolutionary economics descends from the golden age of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis. Over the last few decades the received view on population thinking has been seriously challenged in biology and its philosophy. First, the strong version of population thinking that banishes essentialism witnessed important tensions stemming from the ontological status of species. These tensions have been amplified by the demise of positivism and the rise of a new (...) essentialism in philosophy of science. Second, the soft version that transforms the opposition between population thinking and essentialism to the dichotomy between ultimate and proximate causation has led to contradictory interpretations regarding the locus of ultimate causes. Taking stock of the previous discussion the paper addresses the limits to population thinking in the socio-economic realm. The upshot is that without denying the important achievements made by the application of population thinking in sub-disciplines like industrial dynamics and economic anthropology, the idea to generalize these applications into the whole socio-economic realm is problematic. The aforementioned achievements cannot come to grips with the structural aspects of capitalism, its different periods (e.g. the contemporary finance-led capitalism) and its geographical varieties. The resulting gap points to the importance of structural analysis (essentialism) and evolutionary political economy. The latter is distinguished from the rest of evolutionary economics by its project to go beyond the surface of economic phenomena and to critically analyze their underlying social structures. (shrink)

The Central Dogma of molecular biology, which holds that DNA makes protein and not the other way around, is as influential as it is controversial. Some believe the Dogma has outlived its usefulness, either because it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis (Griffiths and Stotz, 2013; Stotz, 2006), because it turns on a confused notion of information (Sarkar, 2004), or because it problematically assumes the unidirectional flow of information from DNA to protein (Gottlieb, 2001). This paper evaluates (...) an underexplored defense of the Dogma, which relies on the assumption that the Dogma and the Inheritance of Acquired Traits, a principle which dates as far back as Jean Baptiste-Lamarck, are incompatible principles (Smith, 1993; Judson, 1979; Dawkins, 1970; Cobb, 2017; Wilkins, 2002; Graur, 2018). By appealing to empirical evidence in molecular science, I argue that this apparent incompatibility is indeed merely apparent. I conclude by briefly demonstrating how these considerations bear on the topic of conceptual pluralism in the philosophy of science (Stencel and Proszewska, 2018; Lu and Bourrat, 2018). (shrink)

In this dissertation, I present a novel account of the components that have a peculiar epistemic role in our scientific inquiries, since they contribute to establishing a form of coordination. The issue of coordination is a classic epistemic problem concerning how we justify our use of abstract conceptual tools to represent concrete phenomena. For instance, how could we get to represent universal gravitation as a mathematical formula or temperature by means of a numerical scale? This problem is particularly pressing when (...) justification for using these abstract tools comes, in part or entirely, from knowledge which is not independent from them, thus leading to threats of circularity. Achieving coordination between some abstract conceptual tools and the concrete phenomena that they are supposed to represent is usually a complex process, which involves several epistemic components. Some of these components eventually provide stable conditions for applying those abstract representations to concrete phenomena. It is in this sense of providing certain conditions of applicability that different philosophical traditions, as well as some contemporary reappraisals, view these components as constitutive or a priori. In this work, I present a new gradualist, contextualist, and relational approach to understand these constitutive components of scientific inquiry. It is gradualist inasmuch as the degree to which some component is constitutive depends on three quantifiable features: quasi-axiomaticity, generative potential, and empirical shielding. Since the quantification of these three features impinges on the history and practice of using these components in a scientific context, my approach is a contextualist one. Finally, my approach is relational in a double sense: first, it identifies ordinal relationships among epistemic components with respect to their constitutive character; second, these relationships are relative to a scientific framework of inquiry. After introducing my account and a classic example of constitutively a priori principles, i.e., Friedman’s (2001) analysis of Newtonian mechanics, I turn to my own case studies to demonstrate the advantages of my approach. Firstly, I discuss Okasha’s (2018) view of endogenization as a pervasive theoretical strategy in evolutionary biology and suggest that the constitutive character of the core Darwinian principles progressively increases with endogenization. Secondly, I apply a conceptual distinction between two varieties or scopes of coordination – general coordination and coordination in measurement – to Ohm’s work on electrical conductivity. This distinction allows me to pinpoint to what extent components along different dimensions (e.g., instrumentation, measurement, theorising, etc.) were constitutive of the forms of coordination which Ohm relied on. Thirdly, I discuss the epistemic function of the Hardy-Weinberg principle in the history and practice of population genetics. I assess this principle in terms of my account and identify approximation and stability as two components that are highly constitutive, in that they contribute to justifying its use in population genetics. Finally, applying my account to these case studies enables me to identify at least three qualitatively different types of constitutive components: domain-specific theoretical principles, material components, and domain-independent assumptions underlying reasoning abilities. In the light of my results, I draw some general conclusions on epistemic justification and scientific knowledge. (shrink)

An important center in which genetic research started and was carried out in Brazil during the 20thcentury was situated at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Linguistics of the University of São Paulo, led by André Dreyfus (1897–1952). Beginning in 1943, the Ukrainian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) visited Dreyfus’s group four times. This paper evaluates the impact of Dobzhansky’s visits on the studies of genetics and evolution developed by the members of Dreyfus’s group during the 1940s and the 1950s. The (...) study leads to the conclusion that Dobzhansky’s visits had an impact, not only in quantitative terms (the number of individual and joint publications), but also in qualitative terms. However, we also detect a decrease in the number of individual and joint publications related to the subject of the project during certain periods. The adoption of new experimental organisms by some members of the group; the involvement with subjects not related to the initial project, such as botany; Dobzhansky’s and his wife’s health problems during the third visit; and scientific disagreements between Dobzhansky and Brazilian researchers may have contributed to the decrease in publications. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr argued that the emergence of biology as a special science in the early nineteenth century was possible due to the demise of the mathematical model of science and its insistence on demonstrative knowledge. More recently, John Zammito has claimed that the rise of biology as a special science was due to a distinctive experimental, anti-metaphysical, anti-mathematical, and anti-rationalist strand of thought coming from outside of Germany. In this paper we argue that this narrative neglects the important role played (...) by the mathematical and axiomatic model of science in the emergence of biology as a special science. We show that several major actors involved in the emergence of biology as a science in Germany were working with an axiomatic conception of science that goes back at least to Aristotle and was popular in mid-eighteenth-century German academic circles due to its endorsement by Christian Wolff. More specifically, we show that at least two major contributors to the emergence of biology in Germany—Caspar Friedrich Wolff and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus—sought to provide a conception of the new science of life that satisfies the criteria of a traditional axiomatic ideal of science. Both C.F. Wolff and Treviranus took over strong commitments to the axiomatic model of science from major philosophers of their time, Christian Wolff and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, respectively. The ideal of biology as an axiomatic science with specific biological fundamental concepts and principles thus played a role in the emergence of biology as a special science. (shrink)

Research on animal behavior is typically organized according to a combination of two influential frameworks: Ernst Mayr’s distinction between proximate and ultimate causes, and Niko Tinbergen’s “four questions”. My aim is to debunk two common interpretive misconceptions about Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction and its relationship to Tinbergen’s four questions, and to offer a new interpretation that avoids both. The first misconception is that the proximate–ultimate distinction maps cleanly onto Tinbergen’s four questions, marking a boundary between Tinbergen’s evolutionary and survival value questions (...) versus developmental and mechanistic questions. The second is that Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to rule out the relevance of proximate causes to evolutionary explanations. I argue that neither is plausible given the text and Mayr’s philosophical aims, namely, to argue that evolutionary biology cannot be reduced to either the physical sciences or to other areas of biology. Through a reconstruction of Mayr’s anti-reductionist argument, I develop an interpretation according to which the proximate–ultimate distinction marks two ways that teleological reasoning can be naturalistically grounded in biology, corresponding to Mayr’s distinction between teleonomic and adapted systems. Mayr distinguishes reduction, which the proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to block, from analysis, through which he allows that proximate causes, causes that are neither proximate nor ultimate, and chance can all contribute to evolutionary explanations. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which the interpretation defended here reframes our understanding of Mayr’s disagreements with some evolutionary-developmental biologists. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, network-focused approaches have become highly popular in diverse fields of biology, including neuroscience, ecology, molecular biology and genetics. While the network approach continues to grow very rapidly, some of its conceptual and methodological aspects still require a programmatic foundation. This challenge particularly concerns the question of whether a generalized account of explanatory, organisational and descriptive levels of networks can be applied universally across biological sciences. Consequently, the central focus of this theme issue will be on (...) the definition, motivation and application of key concepts in biological network science, such as levels, hierarchies, and explanatory directionality. A unification will be achieved by formulating norms for delimiting the distinctively network-topological class of explanations that connect general as well as very specific biological research questions. The impact of this theme issue is broad and encompassing, as it is highly interdisciplinary and opens a uniquely normative perspective on the foundational aspects of network-based explanations and modelling. This theme issue is intended to become a landmark publication for practical research as well as funding policy decisions, by unifying network approaches in biological sciences in terms of fundamental concepts and informing the public understanding of the network science. (shrink)

In a near-future world of bionics and biotechnology, the main ethical and political issue will be the definition of who we are. Could biomedical enhancements transform us to such an extent that we would be other than human? Habermas argues that any genetic enhancement intervention that could potentially alter ‘human nature’ should be morally prohibited since it alters the child’s nature or the very essence that makes the child who he is. This practice also commits the child to a specific (...) life project or, in any case, it puts specific restrictions on his freedom to choose a life of his own. Ultimately, genetic enhancement jeopardizes the very foundations of moral equality. I contend that Habermas’ argument is based either on a series of presuppositions that imply a gross misunderstanding of evolution or the relevant factual information cocerning the action we are about to morally assess is not empirically supported. Hence, the argument from human nature is based on a series of false or problematic assumptions, and, as such, it fails to play the normative role intended by Habermas. (shrink)

In philosophy of science, the literature on abduction and the literature on styles of thinking have existed almost totally in parallel. Here, for the first time, we bring them together and explore their mutual relevance. What is the consequence of the existence of several styles of scientific thinking for abduction? Can abduction, as a general creative mode of inference, have distinct characteristic forms within each style? To investigate this, firstly, we present the concept of abduction; secondly we analyze what is (...) understood by styles of thinking; thirdly, we give some comments on abduction and styles of thinking by analyzing examples of scientific discovery or innovation within each style. We develop a case-based comparative investigation of creative aspects of abductive reasoning with examples drawn from different styles of scientific thinking and doing as understood by the Crombie/hacking tradition. We argue that abduction, as a general mode of reasoning, can have a variety of specific expressions enabled and constrained by the styles of scientific thinking. Finally, we draw some conclusions on the relationship between abduction and styles of thinking suggesting that scientific discovery is a dynamical goal-directed activity within the scientific community that benefits from distinct styles of thinking and doing research. (shrink)

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come apart. I argue that the falsity of a theory does not automatically make it unfit for being taught. There are several good reasons for teaching (...) false theories in school science. These are false theories can bring about genuine understanding of the world; teaching some false theories from the history of science that line up with children’s ideas can provide students “intellectual empathy” and also aid in better grasp of concepts; teaching false theories from the history of science can sharpen students’ understanding of the nature of science; scientists routinely use false theories and models in their practice and it is good sense for science education to mirror scientific practice; and learning about patently non-scientific and antiscientific ideas will prepare students to face and respond to them. In making arguments for the foregoing five points, I draw upon the work of a variety of philosophers and historians of science, cognitive scientists, science education scholars, and scientists. My goal here is not only to justify theories considered false already being taught, but also to actively endorse the teaching of some theories considered false that are by and large not currently taught. (shrink)

Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and (...) the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology. (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)

Quinn offered seven definitions of “cladist” and discussed the context in which they are used in relation to historical and current debates in systematics. As a member of her study taxon, I offer some contextual color commentary, clarifications on the views of “pattern cladists” regarding monophyly, ancestors, synapomorphy and other concepts, a definition of “syncretist”, and some thoughts on cladistics and philosophy in the twenty first century.

This thesis aims to propose and defend a new way of analysing and understanding the origin of genetics (from Mendel to Bateson). Traditionally philosophers used to analyse the history of genetics in terms of theories. However, I will argue that this theory-based approach is highly problematic. In Chapter 1, I shall critically review the theory-driven approach to analysisng the history of genetics and diagnose its problems. In Chapter 2, inspired by Kuhn’s concept “exemplar”, I shall make a new interpretation of (...) exemplar and introduce an exemplar-based approach. Before introducing my exemplar-based analysis, I find it necessary to scrutinise the origin of genetics from Mendel to Bateson. In Chapter 3, I shall reinterpret Mendel’s work on Pisum by re-examining Mendel’s paper (1865) and its historical research context. In Chapter 4, by carefully examining the conceptual changes, I argue that the rediscovery event in 1900 should be better characterised as attempts of incorporating Mendel’s work with the work of “rediscoverers” (i.e. de Vries, Correns, Tschermak, and Bateson) rather than a mere reintroduction to Mendel’s work. In Chapter 5, I shall use the exemplar-based approach to analysing and interpreting the origin of genetics from Mendel to Bateson. In Chapter 6, I shall defend my exemplar-based characterisation of the origin of genetics by dismissing the potential responses from the theory-driven one, critically examining a potential mechanism-based analysis, and making the further notes on the implication of taking the exemplar-based approach to investigate scientific practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ‘Modus Darwin’ is the name given by Elliott Sober to a form of argument that he attributes to Darwin in the Origin of Species, and to subsequent evolutionary biologists who have reasoned in the same way. In short, the argument form goes: similarity, ergo common ancestry. In this article, I review and critique Sober’s analysis of Darwin’s reasoning. I argue that modus Darwin has serious limitations that make the argument form unsuitable for supporting Darwin’s conclusions, and that Darwin did (...) not reason in this way. (shrink)

Species are central to biology, but there is currently no agreement on what the adequate species concept should be, and many have adopted a pluralist stance: different species concepts will be required for different purposes. This thesis is a multidimensional analysis of species pluralism. First I explicate how pluralism differs monism and relativism. I then consider the history of species pluralism. I argue that we must re-frame the species problem, and that re-evaluating Aristotle's role in the histories of systematics can (...) shed light on pluralism. Next I consider different forms of pluralism: evolutionary and extra-evolutionary species pluralism, which differ in their stance on evolutionary theory. I show that pluralism is more than a debate about the species category, but a debate about which concepts are legitimate and a claim about how they interact with one another. Following that, I consider what sort of ontology is required for different forms of species pluralism. I argue that pluralists who deny the unity of biology will require a further plurality of frameworks, while those that ground their pluralism in evolution need only one framework. Finally, I consider what pluralism means for biological practice. I argue that species concepts are tools, and reflect on how pluralism can illuminate the way systematists approach the discovery of new species of yeast. Pluralism can make sense of the way species concepts are used, and can be developed to aid researchers in thinking about how to use the right tools for the right jobs. (shrink)

Since the beginning of time, the pre-biological and the biological world have seen a steady increase in complexity of form and function based on a process of combination and re-combination. The current modern synthesis of evolution known as the neo-Darwinian theory emphasises population genetics and does not explain satisfactorily all other occurrences of evolutionary novelty. The authors suggest that symbiosis and hybridisation and the more obscure processes such as polyploidy, chimerism and lateral transfer are mostly overlooked and not featured sufficiently (...) within evolutionary theory. They suggest, therefore, a revision of the existing theory including its language, to accommodate the scientific findings of recent decades. (shrink)

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

This text is an English translation of those several sections of the original paper in Russian, where collection-related issues are considered. The full citation of the original paper is as following: Pavlinov I.Ya. 2016. [Bioraznoobrazie i biokollektsii: problema sootvetstvia]. In: Pavlinov I.Ya. (comp.). Aspects of Biodiversity. Archives of Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vol. 54, Pр. 733–786. -/- Orientation of biology, as a natural science, on the study and explanation of the similarities and differences between organisms led in (...) the second half of the 20th century to the recognition of a specifi c subject area of biological explorations, viz. biodiversity (BD). One of the important general scientifi c prerequisites for this shift was understanding that (at the level of ontology) the structured diversity of the living nature is its fundamental property equivocal to subjecting of some of its manifestations to certain laws. At the level of epistemology, this led to acknowledging that the “diversifi cationary” approach to description of the living beings is as justifi able as the before dominated “unifi cationary” one. This general trend has led to a signifi cant increase in the attention to BD. From a pragmatic perspective, its leitmotif was conservation of BD as a renewable resource, while from a scientifi c perspective the leitmotif was studying it was studying BD as a specifi c natural phenomenon. These two points of view are united by recognition of the need for scientific substantiation of BD conservation strategy, which implies the need for a detailed study of BD itself. At the level of ontology, one of the key problems in the study of BD (leaving aside the question of its genesis) is determination of its structure, which is interpreted as a manifestation of the structure of the Earth’s biota itself. With this, it is acknowledged that the subject area of empirical explorations is not the BD as a whole ( “Umgebung”) but its particular manifestations (“Umwelts”). It is proposed herewith to recognized, within the latter: fragments of BD (especially taxa and ecosystems), hierarchical levels of BD (primarily within- and interorganismal ones), and aspects of BD (before all taxonomic and meronomic ones). Attention is drawn to a new interpretation of bioinformatics as a discipline that studies the information support of BD explorations. An important fraction of this support are biocollections. The scientifi c value of collections means that they make it possible both empirical inferring and testing (verification) of the knowledge about BD. This makes biocollections, in their epistemological status, equivalent to experiments, and so makes studies of BD quite scientific. It is emphasized that the natural objects (naturalia), which are permanently kept in collections, contain primary (objective) information about BD, while information retrieved somehow from them is a secondary (subjective) one. Collection, as an information resource, serves as a research sample in the studies of BD. Collection pool, as the totality of all collection materials kept in repositories according to certain standards, can be treated as a general sample, and every single collection as a local sample. The main characteristic of collection-as-sample is its representativeness; so the basic strategy of development of the collection pool is to maximize its representativeness as a means to ensure correspondence of structure of biocollection pool to that of BD itself. The most fundamental characteristic of collection, as an information resource, is its scientific signifi cance. The following three main groups of more particular characteristics are distinguished: — the “proper” characteristics of every collection are its meaningfulness, informativeness, reliability, adequacy, documenting, systematicity, volume, structure, uniqueness, stability, lability; — the “external” characteristics of collection are resolution, usability, ethic constituent; — the “service” characteristics of collection are its museofication, storage system security, inclusion in metastructure, cost. In the contemporary world, development of the biocollection pool, as a specific resource for BD research, requires considerable organizational efforts, including work on their “information support” aimed at demonstrating the necessity of existence of the biocollections. (shrink)

Genetic interventions, which include transgenic engineering, gene editing, and other forms of genome modification aimed at altering the information “in” the genetic code, are rapidly increasing in power and scale. Biosemiotics offers unique tools for understanding the nature, risks, scope, and prospects of such technologies, though few in the community have turned their attention specifically in this direction. Bruni is an important exception. In this paper, I examine how we frame the concept of “side effects” that result from genetic interventions (...) and how the concept stands up to current perspectives of the role of organism activity in development. I propose that once the role of living systems in constructing and modifying the informational value of their various developmental resources is taken into account, the concept of a “side effect” will need to be significantly revised. Far from merely a disturbance brought about in a senseless albeit complex system, a biosemiotic view would take “side effects” as at least sometimes the organism’s active re-organization in order to accommodate or make use of novelty. This insight is nascent in the work of developmental plasticity and niche construction theory, but it is brought into sharper focus by the explicitly interpretive perspective offered by biosemiotics. Understanding the “side effects” of genetic interventions depends in part on being able to articulate when and where unexpected consequences are a result of semiotic activity at various levels within the system. While a semiotic interpretation of “side effects” puts into question the naive attitude that would see all unintended side effects as indications of disturbance in system functionality, it certainly does not imply that such side effects are of no concern for the viability of the organisms in the system. As we shall see, the fact that such interventions do not respect the translation of information that occurs in multi-level biological systems ensures that disruption is still likely. But it does unprivilege the human agent as the sole generator of meaning and information in the products of biotechnology, with important consequences on how we understand our relationship with other species. (shrink)

Among the most serious challenges to scientific realism are arguments for the underdetermination of theory by evidence. This paper defends a version of scientific realism against what is perhaps the most influential recent argument of this sort, viz. Kyle Stanford’s New Induction over the History of Science. An essential part of the defense consists in a probabilistic analysis of the slogan “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. On this basis it is argued that the likelihood of a theory (...) being underdetermined depends crucially on social and historical factors, such as the structure of scientific communities and the time that has passed since the theory first became accepted. This is then shown to serve as the epistemological foundation for a version of scientific realism which avoids Stanford’s New Induction in a principled and non-question-begging way. (shrink)

Wallace's contributions to biological thought tend to be overlooked or overly praised, neither of which produces a satisfactory assessment. Examples of the latter tendency are the recent expositions by Brackman and Brooks; although both books contain much worthwhile material, both are flawed. At critical points their theories fail to measure up, Brackman's because of his misinterpretations of events in the month of June 1858, and Brooks's Darwin's September 5 letter to Gray could, and probably did, represent an ordering of his (...) ideas in response to a felt challenge.A fruitful way to characterize the relationship between Darwin and Wallace may be found in terms of game theory. Most scholars look upon the relationship as a zero-sum game, with a winner and a loser, the matter of priority being considered as a “single event.” Another approach would be to look upon it as a non-zero-sum game with each man influencing the other. In this case, the productivity of one is stimulated by the contributions of the other, resulting in a net gain in knowledge overall, and both men become winners, or codiscoverers. This approach is possible if Wallace's contributions to the theory of evolution by means of natural selection are recognized. (shrink)

For more than fifty years, taxonomists have proposed numerous alternative definitions of species while they searched for a unique, comprehensive, and persuasive definition. This monograph shows that these efforts have been unnecessary, and indeed have provably been a pursuit of a will o’ the wisp because they have failed to recognize the theoretical impossibility of what they seek to accomplish. A clear and rigorous understanding of the logic underlying species definition leads both to a recognition of the inescapable ambiguity that (...) affects the definition of species, and to a framework-relative approach to species definition that is logically compelling, i.e., cannot not be accepted without inconsistency. An appendix reflects upon the conclusions reached, applying them in an intellectually whimsical taxonomic thought experiment that conjectures the possibility of an emerging new human species. (shrink)

Some adaptationist explanations are regarded as maximally solid and others fanciful just-so stories. Just-so stories are explanations based on very little evidence. Lack of evidence leads to circular-sounding reasoning: “this trait was shaped by selection in unseen ancestral populations and this selection must have occurred because the trait is present.” Well-supported adaptationist explanations include evidence that is not only abundant but selected from comparative, populational, and optimality perspectives, the three adaptationist subdisciplines. Each subdiscipline obtains its broad relevance in evolutionary biology (...) via assumptions that can only be tested with the methods of the other subdisciplines. However, even in the best-supported explanations, assumptions regarding variation, heritability, and fitness in unseen ancestral populations are always present. These assumptions are accepted given how well they would explain the data if they were true. This means that some degree of “circularity” is present in all evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary explanation corresponds not to a deductive structure, as biologists usually assert, but instead to ones such as abduction or induction. With these structures in mind, we show the way to a healthier view of “circularity” in evolutionary biology, and why integration across the comparative, populational, and optimality approaches is necessary. (shrink)

Convincing disputes about explanatory reductionism in the philosophy of biology require a clear and precise understanding of what a reductive explanation in biology is. The central aim of this book is to provide such an account by revealing the features that determine the reductive character of a biological explanation. Chapters I-IV provide the ground, on which I can then, in Chapter V, develop my own account of explanatory reduction in biology: Chapter I reveals the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie my analysis (...) of reduction, Chapter II introduces the previous debate about reduction in the philosophy of biology by pointing out the most crucial lessons one should learn from this debate, Chapter III critically discusses the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far, and Chapter IV clarifies in what ways the issue of reduction is entangled with the issue of explanation. In Chapter V I present my own account of explanatory reduction. My main claim is that reductive explanations in the biological sciences possess three main characteristics: they explain the behavior of a biological system S, first, exclusively in terms of factors that are located on a lower level of organization than S, second, by focusing on factors that are internal to S , and third, by describing the genuine parts of S only as “parts in isolation”. This account is ontic because it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist in the world. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative antitrust model to the mainstream model that is used in competition policy. I call it the InstitutionalEvolutionary Antitrust Model. In order to construct an antitrust model one needs both empirical knowledge and considerations of how to adequately deal with norms. The analysis of competition as an evolutionary process that unfolds within legal rules provides the empirical foundation for the model. The development of the normative dimension involves the elaboration of a (...) comparative approach. Building on those foundations the main features of the Institutional-Evolutionary Model are sketched out and it is shown that its use leads to systematically different outcomes and conclusions than the dominant antitrust ideals. (shrink)

The concept of adaptation is employed in many fields such as biology, psychology, cognitive sciences, robotics, social sciences, even literacy and art,1 and its meaning varies quite evidently according to the particular research context in which it is applied. We expect to find a particularly rich catalogue of meanings within evolutionary biology, where adaptation has held a particularly central role since Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) throughout important epistemological shifts and scientific findings that enriched and diversified the concept. Accordingly, (...) a conceptual taxonomy of adaptation in evolutionary biology may help to disambiguate it. Interdisciplinary researches focused on adaptation would benefit from such a result. In the present work we recognize and define seven different meanings of adaptation: (1) individual fitness; (2) adaptation of a population; (3) adaptation as the process of natural selection; (4) adaptive traits; (5) molecular adaptation; (6) adaptation as structural tinkering; (7) plasticity. For convenience here, we refer to them as W-, P-, NS-, T-, M-, S- and PL-ADAPTATION. We present the seven meanings in some detail, hinting at their respective origins and conceptual developments in the history of evolutionary thought (references are offered for further deepening). However, it is important to point out that evolution researchers seldom if ever refer to a single meaning purified from the others. This applies also to the authors we cite as representatives of one of the seven meanings. In Discussion and Conclusion draw from our work some future perspectives for adaptation within evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

The influence of the evolutionary theory is widespread in modern worldview. Due to its great explanatory power and pervasiveness, the theory of evolution should be used as the organizing theme in biology teaching. For this purpose, the essential concepts of phylogenetic systematics are useful as a didactic instrument. The phylogenetic method was the first objective set of rules to implement in systematics the evolutionary view that the organisms are all connected at some hierarchical level due to common ancestry, as suggested (...) by Darwin and Wallace. Phylogenetic systematics was firstly proposed by the German Entomologist Willi Hennig in 1950 and had considerably importance in the decrease of the role of essentialism and subjectivity in classificatory studies, becoming one of the paradigms in biological systematics. Based on cladograms, a general phylogenetic reference system allows to the depiction and representation of large amounts of biological information in branching diagrams. Besides, the phylogenetic approach sheds light upon typical misconceptions concerning evolution and related concepts that directly affect students' comprehension about the evolutionary process and the hierarchical structure of the living world. The phylogenetic method is also a form of introducing students to some of the philosophical and scientific idiosyncrasies, providing them the ability to understand concepts such as hypothesis, theory, paradigm and falsifiability. The students are incited to use arguments during the process of accepting or denying scientific hypotheses, which overcomes the mere assimilation of knowledge previously elaborated. (shrink)

In his criticism of my paper on the concept of race (Sesardic, 2010), Adam Hochman raises many issues that deserve further clarification. First, I will comment on Hochman’s claim that I attack a straw man version of racial constructionism. Second, I will try to correct what I see as a distorted historical picture of the debate between racial naturalists and racial constructionists. Third, I will point out the main weaknesses in Hochman’s own defense of constructionism about race. And fourth, I (...) will briefly comment on why I think that Hochman unjustifiably dismisses one of the potential sources of racial differentiation that were suggested in my paper. Before I start, though, a preliminary clarification is in order. Hochman kindly calls my article ‘‘one of the strongest defenses of racial naturalism in recent times’’, which might suggest to the reader that my goal was to offer a full-fledged biological explication of the concept of race. But in fact my ambition was more limited. As I explained: My aim in this paper was not to prove the biological reality of race. Rather, more modestly, I have tried to show that typical attempts to disconnect the concept of race from genetics have too quickly and too uncritically been accepted by many ‘‘race critics’’. (Sesardic, 2010, p. 160; italics added) I will continue defending the same position in this article. (shrink)

Proturječnost stavova o položaju biologije unutar ili izvan područja znanosti može se podijeliti na nekoliko osnovnih pristupa. Prvi pristup smješta biologiju izvan znanstvenog područja zbog nedostatka univerzalnosti, nedostatka strogih generalizacija i nedostatka stroge kvantitativne strukture. Drugi pristup smatra biologiju znanošću koju treba svesti na fiziku. Treći pristup vidi značajne razlike između biologije s jedne, i fizike i kemije s druge strane, ali ipak tvrdi da je biologija prava znanost, no samostalna i s vlastitim pojmovnikom i metodologijom. Poredba načela prirodne znanosti (...) s obilježjima biologije ukazuje na nedostatak determinizma, neprikladnost esencijalizma i manjkavosti redukcionističkog pristupa u području biološkog. S druge strane, biologija ima neka posebna obilježja. Biologija je znanost samostalna u određenju svoga područja i biranju prikladnog pojmovnika i metoda proučavanja. Njezino područje, pojmovnik, logika i metodologija ne podudaraju se potpuno s onima ostalih znanosti, ali se u potpunosti ni ne razilaze.Ambiguities of attitudes on the position of biology within or outside of science domain can be divided into few basic approaches. The first approach places biology outside the scientific domain due to its lack of universality, the lack of strong generalizations and the lack of strong quantitative structure. The second approach claims that science of biology should be reduced to physics. The third approach accepts significant differences between biology on one side, and physics and chemistry on the other side, but it still claims that biology is a hard science, autonomous and with its own terminology and methodology. Comparison of principles of natural science with features of biology demonstrates a lack of determinism, inappropriateness of essentialism and pitfalls of reductionist approach in biological sphere. On the other hand, biology has some specific features. Biology is a science that has autonomy in determining its domain and choice of appropriate terminology and inquiry methods. Its domain, terminology, logic and methodology are not entirely in accordance with other sciences, but also are not completely diverse. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is the synthesis of biology and semiotics, and its main purpose is to show that semiosis is a fundamental component of life, i.e., that signs and meaning exist in all living systems. This idea started circulating in the 1960s and was proposed independently from enquires taking place at both ends of the Scala Naturae. At the molecular end it was expressed by Howard Pattee’s analysis of the genetic code, whereas at the human end it took the form of Thomas (...) Sebeok’s investigation into the biological roots of culture. Other proposals appeared in the years that followed and gave origin to different theoretical frameworks, or different schools, of biosemiotics. They are: (1) the physical biosemiotics of Howard Pattee and its extension in Darwinian biosemiotics by Howard Pattee and by Terrence Deacon, (2) the zoosemiotics proposed by Thomas Sebeok and its extension in sign biosemiotics developed by Thomas Sebeok and by Jesper Hoffmeyer, (3) the code biosemiotics of Marcello Barbieri and (4) the hermeneutic biosemiotics of Anton Markoš. The differences that exist between the schools are a consequence of their different models of semiosis, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality they go much deeper and concern the very nature of the new discipline. Is biosemiotics only a new way of looking at the known facts of biology or does it predict new facts? Does biosemiotics consist of testable hypotheses? Does it add anything to the history of life and to our understanding of evolution? These are the major issues of the young discipline, and the purpose of the present paper is to illustrate them by describing the origin and the historical development of its main schools. (shrink)

It is considered in some quarters that hypothesis‐driven methods are the only valuable, reliable or significant means of scientific advance. Data‐driven or ‘inductive’ advances in scientific knowledge are then seen as marginal, irrelevant, insecure or wrong‐headed, while the development of technology—which is not of itself ‘hypothesis‐led’ (beyond the recognition that such tools might be of value)—must be seen as equally irrelevant to the hypothetico‐deductive scientific agenda. We argue here that data‐ and technology‐driven programmes are not alternatives to hypothesis‐led studies in (...) scientific knowledge discovery but are complementary and iterative partners with them. Many fields are data‐rich but hypothesis‐poor. Here, computational methods of data analysis, which may be automated, provide the means of generating novel hypotheses, especially in the post‐genomic era. BioEssays 26:99–105, 2004. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The case often made by scientists (and philosophers) against history and the history of science in particular is clear. Insofar as a field of study is historical as opposed to law-based, it is trivial. Insofar as a field attends to the past of science as opposed to current scientific issues, its efforts are derivative and, by diverting attention from acquiring new knowledge, deplorable. This case would be devastating if true, but it has almost everything almost exactly wrong. The study of (...) history and the study of laws are not mutually exclusive, but unavoidably linked. Neither can be pursued without the other. Much the same can be said of the history of science. The history of science is neither a distraction from "real" science nor even merely a help to science. Rather, the history of science is an essential part of each science. Seeing that this is so requires a broader understanding of both history and science. (shrink)

The essentialism story is a version of the history of biological classification that was fabricated between 1953 and 1968 by Ernst Mayr, who combined contributions from Arthur Cain and David Hull with his own grudge against Plato. It portrays pre-Darwinian taxonomists as caught in the grip of an ancient philosophy called essentialism, from which they were not released until Charles Darwin's 1859 Origin of Species. Mayr's motive was to promote the Modern Synthesis in opposition to the typology of idealist morphologists; (...) demonizing Plato served this end. Arthur Cain's picture of Linnaeus as a follower of 'Aristotelian' (scholastic) logic was woven into the story, along with David Hull's application of Karl Popper's term, 'essentialism', which Mayr accepted in 1968 as a synonym for what he had called 'typological thinking'. Although Mayr also pointed out the importance of empiricism in the history of taxonomy, the essentialism story still dominates the secondary literature. The history of the first telling of the essentialism story exposes its scant basis in fact. (shrink)

Phylogeography, a relatively new subdicipline of evolutionary biology that attempts to unify the fields of phylogenetics and population biology in an explicit geographical context, has hosted in recent years a highly polarized debate related to the purported benefits and limitations that qualitative versus quantitative methods might contribute or impose on inferential processes in evolutionary biology. Here we present a friendly, non-technical introduction to the conflicting methods underlying the controversy, and exemplify it with a balanced selection of quotes from the primary (...) biological literature, to invite the philosophy of biology community to pay attention to the elements that have played a primary role in its presumed resolution. We also present the basic features of our own metascientific take on the debate, and point out—as a preliminary step in preparation for upcoming, more detailed treatments—the importance that appeals to authority in fields external to phylogeography per se have played in the current status of this highly visible evolutionary biology dispute. (shrink)

In his well-known essay, ‘What Is a Sign?’ (CP 2.281, 285) Peirce uses ‘likeness’ and ‘resemblance’ interchangeably in his definition of icon. The synonymity of the two words has rarely, if ever, been questioned. Curiously, a locus classicus of the pair, at least in F. M. Cornford’s English translation, can be found in a late dialogue of Plato, namely, the Sophist. In this dialogue on the myth and truth of the sophists’ profession, the mysterious ‘stranger’, who is most likely Socrates’ (...) persona, makes the famous distinction between eikon (likeness) and phantasma (semblance) (236a,b). For all his broad knowledge in ancient philosophy, Peirce never mentioned this parallel; nor has any Peircean scholar identified it. There seems to be little problem with eikon as likeness, but phantasma may give rise to a puzzle which this paper will attempt to solve. Plato uses two pairs of words: what eikon is to phantasma is eikastikén (the making of likeness [235d]) to phantastikén (semblance making [236c]). In other words, icons come into being because of the act of icon-making, which is none other than indexicality. Witness what Peirce says about the relationship between photographs and the objects they represent: “But this resemblance is due to the photographs having been produced under such circumstances that they were physically forced to correspond point by point to nature.” (Ibid.) Thus the iconicity which links the representamen (sign) and its object is made possible not only by an interpretant, but also by idexisation. Their possible etymological and epistemological links aside, the Peircean example of photographing and the Platonic discussion of painting and sculpturing in the Sophist, clearly show the physio-pragmatic aspect of iconicity. The paper will therefore reread the Peircean iconicity by closely analysing this relatively obscure Platonic text, and by so doing restore to the text its hidden semiotic dimension. (shrink)

Science is now studying biodiversity on a massive scale. These studies are occurring not just at the scale of larger plants and animals, but also at the scale of minute entities such as bacteria and viruses. This expansion has led to the development of a specific sub-field of “microbial diversity”. In this paper, I investigate how microbial diversity faces two of the classical issues encountered by the concept of “ biodiversity ”: the issues of defining the units of biodiversity and (...) of choosing a mathematical measure of diversity. I also show that the extension of the scope of biodiversity to microbial entities such as viruses and many other not-clearly-alive entities raises yet another foundational issue: that of defining a “lower-limit” of biodiversity. (shrink)