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Negotiating boundaries in the definition of life: Wittgensteinian and Darwinian insights on resolving conceptual border conflicts [Book Review]

Robert T. Pennock

Synthese 185 (1):5-20 (2012)

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What is the folk concept of life?Kevin Reuter & Claus Beisbart - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (2):486-507.details This paper details the content and structure of the folk concept of life, and discusses its relevance for scientific research on life. In four empirical studies, we investigate which features of life are considered salient, universal, central, and necessary. Functionings, such as nutrition and reproduction, but not material composition, turn out to be salient features commonly associated with living beings (Study 1). By contrast, being made of cells is considered a universal feature of living species (Study 2), a central aspect (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 2 citations
Life, Definition of (2nd edition).Erik Persson (ed.) - 2023details There have through history been many attempts to define 'life' but there is no generally accepted definition of 'life' at this date. As a result, some have come to believe that defining 'life' is not a fruitful endeavour. This seems to be a minority view, however, since the quest to find or create a definition of 'life' is as active as ever. Download Export citation Bookmark
Dealing with the changeable and blurry edges of living things: a modified version of property-cluster kinds.Jon Umerez & María J. Ferreira Ruiz - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (3):493-518.details Despite many attempts to achieve an adequate definition of living systems by means of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, the opinion that such an enterprise is inexorably destined to fail is increasingly gaining support. However, we believe options do not just come down to either having faith in a future success or endorsing skepticism. In this paper, we aim to redirect the discussion of the problem by shifting the focus of attention from strict definitions towards a philosophical framework (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 5 citations
Scientific progress, normative discussions, and the pragmatic account of definitions of life.Ludo L. J. Schoenmakers - 2023 - Synthese 201 (4):1-20.details Discussions on the status of definitions of life have long been dominated by a position known as definitional pessimism. Per the definitional pessimist, there is no point in trying to define life. This claim is defended in different ways, but one of the shared assumptions of all definitional pessimists is that our attempts to define life are attempts to provide a list of all necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as alive. In other words, a definition of life (...) Download Export citation Bookmark
Dealing with the changeable and blurry edges of living things: a modified version of property-cluster kinds.María J. Ferreira Ruiz & Jon Umerez - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (3):493-518.details Despite many attempts to achieve an adequate definition of living systems by means of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, the opinion that such an enterprise is inexorably destined to fail is increasingly gaining support. However, we believe options do not just come down to either having faith in a future success or endorsing skepticism. In this paper, we aim to redirect the discussion of the problem by shifting the focus of attention from strict definitions towards a philosophical framework (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 5 citations

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