Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Population thinking as trope nominalism.Bence Nanay - 2010 - Synthese 177 (1):91 - 109.
    The concept of population thinking was introduced by Ernst Mayr as the right way of thinking about the biological domain, but it is difficult to find an interpretation of this notion that is both unproblematic and does the theoretical work it was intended to do. I argue that, properly conceived, Mayr’s population thinking is a version of trope nominalism: the view that biological property-types do not exist or at least they play no explanatory role. Further, although population thinking has been (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Natural selection without survival of the fittest.C. Kenneth Waters - 1986 - Biology and Philosophy 1 (2):207-225.
    Susan Mills and John Beatty proposed a propensity interpretation of fitness (1979) to show that Darwinian explanations are not circular, but they did not address the critics' chief complaint that the principle of the survival of the fittest is either tautological or untestable. I show that the propensity interpretation cannot rescue the principle from the critics' charges. The critics, however, incorrectly assume that there is nothing more to Darwin's theory than the survival of the fittest. While Darwinians all scoff at (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Survival of the fittest: Law of evolution or law of probability? [REVIEW]David B. Resnik - 1988 - Biology and Philosophy 3 (3):349-362.
    In a recent issue of Biology and Philosophy, Kenneth Waters argues that the principle of survival of the fittest should be eliminated from the theory of natural selection, because it is an untestable law of probability, and as such, has no place in evolutionary theory. His argument is impressive, but it does not do justice to the practice of biology. The principle of survival of the fittest should not be eliminated from the theory of natural selection because it is important (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Artifact, cause and genic selection.Elliott Sober & Richard C. Lewontin - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (2):157-180.
    Several evolutionary biologists have used a parsimony argument to argue that the single gene is the unit of selection. Since all evolution by natural selection can be represented in terms of selection coefficients attaching to single genes, it is, they say, "more parsimonious" to think that all selection is selection for or against single genes. We examine the limitations of this genic point of view, and then relate our criticisms to a broader view of the role of causal concepts and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   132 citations  
  • Evolution, teleology, intentionality.Daniel C. Dennett - 1993 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2):89-391.
    No response that was not as long and intricate as the two commentaries combined could do justice to their details, so what follows will satisfy nobody, myself included. I will concentrate on one issue discussed by both commentators: the relationship between evolution and teleological (or intentional) explanation. My response, in its brevity, may have just one virtue: it will confirm some of the hunches (or should I say suspicions) that these and other writers have entertained about my views. For more (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Abstract Objects.David Liggins - 2024 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Philosophers often debate the existence of such things as numbers and propositions, and say that if these objects exist, they are abstract. But what does it mean to call something 'abstract'? And do we have good reason to believe in the existence of abstract objects? This Element addresses those questions, putting newcomers to these debates in a position to understand what they concern and what are the most influential considerations at work in this area of metaphysics. It also provides advice (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Tempered realism about the force of selection.C. Kenneth Waters - 1991 - Philosophy of Science 58 (4):553-573.
    Darwinians are realists about the force of selection, but there has been surprisingly little discussion about what form this realism should take. Arguments about the units of selection in general and genic selectionism in particular reveal two realist assumptions: (1) for any selection process, there is a uniquely correct identification of the operative selective forces and the level at which each impinges; and (2) selective forces must satisfy the Pareto-style requirement of probabilistic causation. I argue that both assumptions are false; (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   82 citations  
  • Monophyly, paraphyly, and natural kinds.Olivier Rieppel - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):465-487.
    A long-standing debate has dominated systematic biology and the ontological commitments made by its theories. The debate has contrasted individuals and the part – whole relationship with classes and the membership relation. This essay proposes to conceptualize the hierarchy of higher taxa is terms of a hierarchy of homeostatic property cluster natural kinds (biological species remain largely excluded from the present discussion). The reference of natural kind terms that apply to supraspecific taxa is initially fixed descriptively; the extension of those (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Universals and the Realism/Nominalism Dispute.Cynthia Macdonald - 2005 - In Cynthia MacDonald (ed.), Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 217–259.
    This chapter contains section titled: The Issue Varieties of Nominalism Two Conceptions of Universals The Regress Charge and two Unsuccessful Attempts to Meet it An Alternative.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Literalism and the applicability of arithmetic.L. Luce - 1991 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (4):469-489.
    Philosophers have recently expressed interest in accounting for the usefulness of mathematics to science. However, it is certainly not a new concern. Putnam and Quine have each worked out an argument for the existence of mathematical objects from the indispensability of mathematics to science. Were Quine or Putnam to disregard the applicability of mathematics to science, he would not have had as strong a case for platonism. But I think there must be ways of parsing mathematical sentences which account for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Propensity Interpretation of ‘Fitness‘—No Interpretation is No Substitute.Robert Brandon & John Beatty - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (2):342-347.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Chance and natural selection.John Beatty - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (2):183-211.
    Among the liveliest disputes in evolutionary biology today are disputes concerning the role of chance in evolution--more specifically, disputes concerning the relative evolutionary importance of natural selection vs. so-called "random drift". The following discussion is an attempt to sort out some of the broad issues involved in those disputes. In the first half of this paper, I try to explain the differences between evolution by natural selection and evolution by random drift. On some common construals of "natural selection", those two (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   103 citations  
  • Coefficients, effects, and genic selection.Alexander Rosenberg - 1983 - Philosophy of Science 50 (2):332-338.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   39 citations  
  • Dennett's intentions and Darwin's legacy.Jon Ringen - 1993 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2):386-389.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Trait fitness is not a propensity, but fitness variation is.Elliott Sober - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3):336-341.
    The propensity interpretation of fitness draws on the propensity interpretation of probability, but advocates of the former have not attended sufficiently to problems with the latter. The causal power of C to bring about E is not well-represented by the conditional probability Pr. Since the viability fitness of trait T is the conditional probability Pr, the viability fitness of the trait does not represent the degree to which having the trait causally promotes surviving. The same point holds for fertility fitness. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • The poverty of taxonomic characters.Olivier Rieppel & Maureen Kearney - 2007 - Biology and Philosophy 22 (1):95-113.
    The theory and practice of contemporary comparative biology and phylogeny reconstruction (systematics) emphasizes algorithmic aspects but neglects a concern for the evidence. The character data used in systematics to formulate hypotheses of relationships in many ways constitute a black box, subject to uncritical assessment and social influence. Concerned that such a state of affairs leaves systematics and the phylogenetic theories it generates severely underdetermined, we investigate the nature of the criteria of homology and their application to character conceptualization in the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Comments on Dennett from a cautious ally.Jonathan Bennett - 1993 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2):381-385.
    In these notes, unadorned page numbers under 350 refer to Dennett (1987) - The Intentional Stance, hereafter referred to as Stance - and ones over 495 refer to Dennett (1988) - mostly to material by him but occasionally to remarks of his critics. Since the notes will focus on disagreements, I should say now that I am in Dennett’s camp and am deeply in debt to his work in the philosophy of mind, which I think is wider, deeper, more various (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark