The Metaphysics of Biology
The Metaphysics of Biology

Author: John Dupré

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-06-03

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 100902180X

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This Element is an introduction to the metaphysics of biology, a very general account of the nature of the living world. The first part of the Element addresses more traditionally philosophical questions - whether biological systems are reducible to the properties of their physical parts, causation and laws of nature, substantialist and processualist accounts of life, and the nature of biological kinds. The second half will offer an understanding of important biological entities, drawing on the earlier discussions. This division should not be taken too seriously, however: the topics in both parts are deeply interconnected. Although this does not claim to be a scientific work, it does aim to be firmly grounded in our best scientific knowledge; it is an exercise in naturalistic metaphysics. Its most distinctive feature is that argues throughout for a view of living systems as processes rather than things or, in the technical philosophical sense, substances.

Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View
Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View

Author: S. Boulter

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-10-16

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1137322829

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Many philosophers in the analytic tradition are now convinced that metaphysical questions are worth pursuing, but we still lack a convincing meta-metaphysics and methodology. This essay offers an account of how we should conduct our business qua metaphysicians.

From a Biological Point of View
From a Biological Point of View

Author: Elliott Sober

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-09-30

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780521477536

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Elliott Sober is one of the leading philosophers of science and is a former winner of the Lakatos Prize, the major award in the field. This new collection of essays will appeal to a readership that extends well beyond the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Sober shows how ideas in evolutionary biology bear in significant ways on traditional problems in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Amongst the topics addressed are psychological egoism, solipsism, and the interpretation of belief and utterance, empiricism, Ockham's razor, causality, essentialism, and scientific laws. The collection will prove invaluable to a wide range of philosophers, primarily those working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

Biological Identity
Biological Identity

Author: Anne Sophie Meincke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1351066366

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Analytic metaphysics has recently discovered biology as a means of grounding metaphysical theories. This has resulted in long-standing metaphysical puzzles, such as the problems of personal identity and material constitution, being increasingly addressed by appeal to a biological understanding of identity. This development within metaphysics is in significant tension with the growing tendency amongst philosophers of biology to regard biological identity as a deep puzzle in its own right, especially following recent advances in our understanding of symbiosis, the evolution of multi-cellular organisms and the inherently dynamical character of living systems. Moreover, and building on these biological insights, the broadly substance ontological framework of metaphysical theories of biological identity appears problematic to a growing number of philosophers of biology who invoke process ontology instead. This volume addresses this tension, exploring to what extent it can be dissolved. For this purpose, the volume presents the first selection of essays exclusively focused on biological identity and written by experts in metaphysics, the philosophy of biology and biology. The resulting cross-disciplinary dialogue paves the way for a convincing account of biological identity that is both metaphysically constructive and scientifically informed, and will be of interest to metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and theoretical biologists.

Metaphysics and the Origin of Species
Metaphysics and the Origin of Species

Author: Michael T. Ghiselin

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9780791434673

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In explaining his individuality thesis, Michael T. Ghiselin provides extended discussions of such philosophical topics as definition, the reality of various kinds of groups, and how we classify traits and processes. He develops and applies the implications for general biology and other sciences and makes the case that a better understanding of species and of classification in general puts biologists and paleontologists in a much better position to understand nature in general, and such processes as extinction in particular.

Aristotle's Revenge
Aristotle's Revenge

Author: Edward Feser

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783868382006

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Actuality and potentiality, substantial form and prime matter, efficient causality and teleology are among the fundamental concepts of Aristotelian philosophy of nature. Aristotle's Revenge argues that these concepts are not only compatible with modern science, but are implicitly presupposed by modern science. Among the many topics covered are: The metaphysical presuppositions of scientific method. The status of scientific realism The metaphysics of space and time. The metaphysics of quantum mechanics. Reductionism in chemistry and biology. The metaphysics of evolution. Neuroscientific reductionism. The book interacts heavily with the literature on these issues in contemporary analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science, so as to bring contemporary philosophy and science into dialogue with the Aristotelian tradition.

Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View
Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View

Author: S. Boulter

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-10-16

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1137322829

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Many philosophers in the analytic tradition are now convinced that metaphysical questions are worth pursuing, but we still lack a convincing meta-metaphysics and methodology. This essay offers an account of how we should conduct our business qua metaphysicians.

Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science
Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science

Author: Matthew H. Slater

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 019936320X

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This volume of new essays, written by leading philosophers of science, explores a broadly methodological question: what role should metaphysics play in our philosophizing about science? The essays address this question both through ground-level investigations of particular issues in the metaphysics of science and by more general methodological investigations.

Everything Flows
Everything Flows

Author: Daniel J. Nicholson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0198779631

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"The majority of the papers herein originated at the workshop 'Process Philosophy of Biology' ... held in Exeter in November 2014."--Page vii.

The Metaphysics of Evolution
The Metaphysics of Evolution

Author: David L. Hull

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9780791402115

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This critical collection of essays represents the best of the best when it comes to philosophy of biology. Many chapters treat evolution as a biological phenomenon, but the author is more generally concerned with science itself. Present-day science, particularly current views on systematics and biological evolution are investigated. The aspects of these sciences that are relevant to the general analysis of selection processes are presented, and they also serve to exemplify the general characteristics exhibited by science since its inception.