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From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics

Author: William C. Bausman

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2024-01-09

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1452970556

How analyzing scientific practices can alter debates on the relationship between science and reality Numerous scholarly works focus solely on scientific metaphysics or biological practice, but few attempt to bridge the two subjects. This volume, the latest in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science series, explores what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us. From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics examines how to reconcile the methods of biological practice with the methods of metaphysical cosmology, notably regarding the origins of life. The contributors take up a wide range of traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science topics, including natural kinds, medicine, ecology, genetics, scientific pluralism, reductionism, operationalism, mechanisms, the nature of information, and more. Many of the chapters represent the first philosophical treatments of significant biological practices. From causality and complexity to niche constructions and inference, the contributors review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do: for ontology cannot be read directly from scientific claims. Contributors: Richard Creath, Arizona State U; Marc Ereshefsky, U of Calgary; Marie I. Kaiser, Bielefeld U; Thomas A. C. Reydon, Leibniz U Hannover and Michigan State U; Lauren N. Ross, U of California, Irvine; Rose Trappes, U of Exeter; Marcel Weber, U of Geneva; William C. Wimsatt, U of Chicago. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

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.

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.

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.

A Minimal Metaphysics for Scientific Practice

Author: Andreas Hüttemann

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-08-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781009010436

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What are the metaphysical commitments which best 'make sense' of our scientific practice (rather than our scientific theories)? In this book, Andreas Hüttemann provides a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, i.e. a metaphysics that refrains from postulating any structure that is explanatorily irrelevant. Hüttemann closely analyses paradigmatic aspects of scientific practice, such as prediction, explanation and manipulation, to consider the questions whether and (if so) what metaphysical presuppositions best account for these practices. He looks at the role which scientific generalisation (laws of nature) play in predicting, testing, and explaining the behaviour of systems. He also develops a theory of causation in terms of quasi-inertial processes and interfering factors, and he proposes an account of reductive practices that makes minimal metaphysical assumptions. His book will be valuable for scholars and advanced students working in both philosophy of science and metaphysics.

Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice

Author: Catherine Kendig

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1317215427

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This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Aristotle's Revenge

Author: Edward Feser

Publisher:

Published: 2019-02

Total Pages: 515

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.

Individuation, Process, and Scientific Practices

Author: Otávio Bueno

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-10-19

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0190636823

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What things count as individuals, and how do we individuate them? It is a classic philosophical question often tackled from the perspective of analytic metaphysics. This volume proposes that there is another channel by which to approach individuation -- from that of scientific practices. From this perspective, the question then becomes: How do scientists individuate things and, therefore, count them as individuals? This volume collects the work of philosophers of science to engage with this central philosophical conundrum from a new angle, highlighting the crucial topic of experimental individuation and building upon recent, pioneering work in the philosophy of science. An introductory chapter foregrounds the problem of individuation, arguing it should be considered prior to the topic of individuality. The following chapters address individuation and individuality from a variety of perspectives, with prominent themes being the importance of experimentation, individuation as a process, and pluralism in individuation's criteria. Contributions examine individuation in a wide range of sciences, including stem cell biology, particle physics, and community ecology. Other chapters examine the metaphysics of individuation, its bearing on realism/antirealism debates, and interrogate epistemic aspects of individuation in scientific practice. In exploring individuation from the philosophy of biology, physics, and other scientific subjects, this volume ultimately argues for the possibility of several criteria of individuation, upending the tenets of traditional metaphysics. It provides insights for philosophers of science, but also for scientists interested in the conceptual foundations of their work.

Mechanisms in Science

Author: Stavros Ioannidis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-06-23

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1009022431

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In recent years what has come to be called the 'New Mechanism' has emerged as a framework for thinking about the philosophical assumptions underlying many areas of science, especially in sciences such as biology, neuroscience, and psychology. This book offers a fresh look at the role of mechanisms, by situating novel analyses of central philosophical issues related to mechanisms within a rich historical perspective of the concept of mechanism as well as detailed case studies of biological mechanisms (such as apoptosis). It develops a new position, Methodological Mechanism, according to which mechanisms are to be viewed as causal pathways that are theoretically described and are underpinned by networks of difference-making relations. In contrast to metaphysically inflated accounts, this study characterises mechanism as a concept-in-use in science that is deflationary and metaphysically neutral, but still methodologically useful and central to scientific practice.

Levels of Organization in the Biological Sciences

Author: Daniel S. Brooks

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0262362252

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Scientific philosophers examine the nature and significance of levels of organization, a core structural principle in the biological sciences. This volume examines the idea of levels of organization as a distinct object of investigation, considering its merits as a core organizational principle for the scientific image of the natural world. It approaches levels of organization--roughly, the idea that the natural world is segregated into part-whole relationships of increasing spatiotemporal scale and complexity--in terms of its roles in scientific reasoning as a dynamic, open-ended idea capable of performing multiple overlapping functions in distinct empirical settings. The contributors--scientific philosophers with longstanding ties to the biological sciences--discuss topics including the philosophical and scientific contexts for an inquiry into levels; whether the concept can actually deliver on its organizational promises; the role of levels in the development and evolution of complex systems; conditional independence and downward causation; and the extension of the concept into the sociocultural realm. Taken together, the contributions embrace the diverse usages of the term as aspects of the big picture of levels of organization. Contributors Jan Baedke, Robert W. Batterman, Daniel S. Brooks, James DiFrisco, Markus I. Eronen, Carl Gillett, Sara Green, James Griesemer, Alan C. Love, Angela Potochnik, Thomas Reydon, Ilya Tëmkin, Jon Umerez, William C. Wimsatt, James Woodward