Against generality: Meaning in genetics and philosophy

Burian, Richard M.; Richardson, Robert C.; Steen, Wim J. van der

doi:10.1016/0039-3681(95)00034-8

Cited by 35 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…However, the reference of the gene concept has changed throughout its history (as acknowledged implicitly by Kitcher 1982 and explicitly by Burian et al 1996). While the extensions of the classical and the molecular gene concept strongly overlap, Weber (2005) discusses in detail why there are classical genes that are not molecular genes and vice versa (since classical genes are defined in terms of their phenotypic function, while molecular genes are defined in terms of product-coding structures, both concepts can pick out different genetic segments at complex eukaryotic loci).…”

Section: The Epistemic Goal Of a Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation

Brigandt

2009

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112

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Abstract:The discussion presents a framework of concepts that is intended to account for the rationality of semantic change and variation, suggesting that each scientific concept consists of three components of content: 1) reference, 2) inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued with the concept's use. I argue that in the course of history a concept can change in any of these components, and that change in the concept's inferential role and reference can be accounted for as being rational relative to the third component, the concept's epistemic goal. This framework is illustrated and defended by application to the history of the gene concept. It is explained how the molecular gene concept grew rationally out of the classical gene concept despite a change in reference, and why the use and reference of the contemporary molecular gene concept may legitimately vary from context to context. This essay presents a framework of concepts that is designed to account for the rationality of semantic change. Though many previous discussions of conceptual change have emphasized the notion of reference, I argue that an adequate account has to acknowledge several semantic properties. More precisely, I suggest that each theoretical concept consists of three THE EPISTEMIC GOAL OF A CONCEPT 2 components of content: 1) the concept's reference, 2) its inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued by the concept's use. While reference and inferential role have been recognized by previous theories of concepts, I introduce the epistemic goal pursued by a term's use as a genuine semantic property of a term as it accounts for the rationality of semantic change and variation, in particular change in a term's inferential role and reference.After the presentation of this framework and how it is intended to account for semantic change in Section 1, the remainder of the paper defends and illustrates the framework by application to a concrete case from biology: the change of the gene concept. The first part of this case study (Section 2) discusses how the molecular gene concept grew out of the classical gene concept. While the transition from classical to molecular genetics has been subject to extensive discussion, previous accounts have been less explicit about the rationality of the semantic change that occurred with the advent of the molecular gene concept. I explain why

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Section: The Epistemic Goal Of a Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different philosophical accounts of how many distinct gene concepts are nowadays used in molecular biology or how to characterize them have been put forward (Burian 2004;Burian et al 1996;Falk 1986Falk , 2000Falk , 2004Keller 2000;Rheinberger 2000). Moss (2003) distinguishes two gene concepts, Griffiths and Stotz (2007) argue for there being three.…”

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confidence: 99%

The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation

Brigandt

2009

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112

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“…Scholars have stressed the irreducibility of biological features, such as gene regulation or evolution, and argued that biological explanations are irreducible to physical laws and principles (e.g., Bechtel & Richardson, 1993;Bertalanffy, 1969;Burian et al, 1996;Dupré, 1993;Machamer et al, 2000;Mayr, 1988;Winther, 2009). These contributions have offered important insights to distinctive features of living systems and biological research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis

Green

Batterman

2017

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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A common reductionist assumption is that macro-scale behaviors can be described "bottom-up" if only sufficient details about lower-scale processes are available. The view that an "ideal" or "fundamental" physics would be sufficient to explain all macro-scale phenomena has been met with criticism from philosophers of biology. Specifically, scholars have pointed to the impossibility of deducing biological explanations from physical ones, and to the irreducible nature of distinctively biological processes such as gene regulation and evolution. This paper takes a step back in asking whether bottom-up modeling is feasible even when modeling simple physical systems across scales. By comparing examples of multi-scale modeling in physics and biology, we argue that the "tyranny of scales" problem presents a challenge to reductive explanations in both physics and biology. The problem refers to the scale-dependency of physical and biological behaviors that forces researchers to combine different models relying on different scale-specific mathematical strategies and boundary conditions. Analyzing the ways in which different models are combined in multi-scale modeling also has implications for the relation between physics and biology. Contrary to the assumption that physical science approaches provide reductive explanations in biology, we exemplify how inputs from physics often reveal the importance of macro-scale models and explanations. We illustrate this through an examination of the role of biomechanics modeling in developmental biology. In such contexts, the relation between models at different scales and from different disciplines is neither reductive nor completely autonomous, but interdependent.

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“…However, the gene concept is one of the cases where a scientific concept underwent rational change in meaning despite a change in reference (Brigandt 2010b, Burian et al 1996, Kitcher 1982. In the case of the homology concept, I have accounted for the redefinition of this concept based on the concept's stable epistemic goal, which sets standards for when a change in inferential role and possibly correlated change in reference is rationally warranted.…”

Section: The Gene Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dynamics of Scientific Concepts: The Relevance of Epistemic Aims and Values

Brigandt¹

2012

Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice

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The philosophy of science that grew out of logical positivism tended to construe scientific knowledge in terms of set of interconnected beliefs about the world, such as theories and observation statements. Confirmation was construed as a logical relation between observation statements and theoretical statements. This was dubbed the 'context of justification', to be contrasted with the context of discovery, where discovery was not generally deemed to be a rational process and thus not a concern for philosophy. During the last few decades this vision of philosophy of science has changed. Nowadays discovery (e.g., in experimental biology) is seen as intimately tied to confirmation and explanation (Brigandt 2011c). Science is not just conceived of as a set of axiomatic systems, but as a dynamic process based on the various practices of individual scientists and the institutional settings of science (Brigandt 2011a). Two features particularly influence the dynamics of scientific knowledge: epistemic standards and aims. An existing standard (be it a methodological standard, an evidential standard, or a standard of explanatory adequacy) accounts for why old beliefs had to be abandoned and new beliefs came to be accepted. At the same time, standards are subject to change as well. Epistemic aims The relevance of epistemic aims and values for belief change has been previously recognized. My paper intends to make a similar point for scientific concepts, both by studying how an individual concept changes (in its semantic properties) and by viewing epistemic aims and values tied to individual concepts. In a recent publication (Brigandt 2010b), I have presented my view that a scientific concept consists of three components of content: (1) the concept's reference, (2) the concept's inferential role, and (3) the epistemic goal pursued by the concept's use. In the course of history a concept can change in any of these components (possibly with one component changing while the others are stable), at one point in time these components of 1 Even when using a post-positivist framework that in addition to statements and theories acknowledges models and accounts of mechanisms, it is important to bear in mind that all the former are representations to be distinguished from epistemic aims. While my discussion focuses on epistemic aims and values in science, I do not think that a defensible distinction between epistemic and other aims and values can be drawn. In current biomedical research (e.g., as conducted by pharmaceutical companies) aims and values that are intuitively epistemic and intuitively non-epistemic are so entangled in the generation of knowledge that they have to be studied together. The question is not whether a value is epistemic or non-epistemic but whether it is licit (including socially desirable). This has been emphasized by studies of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge and feminist philosophy of science. THE DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS3 content can vary across different users of the term. The first t...

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Against generality: Meaning in genetics and philosophy

Cited by 35 publications

References 32 publications

The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation

The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis

The Dynamics of Scientific Concepts: The Relevance of Epistemic Aims and Values

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