Explanatory pluralism in evolutionary biology

Sterelny, Kim

doi:10.1007/bf00128919

Cited by 118 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…amples mclude fine-grained intentionality, the quahtative aspects of consaousness, freedom, and certam normative states Weak emergence can get no purchase on these phenomena untd we have a (context-sensitive) reductionistic account of them As long as this is In doubt, so is the final reach of weak emergence However this turns out, weak emergence should still illummate a vanety of debates and confusions about the relations between macro and micro These range from long-standmg controversies over the autonomy of the special sciences to newer debates about whether macro evolutionary patterns are mere effects of micro processes or reflect genuine spectes selecnon (Vrba 1984, Sterelny 1996 Emergence is often viewed synchromcally An organism at a given time is thought to be more than the sum of fts parts that exist at that time Your mental states at a given time are thought to emerge from your neuro-physical states at that time By contrast, the pnmary focus of weak emergence is diachronic It concerns how the macro armes over time from the micro, i e, the causal process (denvanon) by whtch the micro constructs the macro 'nus is a bottom-up generative process, rooted m context-sensftwe micro-levei causal mteractions…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence and Supervenience

McLaughlin

2008

Emergence

134

180

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Weak emergence has been offered as an explicatzon of the ubiquztous notum of emergence used m complexity science After outinung the problem of emergence and comparmg weak emergence with the two other nuun objecuvist approaches to emergence, the paper explams a vetsion of weak emergence and illustrcues at with cellular automata Then it explcans the sart of downward causattan and explanatory auumomy mvolved m weak ernergence The problem of emergenceEmergence is a perenmal plulosophical problem Apparent emergent phenomena are quite common, especially m the subjects treated by biology and psychology, but emergent phenomena also seem metaphysically objectionable Some of these objections can be traced to the autonomy and downward causation that are distinctive of emergent phenomena Emergence is receivmg renewed attennon today, In part because the notion repeatedly anses In certam contemporary approaches to understandmg complex biological and psychological systems, I have m mmd such approaches as neural networks, dynamical systems theory, and agent-based models-what for simphcity I'll call complexity science For anyone mterested m understanding emergence, two tiungs about complexity science are striking First, it auns to expiam exactly those natural phenomena that seem to mvolve emergence, the range of phenomena covered by complexity science are about as broad as the examples of apparent emergence in nature C) Principia, 6(1) (2002), pp 5-50 Published by NEL

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence and Supervenience

McLaughlin

2008

Emergence

134

180

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“…Program explanations cite causes that ensure ("program for") particular outcomes, whereas process explanations identify the actual causal chain leading to the outcome. Finally, Sterelny's [1996] distinction between actual-sequence and robust-process explanations parallels that of Jackson and Pettit: Sometimes we explain via actual sequences/processes, while other times we explain by pointing to the robustness or inevitability of the outcome.…”

Section: Structuring and Triggering Causesmentioning

confidence: 77%

The Causal Structure of Evolutionary Theory

Ramsey

2015

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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One contentious debate in the philosophy of biology is that between the statisticalists and causalists. The former understand core evolutionary concepts like fitness and selection to be mere statistical summaries of underlying causal processes. In this view, evolutionary changes cannot be causally explained by selection or fitness. The causalist side, on the other hand, holds that populations can change in response to selection-one can cite fitness differences or driftability in causal explanations of evolutionary change. But on the causal side, it is often not clear how, precisely, one should understand these causes. Thus, much more could be said about what sort of causes fitness and driftability are. In this paper, I borrow Dretske's distinction between structuring and triggering causes and suggest that fitness and driftability are structuring causes of evolution.Keywords: Evolution, Causation, Natural Selection, Genetic Drift, Driftability, Fitness, PropensityThis is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form is published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. The published version is available online at: http://dx

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“…Some philosophers are analyzing evolutionary theory from pluralist perspectives (e.g. Waters 1994, Sterelny 1996) and some scientists are writing along similar lines (e.g. Dieckmann and Doebeli 2005).…”

Section: From Theories To Theoretical Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifting Attention from Theory to Practice in Philosophy of Biology

Waters

2014

New Directions in the Philosophy of Science

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Traditional approaches in philosophy of biology focus attention on biological concepts, explanations, and theories, on evidential support and inter-theoretical relations. Newer approaches shift attention from concepts to conceptual practices, from theories to practices of theorizing, and from theoretical reduction to reductive retooling. In this article, I describe the shift from theory-focused to practice-centered philosophy of science and explain how it is leading philosophers to abandon fundamentalist assumptions associated with traditional approaches in philosophy of science and to embrace scientific pluralism. This article comes in three parts, each illustrating the shift from theory-focused to practice-centered epistemology. The first illustration shows how shifting philosophical attention to conceptual practice reveals how molecular biologists succeed in identifying coherent causal strands within systems of bewildering complexity. The second illustration suggests that analyzing how a multiplicity of alternative models function in practice provides an illuminating approach for understanding the nature of theoretical knowledge in evolutionary biology. The third illustration demonstrates how framing reductionism in terms of the reductive retooling of practice offers an informative perspective for understanding why putting DNA at the center of biological research has been incredibly productive throughout much of biology. Each illustration begins by describing how traditional theory-focused philosophical approaches are laden with fundamentalist assumptions and then proceeds to show that shifting attention to practice undermines these assumptions and motivates a philosophy of scientific pluralism.

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Explanatory pluralism in evolutionary biology

Cited by 118 publications

References 14 publications

Emergence and Supervenience

Emergence and Supervenience

The Causal Structure of Evolutionary Theory

Shifting Attention from Theory to Practice in Philosophy of Biology

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