Diderot, Cabanis and Lamarck on psycho-physical causality

Modern physics was born in the 17th century and modern biology one century later. Immediately, scientifics and philosophers ask themselves what is the relationship between those two sciences and between properties of non-living and living matter. Among those scientifics and philosophers, some think that mental phenomena are of biological nature--they are materialists--so they encounter a second problem: what is the relationship between properties of non-thinking and thinking living matter? This paper examines the doctrine of three French philosophers of the (post-) Enlightenment on those subjects: Diderot, Cabanis and Lamarck, and, as their answer is in terms of causality and supervenience, I compare succinctly their doctrine with those of Searle and Kim.     

Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct?

The latter half of thetwentieth century has been marked by debates inevolutionary biology over the relativesignificance of natural selection and randomdrift: the so-called ``neutralist/selectionist'debates. Yet John Beatty has argued that it isdifficult, if not impossible, to distinguishthe concept of random drift from the concept ofnatural selection, a claim that has beenaccepted by many philosophers of biology. Ifthis claim is correct, then theneutralist/selectionist debates seem at bestfutile, and at worst, meaningless. I reexaminethe issues that Beatty raises, and argue thatrandom drift and natural selection, conceivedas processes, can be distinguished from one another.     

Development and mechanistic explanation

Within modern philosophy of biology the topic of mechanistic explanation has become a central theme for critical discussion. The neo-mechanical philosophers have developed accounts that emphasize intervention and manipulation as the central epistemic tools that allow gaining epistemic access upon the mechanisms and have argued that the processes of inter-field integration across disciplines can be understood through the analysis of mechanisms spanning multiple levels. In this paper I revisit current proposals on mechanistic explanation in order to show some of their limitations when dealing with developmental mechanisms. I basically argue that (i) developmental mechanisms cannot be accommodated within a framework centered upon the mutual manipulation principle, (ii) the distinction between causal relations vs. constitutive relations cannot be easily demarcated within developmental biology and (iii) the notion of "part" underlying the neo-mechanical accounts on explanation is not suitable for developmental biology.     

Is information a proper observable for biological organization?

In the last century, jointly with the advent of computers, mathematical theories of information were developed. Shortly thereafter, during the ascent of molecular biology, the concept of information was rapidly transferred into biology at large. Several philosophers and biologists have argued against adopting this concept based on epistemological and ontological arguments, and also, because it encouraged genetic determinism. While the theories of elaboration and transmission of information are valid mathematical theories, their own logic and implicit causal structure make them inimical to biology, and because of it, their applications have and are hindering the development of a sound theory of organisms. Our analysis concentrates on the development of information theories in mathematics and on the differences between these theories regarding the relationship among complexity, information and entropy.     

Neo-rationalism versus neo-Darwinism: Integrating development and evolution

An increasing number of biologists are expressing discontent with the prevailing theory of neo-Darwinism. In particular, the tendency of neo-Darwinians to adopt genetic determinism and atomistic notions of both genes and organisms is seen as grossly unfair to the body of developmental theory. One faction of dissenteers, the Process Structuralists, take their inspiration from the rational morphologists who preceded Darwin. These neo-rationalists argue that a mature biology must possess universal laws and that these generative laws should be sought within organismal development. Such a rational biology will only be possible once the neo-Darwinian paradigm, with its reliance on inherently stochastic processes, is overthrown.To facilitate this revolution, process structuralism launches a broad attack on the theoritical adequacy of its opponent. It is charged that neo-Darwinism is untestable and therefore its hypotheses are nothing more than adaptive stories. Further, the lamentable tendencies toward genetic determinism and atomism by modern biologists is seen as the inescapable consequences of adopting the neo-Darwinian outlook.I allow that neo-Darwinism is untestable but argue that this does not pose a major difficulty for the theory. Further, it is not clear to what extent genetic determinism and atomism result from sloppy methodology as opposed to fundamental theoritical commitments. But the process structuralist critique does reveal some deep-seated problems with orthodox evolutionary theory and some of its suggestions may be employed to good effect.     

From Types to Populations: A Century of Race, Physical Anthropology, and the American Anthropological Association

In the 1960s, U.S. physical anthropology underwent a period of introspection that marked a change from the old physical anthropology that was largely race based to the new physical anthropology, espoused by Washburn and others for over a decade, which incorporated the evolutionary biology of the modern synthesis. What actually changed? What elements of the race concept have been rejected, and what elements have persisted, influencing physical anthropology today? In this article, I examine both the scientific and social influences on physical anthropology that caused changes in the race concept, in particular the influence of the American Anthropological Association. The race concept is complicated but entails three attributes: essentialism, cladistic thinking, and biological determinism. These attributes have not all been discarded; while biological determinism and its social implications have been questioned since the inception of the field, essentialism and the concomitant rendering of populations as clades persists as a legacy of the race concept. [Keywords: race, essentialism, physical anthropology]     

Introduction historique et critique à la notion de dépression en psychiatrie

The author describes the history of the concept of depression in modern psychiatry from the end of the Age of Enlightenment until today in three parts. In the first period (1793–1854), the opposition of general delusion (mania) and partial delusion (melancholia) prevails, without the problem of changes of the affective state being an issue. Only with the work of J. Guislain, and later of W. Griesinger, does the concept of mood disorders become a categorical form in mental pathology with the idea of psychological pain. The second period (1854–1926) is distinguished firstly by the works of J.P. Falret on circular insanity, and then those of V. Magnan, J. Ségnan, J. Séglas et Ph. Chaslin in France and E. Kraepelin in Germany. This period is characterized by the classical construction of periodic manicdepressive psychosis and takes into account the opposition of mania and melancholia. In the third period (1926–1977), the influences of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and structuralism predominate. Gradually melancholia loses its place at the core of this field, in favour of the concept of depression and this change now characterizes contemporary psychiatry.     

What is an organism? An immunological answer

The question, "What is an organism?," formerly considered as essential in biology, has now been increasingly replaced by a larger question, "What is a biological individual?" On the grounds that i) individuation is theory-dependent, and ii) physiology does not offer a theory, biologists and philosophers of biology have claimed that it is the theory of evolution by natural selection that tells us what counts as a biological individual. Here I show that one physiological field, immunology, offers a theory that makes possible a biological individuation based on physiological grounds. I give a new answer to the question of the individuation of an organism by linking together the evolutionary and the immunological approaches to biological individuation.     

Species as family resemblance concepts: The (dis‐)solution of the species problem?

The so-called "species problem" has plagued evolutionary biology since before Darwin's publication of the aptly titled Origin of Species. Many biologists think the problem is just a matter of semantics; others complain that it will not be solved until we have more empirical data. Yet, we don't seem to be able to escape discussing it and teaching seminars about it. In this paper, I briefly examine the main themes of the biological and philosophical literatures on the species problem, focusing on identifying common threads as well as relevant differences. I then argue two fundamental points. First, the species problem is not primarily an empirical one, but it is rather fraught with philosophical questions that require-but cannot be settled by-empirical evidence. Second, the (dis-)solution lies in explicitly adopting Wittgenstein's idea of "family resemblance" or cluster concepts, and to consider species as an example of such concepts. This solution has several attractive features, including bringing together apparently diverging themes of discussion among biologists and philosophers. The current proposal is conceptually independent (though not incompatible) with the pluralist approach to the species problem advocated by Mishler, Donoghue, Kitcher and Dupré, which implies that distinct aspects of the species question need to be emphasized depending on the goals of the researcher. From the biological literature, the concept of species that most closely matches the philosophical discussion presented here is Templeton's cohesion idea.     

Synthesizing insight: artificial life as thought experimentation in biology

What is artificial life? Much has been said about this interesting collection of efforts to artificially simulate and synthesize lifelike behavior and processes, yet we are far from having a robust philosophical understanding of just what Alifers are doing and why it ought to interest philosophers of science, and philosophers of biology in particular. In this paper, I first provide three introductory examples from the particular subset of artificial life I focus on, known as ‘soft Alife’ (s-Alife), and follow up with a more in-depth review of the Avida program, which serves as my case study of s-Alife. Next, I review three well-known accounts of thought experiments, and then offer my own synthesized account, to make the argument that s-Alife functions as thought experimentation in biology. I draw a comparison between the methodology of the thought-experimental world that yields real-world results, and the s-Alife research that informs our understanding of natural life. I conclude that the insights provided by s-Alife research have the potential to fundamentally alter our understanding of the nature of organic life and thus deserve the attention of both philosophers and natural scientists.     

Redefining community: towards an ecological republicanism

This paper makes some suggestions for a concept of community which arguably satisfies the most important criteria for both human communities, as defined in the social sciences and humanities, and natural communities, as defined in ecology and biology. Beginning with the former, I arrive at two such criteria: (1) a material and social connection among members, and (2) some kind and degree of awareness of other members. These are then supplemented with a third drawn from civic republicanism, with its focus on citizenship and the common good: communities (3) enable and require certain practices for their maintainence. Turning to ecological definitions of community, I find the dominant (reductionist) one seriously deficient as compared with a more holist and ecosystemic approach. However, I invoke a nonreductive holism to defend the idea of community, and go on to argue that each of the three above-mentioned criteria can be fruitfully extended to include both social and ecological communities in a nonreductionist way – that is, in a way that neither reduces ecosystemic properties to individual organisms nor the reverse. This culminates in a discussion of what I call ecological republicanism, which I suggest could have powerfully positive effects on the contemporary crisis of undue human impact on the natural world.     

Darwin's artificial selection as an experiment

Darwin used artificial selection (ASN) extensively and variedly in his theorizing. Darwin used ASN as an analogy to natural selection; he compared artificial to natural varieties, hereditary variation in nature to that in the breeding farm; and he also compared the overall effectiveness of the two processes. Most historians and philosophers of biology have argued that ASN worked as an analogical field in Darwin's theorizing. I will argue rather that this provides a limited and somewhat muddled view of Darwinian science. I say "limited" because I will show that Darwin also used ASN as a complex experimental field. And I say "muddled" because, if we concentrate on the analogical role exclusively, we conceive Darwinian science as rather disconnected from contemporary conceptions of "good science". I will argue that ASN should be conceived as a multifaceted experiment. As a traditional experiment, ASN established the efficacy of Darwin's preferred cause: natural selection. As a non-traditional experiment, ASN disclosed the nature of a crucial element in Darwin's evolutionary mechanics: the nature of hereditary variation. Finally, I will argue that the experiment conception should help us make sense of Darwin's comments regarding the "monstrous" nature of domestic breeds traditionally considered to be problematic.     

How many processes are responsible for phenotypic evolution?

SUMMARY In addressing phenotypic evolution, this article reconsiders natural selection, random drift, developmental constraints, and internal selection in the new extended context of evolutionary developmental biology. The change of perspective from the "evolution of phenotypes" toward an "evolution of ontogenies" (evo-devo perspective) affects the reciprocal relationships among these different processes. Random drift and natural selection are sibling processes: two forms of post-productional sorting among alternative developmental trajectories, the former random, the latter nonrandom. Developmental constraint is a compound concept; it contains even some forms of natural ("external" and "internal") selection. A narrower definition ("reproductive constraints") is proposed. Internal selection is not a selection caused by an internal agent. It is a form of environment-independent selection depending on the level of the organism's internal developmental or functional coordination. Selection and constraints are the main deterministic processes in phenotypic evolution but they are not opposing forces. Indeed, they are continuously interacting processes of evolutionary change, but with different roles that should not be confused.     

The Formation of the Theory of Homology in Biological Sciences

Homology is among the most important comparative concepts in biology. Today, the evolutionary reinterpretation of homology is usually conceived of as the most important event in the development of the concept. This paradigmatic turning point, however important for the historical explanation of life, is not of crucial importance for the development of the concept of homology itself. In the broadest sense, homology can be understood as sameness in reference to the universal guarantor so that in this sense the different concepts of homology show a certain kind of "metahomology". This holds in the old morphological conception, as well as in the evolutionary usage of homology. Depending on what is (or was) taken as a guarantor, different types of homology may be distinguished (as idealistic, historical, developmental etc.). This study represents a historical overview of the development of the homology concept followed by some clues on how to navigate the pluralistic terminology of modern approaches to homology.     

Do organisms have an ontological status?

The category "organism" has an ambiguous status: is it scientific or is it philosophical? Or, if one looks at it from within the relatively recent field or sub-field of philosophy of biology, is it a central, or at least legitimate category therein, or should it be dispensed with? In any case, it has long served as a kind of scientific bolstering for a philosophical train of argument which seeks to refute the mechanistic or reductionist trend, which has been perceived as dominant since the 17th century, whether in the case of Stahlian animism, Leibnizian monadology, the neo-vitalism of Hans Driesch, or, lastly, of the "phenomenology of organic life" in the 20th century, with authors such as Kurt Goldstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Georges Canguilhem. In this paper I try to reconstruct some of the main interpretive stages or layers of the concept of organism in order to evaluate it critically. How might organism be a useful concept if one rules out the excesses of organismic biology and metaphysics? Varieties of instrumentalism and what I call the projective concept of organism are appealing, but perhaps ultimately unsatisfying.     

The Taxon as an Ontological Problem

Although the term taxon is one of the most common concepts in biology, a range of its meanings cannot be comprehended by an universal definition. Usually, biologists construe their knowledge of “the same” taxon by substantially different interpretations, so they find themselves in need either to justify this “multiplication of taxon essences”, or to surmount their plurality unifying its interpretations into a single explanation of what a taxon is. In both cases, an ontological status (“reality”) of that taxon is questioned. Therefore, discrepancy between universality of the taxon concept in biology and unavoidable plurality of its interpretations can be regarded as a source of problem of the taxon ontology. The present work aims to clarify the premises of this discrepancy using phenomenological approach. Three ways of the taxon positing (as a class, as a place in the world, and as a individualized body) have been distinguished. Taxon as a class is established by common essence that is shared by a set of living beings. These living beings are regarded as speculative objects beyond an idea of the world, i.e. as objects of the experimental science. A question about ontology of taxon as a class refers to the scholastic problem of universalia; its status can be defined within the scope of the nominalism/realism opposition. Taxon as a place of common appearance of the specimens is regarded in the context of the etiological relations unifying various entities into the entire world. Taxon as a place refers to a certain position in the Natural System that is construed as an etiological map of the world. In this case a specimen of a living being is known as a curiosity, i.e. representant of its relationships as well as of the place of its origin. Ontological status of a taxon as a place is to be clarified within the framework of the natural/artificial opposition. The positing of a taxon as a collective body marked off by limits of joint survival of living beings is characteristic for biology in the strict sense which arose in the very beginning of the 19 century. A taxon as a body established by the techniques of disciplinary power sensu M. Foucault extended from the human bodies to bodies of other living beings. The ontological status of a taxon as a collective body can be defined within the scope of the wild/domesticated opposition. Therefore, the discrepancy between the universality of the taxon concept and the plurality of its interpretations is underlayed by interpenetration of three distinct modi of taxon establishing. Distinguishing between these three modi can clarify sources of ontological problems concerned with the term taxon in each case when they arise.     

Thirty years of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Biology &amp; Philosophy:</Emphasis> philosophy of which biology?

Which domains of biology do philosophers of biology primarily study? The fact that philosophy of biology has been dominated by an interest for evolutionary biology is widely admitted, but it has not been strictly demonstrated. Here I analyse the topics of all the papers published in Biology & Philosophy, just as the journal celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. I then compare the distribution of biological topics in Biology & Philosophy with that of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA, focusing on the recent period 2003–2015. This comparison reveals a significant mismatch between the distributions of these topics. I examine plausible explanations for that mismatch. Finally, I argue that many biological topics underrepresented in philosophy of biology raise important philosophical issues and should therefore play a more central role in future philosophy of biology.     

Again,What the Philosophy of Biology is not

There are many things that philosophy of biology might be. But, given the existence of a professional philosophy of biology that is arguably a progressive research program and, as such, unrivaled, it makes sense to define philosophy of biology more narrowly than the totality of intersecting concerns biologists and philosophers (let alone other scholars) might have. The reasons for the success of the “new” philosophy of biology remain poorly understood. I reflect on what Dutch and Flemish, and, more generally, European philosophers of biology could do to improve the situation of their discipline locally, regionally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the lessons to be learned from the “Science Wars.” This paper grew out of my contribution to the symposium Philosophy of Biology in the Netherlands and Flanders organized by Thomas Reydon and Sabina Leonelli in Amsterdam in February 2004. It is a rather personal reaction to many of the opinions voiced in the quite heated atmosphere of the Symposium. My main concern is to convey an idea of what, according to me, is required to turn “our” philosophy of biology into a more successful enterprise than it currently is. This is motivated by a disconcerting discovery I made at the Symposium: Contrary to my expectations, a sensitivity for the sorts of things that make possible philosophy of biology of the best kind available today seems to be largely lacking in our part of the world. I wish to stress from the outset that although I will be quite polemical at times, this is always intended in the spirit of constructive dialogue.     

Intersectionality,nationalisms, biocoloniality

The early twenty-first century is marked by new postcolonial nationalist ideologies and their indifference to modern histories of colonisation and the urgent need for anti-nationalist theories of racialised subjectification. I discuss the importance of work on ‘intersectionality’ and consider how some theoretical formations reproduce core elements of ‘common sense’ nationalisms such as universal, fixed racial categories, the gender binary and the idea of separate cultures. I then argue for a transdisciplinary theory of racialised subjectivity that I call ‘biocoloniality’.