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  1. Informative ecological models without ecological forces.Justin Donhauser - 2020 - Synthese 197 (6):2721-2743.
    Sagoff (2016) criticizes widely used “theoretical” methods in ecology; arguing that those methods employ models that rely on problematic metaphysical assumptions and are therefore uninformative and useless for practical decision-making. In this paper, I show that Sagoff misconstrues how such model-based methods work in practice, that the main threads of his argument are problematic, and that his substantive conclusions are consequently unfounded. Along the way, I illuminate several ways the model-based inferential methods he criticizes can be, and have been, usefully (...)
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  • Five lessons from teleology-neutrality and metaphor in ecology: bottom-up and top-down all at once.Justin Donhauser - 2023 - Synthese 201 (3):1-17.
    This paper illuminates primary epistemic functions of teleological characterizations in ecology through discussion of the historical and conceptual origins of the theoretical branch of ecology (§§1–2). I subsequently defuse enduring confusions about the use of teleological characterizations in ecology; with a focus on recent critical arguments by Sagoff in this journal (Sagoff, Synthese 193:3003–3024, 2016) and some other places (e.g., his Sagoff, Ethics, Policy, and Environment 16:239–257, 2013 and Sagoff, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C, 2017) (§3). (...)
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