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Ernst Mayr's 'ultimate/proximate' distinction reconsidered and reconstructed
Biology and Philosophy 18 (4):553-565 (2003)
Abstract
It's been 41 years since the publication of Ernst Mayr's Cause and Effect in Biology wherein Mayr most clearly develops his version of the influential distinction between ultimate and proximate causes in biology. In critically assessing Mayr's essay I uncover false statements and red-herrings about biological explanation. Nevertheless, I argue to uphold an analogue of the ultimate/proximate distinction as it refers to two different kinds of explanations, one dynamical the other statistical.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Four Pillars of Statisticalism.Denis M. Walsh, André Ariew & Mohan Matthen - 2017 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 9 (1):1-18.
The Historical Transformation of Individual Concepts into Populational Ones: An Explanatory Shift in the Gestation of the Modern Synthesis.Tiago Rama - manuscript
More on how and why: cause and effect in biology revisited.Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee, William Hoppitt & Tobias Uller - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 28 (5):719-745.
The proximate–ultimate distinction and evolutionary developmental biology: causal irrelevance versus explanatory abstraction.Massimo Pigliucci & Raphael Scholl - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (5):653-670.
International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching.Michael R. Matthews (ed.) - 2014 - Springer.
References found in this work
The nature of selection: evolutionary theory in philosophical focus.Elliott Sober - 1984 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.Elliott Sober - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (3):397-399.
The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.Robert N. Brandon - 1986 - Philosophical Review 95 (4):614.
Two ways of thinking about fitness and natural selection.Mohan Matthen & André Ariew - 2002 - Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):55-83.
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