E. O. Wilson (1974: 54) describes the problem that social organisms pose: “On what bases do we distinguish the extremely modified members of an invertebrate colony from the organs of a metazoan animal?” This framing of the issue has inspired many to look more closely at how groups of organisms form and behave as emergent individuals. The possible existence of “superorganisms” test our best intuitions about what can count and act as genuine biological individuals and how we should study them. (...) As we will discuss, colonies of certain organisms display many of the properties that we usually reserve only to individual organisms. Although there is good reason to believe that many social insects form genuine emergent biological individuals, the conclusion offered here is of a slightly different sort. I will argue that to understand some social insects' interactions and the emergent traits they give rise to, it may be helpful to shift our understanding from a community-level approach to an ecosystem-level approach. I will argue that viewing certain insect colonies (termites) as parts of ecosystems allows us to better understand some of the adaptations that have emerged from their evolution. (shrink)

The unlivable is the most extreme point of human suffering and injustice. But what is it exactly? How do we define the unlivable? And what can we do to prevent and repair it? These are the intriguing questions Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms discuss in a captivating dialogue situated at the crossroads of contemporary life and politics. Here, Judith Butler criticizes the norms that make life precarious and unlivable, while Frédéric Worms appeals to a "critical vitalism" as a way of (...) allowing the hardship of the unlivable to reveal what is vital for us. For both Butler and Worms, the difference between the livable and the unlivable forms the critical foundation for a contemporary practice of care. Care and support, in all their aspects, make human life livable, that is, "more than living." To understand it, we must draw on the concrete practices of humans who are confronted with the unlivable: the refugees of today and the witnesses and survivors of past violations and genocide. They teach us what is intolerable but also undeniable about the unlivable, and what we can do to resist it. Crafted with critical rigor, mutual respect, and lively humor, the compelling dialogue transcribed and translated in this book took place at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) on April 11, 2018, at a time when close to two thousand migrants were living in nearby makeshift camps in northern Paris. The Livable and the Unlivable showcases this 2018 dialogue in the context of Butler's and Worms's ongoing work and the evolution of their thought, as presented by Laure Barillas and Arto Charpentier in their equally engaging introduction. It concludes with a new afterword that addresses the crises unfolding in our world and the ways a philosophically rigorous account of life must confront them. While this book will be of keen interest to readers of philosophy and cultural criticism, and those interested in vitalism, new materialism, and critical theory, it is a far from merely academic text. In the conversation between Butler and Worms, we encounter questions we all grapple with in confronting the distress and precarity of our times, marked as it is by types of survival that are unlivable, from concentration camps to prisons to environmental toxicity, to forcible displacement, to the Covid pandemic. The Livable and the Unlivable at once considers longstanding philosophical questions around why and how we live, while working to retrieve a philosophy of life for today's Left. (shrink)

La logique classique, qui repose sur trois principes fondamentaux (d'identité, de non-contradiction et de tiers-exclu), a pu séduire par son efficacité orientée vers l'être, elle permet d'appréhender la cohérence du réel, donc de développer les savoirs. Pour autant, sa puissance s'avère limitée dans certaines situations des limitations internes des formalismes à l'apparition de nouveaux objets paradoxaux, la science du XXe siècle a été confrontée à une crise de ses fondements dont elle n'est pas encore sortie. Or, s'affranchir de ce qui (...) vient en nous entraver la pensée a été un enjeu pour des courants soucieux de fonder leur rigueur démonstrative sur un au-delà de l'être. Dans la lignée de l'hénologie néoplatonicienne, ces modes d'explication ont néanmoins souvent été jugés irrationnels, mystiques ou simplement absurdes. À l'aide des logiques non standards contemporaines, c'est une étude systémique de ces positions qui est ici envisagée à travers la critique de l'hégémonie des trois grands principes logiques grâce à la logique intuitionniste, il devient possible de construire rigoureusement la notion de néant suressentiel; grâce aux logiques paraconsistantes, les contradictions et les paradoxes qu'une telle dialectique engendre perdent leur caractère irrationnel; enfin, grâce aux traditions logiques indiennes et japonaises, le principe d'identité peut lui-même être questionné. Cette remise en cause radicale de nos certitudes les mieux ancrées permet ultimement de dégager de nouvelles perspectives à la pensée logique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

'Peut-être que putain tu as juste un peu besoin de te calmer/calm the fuck down. Je m'appelle Jenny et j'offre des services de coaching stoïcien avec juste un tantinet de grossièreté/dash of profanity/et des résultats', lance sur son site promotionnel avec sa photo souriante en noir-et-blanc une jeune 'coach' à lunettes. 'En tant que coach, annonce un autre du même âge qui pose avec un livre à la main doctus cum libro, j'apporte l'expertise d'un praticien stoïcien professionnel ainsi que la (...) connaissance de la façon dont le cerveau apprend de nouvelles informations. Avec huit ans de pratique stoïcienne quotidienne, je suis le témoignage vivant de son succès. C'est ma passion d'armer les gens avec les techniques mentales pour vivre une vie pleine et calme/full and calm life!' Le néo-stoïcisme est en vogue auprès de la jeunesse, élixir d'endurance pour époque tourmentée. Ce nouveau courant est-il fidèle au geste cynique initial qui inspira jadis Zénon, Cléanthe, et Chrysippe? Fournit-il des réponses adaptées à la dictature écologique qui vient, au culte de la guerre, aux fantasmes du transhumanisme? Il donne en tout cas ici l'occasion d'un retour sur 2300 ans d'histoire d'une philosophie de la liberté humaine, en des temps où celle-ci est de plus en plus déniée"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The Positive Evolution of Religion CHAPTEB I ORTHODOX CRITICISM IT may surprise not a few, but it is certainly true that on general principles, in spirit, ...

Comment Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, auteur d'ouvrages sur la philosophie allemande et la "mentalité primitive", peut-il éclairer les enjeux des sciences sociales aujourd'hui? Pour actualiser cette grande figure de la Troisième République, il faut repenser les liens entre le socialisme français et le système colonial à partir de l'affaire Dreyfus. Celle-ci mit à l'épreuve la thèse de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl sur la responsabilité et le conduisit à étudier les formes d'anticipation de l'avenir dans les sociétés sans État. À partir d'archives inédites et d'une (...) hypothèse théorique nouvelle, ce livre retrace les engagements de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, du soutien des ouvriers au cours de la Première Guerre mondiale à l'aide aux exilés juifs dans les années 1930, et replace l'ethnologie parmi d'autres sciences de la vigilance, comme les statistiques et l'épidémiologie. Il montre ainsi que l'étude des sociétés éloignées permet à la nôtre de se préparer aux catastrophes à partir de l'observation des sentinelles."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L'expérience esthétique est la voie de la phénoménologie ; c'est du moins ce qu'établit Dufrenne avec une profondeur inégalée. Cette expérience est décrite de façon novatrice selon une phénoménologie du sentiment, qui est le fil conducteur de cette philosophie. La réduction - devenue dès lors réduction esthétique - conduit à l'essence de la manifestation et se prolonge en une réduction cosmologique : le monde se trouve conquis en sa figure originaire, la Nature, qui est pensée comme source ou matrice universelle. (...) L'esthétique enveloppe en outre une réflexion sur l'imagination, l'image et l'imaginaire, comme sur la beauté, marquant l'une des originalités de la perspective dufrennienne. Les percées ontologiques réalisées débouchent alors sur une cosmo-esthétique qui se prolonge en une cosmopoétique. Il s'agit à la fois de concevoir l'appartenance de l'homme au monde, qui le précède et l'excède, ainsi que la différence subjective, puisqu'il est capable de le percevoir. Cette philosophie définit la Nature comme Infini expressif - esthétique et poétique -, et montre que l'homme est appelé à vivre poétiquement, les exigences éthiques et politiques étant nouées à l'esthétique, où le sens de l'humain s'atteste."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

'A very welcome compendium on the wide range of research methods available for economists and social scientists more generally. Highly recommended, particularly for those wishing to explore alternative methods to be applied in all fields of economic analy.

This book is a guide to working with social science concepts. Concepts are the prisms through which we see the social world. They are foundational to the social science enterprise, and the quality of investigations hinges in part on how well researchers make use of them. Most social science concepts are drawn from ordinary language used in everyday ways; however, many social scientists "reconfigure" ordinary words to meet their research needs. They tinker with the meanings of words to fit their (...) theoretical aims and make them precise, useful tools of measurement and comparison. This book examines social science concepts through an interpretivist lens with the aim of providing concrete conceptual guidance for future research. Specifically, this book seeks to: 1) identify characteristic dangers that attend the making and use of reconfigured concepts; 2) lay out ways in which a select number of interpretivist approaches have been used to mitigate these dangers; 3) introduce practical tools that rework these interpretivist approaches into explicit and useable research methods; 4) show concretely how these elucidation tools can be gainfully used by social scientists working both within and outside of the interpretivist tradition. It will be an essential guide for social science research. (shrink)

Excerpt from John Stuart Mill Not only is the language of the Liberty somewhat vague in defining the respective limits of 'persuasion and 'coer cion, ' but the practical illustrations of lawful restrictions by the State seem at times hardly consistent with so abso lute a doctrine. It is somewhat startling, after such tren chant assertion of the absolute freedom of the individual. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com (...) This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This book develops John Dewey's broad conception of social conflict as a natural process of discovery and preference adjustment, resolving Kenneth Arrow's famous theorem of the impossibility of ordering diverse preferences through voting. It addresses the nature and resolution of today's urgent problems and political polarization.

Etudes de morale / par F. Rauh,...; recueillies et publiees par H. Daudin, M. David, G. Davy... [et al.]Date de l'edition originale: 1911Collection: Bibliotheque de philosophie contemporaineCe livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.Les oeuvres (...) faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp: //gallica.bnf.fr/ark: /12148/bpt6k5622683z. (shrink)

Cet article commente une lettre de jeunesse d’un Hume qui traverse une grave dépression nerveuse. Cet épisode pourtant n’a rien d’anecdotique, parce que Hume y théorise déjà le rapport entre la mélancolie, diagnostiquée à l’époque comme la maladie des lettrés, et sa manière de philosopher.

La guerre, pour reprendre l'expression du général Le Borgne, serait "morte à Hiroshima" il y a plus d'un demi-siècle. Et pourtant elle n'a jamais cessé. Actes terroristes, conflits israélo-palestiniens et moyen-orientaux, implosion de la Yougoslavie, pays déchirés par les factions, sans même parler des autres guerres : économiques, psychologiques, informatiques, guerres des sexes ou des générations... L'invasion de l'Ukraine par la Russie a pourtant rebattu les cartes. Cette fois, dit-on, c'est le retour de la vraie guerre, avec ses exactions, ses (...) horreurs, sa violence. Mais qu'est-ce qu'une vraie guerre? En convoquant de grands philosophes politiques, de Platon à Marx, en passant par Machiavel et Hobbes, ce livre tente de répondre à cette question, qu'elle accompagne d'une série d'autres : qu'est-ce qu'une guerre juste? Quelles sont les forces morales engagées dans un conflit? Est-ce l'Etat qui fait la guerre ou la guerre qui fait l'Etat? Enfin, après avoir exploré les significations et les enjeux du spectre de la guerre "totale", il affronte l'ultime question : pourquoi la guerre? -- payot. (shrink)

Rien d'humain n'est étranger au monde, et tout en lui puise dans les ressources de la vie. Une philosophie de la naissance est requise pour le comprendre, le monde se confondant avec une immanence matricielle sans dehors. Toute chose en participe, les vivants et l'homme également, leur différence propre tenant à leur manière de naître : la cosmologie devient le soubassement de l'anthropologie dont la clef est une phénoménologie de la naissance et de l'enfance.00Des phénomènes négligés apparaissent désormais décisifs, comme (...) la tendresse - qui tient lieu d'une condition d'existence -, ainsi que la consolation et le jeu, la fragilité et l'humour, ou encore la grâce et le ravissement. Une esthétique s'élabore depuis le goût de l'enfant pour les couleurs, les formes et les textures, mais aussi depuis sa créativité native. Cette esthétique est inséparable d'une érotique et d'une éthique, et plus largement d'une réflexion sur la civilisation ; enfin, cette philosophie culmine dans une pensée de l'éducation, de la liberté et de la vérité. (shrink)

The idea that deep brain stimulation (DBS) induces changes to personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy and self (PIAAAS) is so deeply entrenched within neuroethics discourses that it has become an unchallenged narrative. In this article, we critically assess evidence about putative effects of DBS on PIAAAS. We conducted a literature review of more than 1535 articles to investigate the prevalence of scientific evidence regarding these potential DBS-induced changes. While we observed an increase in the number of publications in theoretical neuroethics (...) that mention putative DBS-induced changes to patients’ postoperative PIAAAS, we found a critical lack of primary empirical studies corroborating these claims. Our findings strongly suggest that the theoretical neuroethics debate on putative effects of DBS relies on very limited empirical evidence and is, instead, reliant on unsubstantiated speculative assumptions probablyin lieuof robust evidence. As such, this may reflect the likelihood of a speculative neuroethics bubble that may need to be deflated. Nevertheless, despite the low number of first-hand primary studies and large number of marginal and single case reports, potential postoperative DBS changes experienced by patients remain a critical ethical concern. We recommend further empirical research in order to enhance theoretical neuroethics work in the area. In particular, we call for the development of better instruments capable of capturing potential postoperative variations of PIAAAS. (shrink)

The intersection of AI and neurotechnology has resulted in an increasing number of medical and non-medical applications and has sparked debate over the need for new human rights, or “neurorights,”...

One important concern regarding implantable Brain Computer Interfaces is the fear that the intervention will negatively change a patient’s sense of identity or agency. In particular, there is concern that the user will be psychologically worse-off following treatment despite postoperative functional improvements. Clinical observations from similar implantable brain technologies, such as deep brain stimulation, show a small but significant proportion of patients report feelings of strangeness or difficulty adjusting to a new concept of themselves characterized by a maladaptive je ne (...) sais quoi despite clear motor improvement. Despite the growing number of cases in the DBS literature, there is currently no accepted or standardized tool in neuroethics specifically designed to capture the phenomenological postoperative experience of patients implanted with DBS or BCI devices. Given potential risks of postoperative maladaptation, it is important for the field of neuroethics to develop a qualitative instrument that can serve as a shared method for capturing postoperative variations in patient experience of identity and agency. The goal of this article is to introduce an instrument we have developed for this purpose and call for further neuroethical efforts to assess the phenomenology of implantable brain device use. (shrink)

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In consequence (...) of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations. (shrink)

" Les réflexions de Frédéric Schiffter, qu'on les tienne pour philosophiques ou anti-philosophiques, sont inséparables d'une humeur portée sur le scepticisme et le pessimisme, un peu à la manière de Cioran. Frédéric Schiffter fait de l'ennui une composante essentielle de la vie humaine (tel Schopenhauer) ; mais en même temps il défend sans cesse la réalité contre les utopies qui en interdisent une vision lucide et qu'il range dans deux catégories philosophiques qui lui sont personnelles : l'ordre du (...) blobla et l'ordre du chichi. L'homme du blabla vante l'irréel : c'est un charlatan. L'homme du chichi décrie le réel : c'est un précieux dégoûté. Mélangeant comme Montaigne anecdotes et considérations philosophiques, écrit dans une langue simple et élégante, ce livre se lit d'une traite et très agréablement. " Clément Rosset. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse au problème de la maintenance, c’est-à-dire au moment où les membres d’un collectif social tentent d’assurer dans le temps l’existence de leur collectif en instituant des règles pour réguler leurs comportements. Ce problème se pose avec acuité lorsque certains membres ne respectent pas ces règles communes. Pour maintenir la coopération sociale, les membres peuvent décider d’instituer des règles secondaires visant à sanctionner les transgressions des règles primaires déjà établies. La maintenance d’un collectif peut ainsi reposer sur l’émergence (...) de pouvoirs déontiques qui donnent aux membres l’autorité de légitimement punir et expulser les transgresseurs. Mais d’où viennent ces règles ? On peut penser qu’elles émergent des émotions éprouvées par les membres envers les transgresseurs. Je le démontre à l’aide d’une étude de cas qui établit que, dans le collectif Occupy Geneva, l’institutionnalisation de normes pour punir, exclure et réintégrer les déviants s’ancraient respectivement dans l’indignation, le mépris et le pardon. -/- This article focuses on the problem of maintenance; that is the moment when the members of a social collective attempt to ensure the existence of their collective over time by instituting rules to regulate their behavior. This problem becomes critical when certain members do not respect the common rules. To maintain social cooperation, members can decide to institute secondary rules aimed at sanctioning the transgressions of the already established primary rules. The maintenance of a collective can thus rely on the emergence of deontic powers that give members the authority to legitimately punish and expel transgressors. But where do these rules come from? The hypothesis is that they emerge from the emotions felt by the members towards the transgressors. I show this with the help of a case study, which establishes that the institutionalization of norms allowing the punishment, the exclusion, and the reintegration of deviants within the “Occupy Geneva” collective, was grounded in indignation, contempt, and forgiveness respectively. (shrink)

The phenomenological effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the self of the patient remains poorly understood and under described in the literature, despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients experience postoperative neuropsychiatric changes. To address this lack of phenomenological evidence, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 17 patients with Parkinson's disease who had undergone DBS. Exploring the subjective character specific to patients' experience of being implanted gives empirical and conceptual understanding of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (...) Our study concluded that (1) the more patients preoperatively felt alienated by their illness, the more they experienced postoperative self-estrangement, and (2) the notion of self-estrangement seems to exist in association with certain common qualitative characters, namely, loss of control, which reflects a deteriorative estrangement, and distorted perception of capacities, which reveals a restorative estrangement. These findings indicate that subjective self-reports help us to understand some aspects of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness as a pairwise comparison between individuals taken two at a time, and so vitiates the interpretation (...) of the theory as one about populations exclusively. (shrink)

The traditional international law of self-defense provides little indication about how far states should be willing to defend. That choice is better understood as constrained, beyond the jus in bello and the jus ad bellum, by human rights norms that implicate responsibilities of the sovereign vis-à-vis its own population. Different conceptions of human rights, however, underscore different possible theories of the extent of self-defense. The main polarity is between a conception of self-defense as protecting bare life and a conception of (...) self-defense as protecting collective self-determination. In the practice of justifying particular uses of self-defense, these foundations are constantly and dynamically rearticulated to justify fighting on, surrendering, or negotiating. This raises questions about the impact of conditions of uncertainty, different conceptions of agency, and the role of the international community. Ultimately, the article suggests that self-defense radicalizes anxieties about the foundation and finality of rights. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output (...) in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

This is an important new book about human motivation, about the reasons people have for their actions. What is distinctively new about it is its focus on how people see or understand their situations, options, and prospects. By taking account of people's understandings, Professor Schick is able to expand the current theory of decision and action. The author provides a perspective on the topic by outlining its history. He defends his new theory against criticism, considers its formal structure, and shows (...) at length how it resolves many currently debated problems: the problems of conflict and weakness of will, Allais' problem, Kahneman and Tversky's problems, Newcomb's problem, and others. The book will be of special interest to philosophers, psychologists, and economists. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the implications of a Rawlsian theory for intergenerational issues. First, we confront Rawls's way of locating his `just savings' principle in his Theory of Justice with an alternative way of doing so. We argue that both sides of his intergenerational principle, as they apply to the accumulation phase and the steady-state stage, can be dealt with on the bases, respectively, of the principle of equal liberty and of the difference principle. We then proceed by focusing (...) on the implications of applying maximin to his steady-state stage. One central claim is that, in principle, Rawlsians should consider not only generational dissavings, but also generational savings, as unfair. This principle suffers a series of exceptions on which we focus in the fourth section of the article. In some cases, growth can be maximin compatible. (shrink)

Ecological fitness has been suggested to provide a unifying definition of fitness. However, a metric for this notion of fitness was in most cases unavailable except by proxy with differential reproductive success. In this article, I show how differential persistence of lineages can be used as a way to assess ecological fitness. This view is inspired by a better understanding of the evolution of some clonal plants, colonial organisms, and ecosystems. Differential persistence shows the limitation of an ensemblist noncausal understanding (...) of evolution. Causal explanations are necessary to understand the evolution by natural selection of these biological systems. †To contact the author write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre‐Ville, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7 Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)