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. (shrink)

What should philosophers of science accomplish when they analyze scientific concepts and interpret scientific knowledge? What is concept analysis if it is not a description of the way scientists actually think? I investigate these questions by using Hans Reichenbach's account of the descriptive, critical, and advisory tasks of philosophy of science to examine Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths' idea that poll-based methodologies can test philosophical analyses of scientific concepts. Using Reichenbach's account as a point of departure, I argue that philosophy (...) of science should identify and clarify epistemic virtues and describe scientific knowledge in relation to these virtues. The role of concept analysis is to articulate scientific concepts in ways that help reveal epistemic virtues and limitations of particular sciences. This means an analysis of the gene concept should help clarify the explanatory power and limitations of gene-based explanations, and should help account for the investigative utility and biases of gene-centered sciences. I argue that a philosophical analysis of gene concept that helps achieve these critical aims should not be rejected on the basis of poll-based studies even if such studies could show that professional biologists don't actually use gene terminology in precise ways corresponding to the philosophical analysis. (shrink)

This syllabus engages dialogue about indigenous philosophical ideas and issues that frame contemporary global indigenous thought, perspective, and worldview. We explore how presuppositions of indigenous philosophy, including epistemology (how/what we know), metaphysics (what is), science (stories), and ethics (practices), affect global research programs, intellectual cultural property, economic policies, ecology, biodiversity, taxonomy, health, housing, food, employment, economic sustainability, peace negotiations, climate justice, human/treaty rights, colonial law, refugees and incarceration, self-determination, sovereignty, nation building, and digital information. Readings provide an understanding of traditional (...) and contemporary indigenous philosophical frameworks of interpretation, developments of the 1994-2004 United Nations Decade of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples, and the recent Indigenous Conference in Cancun (philosophical importance of the World Trade Organization [WTO], the World Bank [WB], the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and NAFTA). (shrink)

Philosophers now treat the relationship between Classical Mendelian Genetics and molecular biology as a paradigm of nonreduction and this example is playing an increasingly prominent role in debates about the reducibility of theories ranging from macrosocial science to folk psychology. Patricia Churchland (1986), for example, draws an analogy between the alleged elimination of the “causal mainstay” of classical genetics and her view that today’s psychological theory will be eliminated by neuroscience. Patricia Kitcher takes an autonomous rather than eliminativist view of (...) the reported nonreduction in genetics and reasons that psychology will retain a similar autonomy from lower level sciences (1980 and 1982). Although Churchland and Kitcher offer different interpretations of the apparent failure of molecular biology to reduce classical genetics, they agree that this failure will help illuminate theoretical relations between psychology and lower level sciences. The appearance of the Mendelian example along side the usual ones from physics and chemistry marks a turning point in philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, Waters introduces American Indians who hold a Ph.D. in philosophy. Waters explains that because American Indians are unable to garner the financial, collegial, and academic support needed to rise to inclusive positions in the philosophical profession, most of our colleagues and students remain uneducated and ignorant about indigenous people and our philosophies that are still alive today on this shared American continent. America’s indigenous philosophers have important contributions to make to philosophy and culture; yet our conceptual nonexistence (...) exacerbates our veridical non- integration. It is a cultural luxury for the APA to not address these problems. In some moral worlds, the APA Board might have a positive obligation to address the status of American Indian philosophy with all due haste. Three possible ways of indexing American Indian philosophy for inclusion in the discipline are presented, each raising unique and particular problems for the profession. It is suggested a field of Indigenous philosophy (global) could emerge over time, having subfields of diverse cultural philosophies, not necessarily linked to nation states or current geopolitical regions. Concluding, given issues of invisibility, alliances, and responsibility, the APA remains historically morally bound to address and perhaps even redress American Indian exclusionism in the profession upon which it acts, and in the culture it complicitly creates. (shrink)

Biologists studying complex causal systems typically identify some factors as causes and treat other factors as background conditions. For example, when geneticists explain biological phenomena, they often foreground genes and relegate the cellular milieu to the background. But factors in the milieu are as causally necessary as genes for the production of phenotypic traits, even traits at the molecular level such as amino acid sequences. Gene-centered biology has been criticized on the grounds that because there is parity among causes, the (...) “privileging” of genes reflects a reductionist bias, not an ontological difference. The idea that there is an ontological parity among causes is related to a philosophical puzzle identified by John Stuart Mill: what, other than our interests or biases, could possibly justify identifying some causes as the actual or operative ones, and other causes as mere background? The aim of this paper is to solve this conceptual puzzle and to explain why there is not an ontological parity among genes and the other factors. It turns out that solving this puzzle helps answer a seemingly unrelated philosophical question: what kind of causal generality matters in biology? (shrink)

This book brings together a diverse group of American Indian thinkers to discuss traditional and contemporary philosophies and philosophical issues. The essays presented here address philosophical questions pertaining to knowledge, time, place, history, science, law, religion, nationhood, ethics, and art, as understood from a variety of Native American standpoints. Unique in its approach, this volume represents several different tribes and nations and amplifies the voice of contemporary American Indian culture struggling for respect and autonomy. Taken together, the essays collected here (...) exemplify the way in which American Indian perspectives enrich contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

TheJournal of Religious Ethicshas published only two full‐length articles focusing on American Indian religious ethics in the last decade. This may signal that the field is uneasy about integrating American Indian religious ethics into its broader discourse. To fill this research lacuna and take a step toward normalizing religious‐ethical engagement with American Indian ethics, this article argues that the field needs an intentionally anticolonial, self‐aware approach to understanding American Indian religious ethics—one that decenters methods and approaches that may facilitate the (...) analysis of Christian texts, groups, and phenomena, yet limit insights into the religious‐moral beliefs and practices of Native Americans. The article first shows examples of how religious‐ethical methods, definitions, and epistemological starting points can obfuscate rich and accurate understandings of Native American religious‐ethical systems and phenomena. Next, it turns to historical and anthropological studies and Native American philosophy and ethics to outline an interdisciplinary framework for integrating American Indian traditions into the discourses of religious ethics. (shrink)

Waters aries that the demands of indigenous bio-prospecting programs need to be considered against the needs of indigenous communities. Issues of sovereignty and rights to self-determination need to be resolved in the context of negotiating bio-prospecting plans. By setting out clear guidelines and priorities, as determined through the eyes and values of indigenous peoples, indigenous communities may have an opportunity to participate in the global sharing of biomedical information and healing for all our relations. Before any projects get underway, however, (...) social, political, and legal issues ought to be settled so that informed decision can be made on the part of indigenous communities to partake of the invitation to bio-prospecting, or not. (shrink)

The frequency of death from miscarriage is very high, greater than the number of deaths from induced abortion or major diseases.Berg (2017, Philosophical Studies 174:1217–26) argues that, given this, those who contend that personhood begins at conception (PAC) are obliged to reorient their resources accordingly—towards stopping miscarriage, in preference to stopping abortion or diseases. This argument depends on there being a basic moral similarity between these deaths. I argue that, for those that hold to PAC, there are good reasons to (...) think that there is no such similarity. There is a morally relevant difference between preventing killing and letting die, giving PAC supporters reasons to prioritize reducing abortion over reducing miscarriage. And the time-relative interest account provides a morally relevant difference in the badness of death of miscarriages and deaths of born adults, justifying attempts to combat major diseases over attempts to combat miscarriage. I consider recent developments in the literature and contend that these new arguments are unsuccessful in establishing moral similarities between deaths from miscarriage and abortion, and deaths from miscarriage and disease. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a distinctive approach for scientific metaphysics. Instead of drawing metaphysical conclusions by interpreting the most basic theories of science, this approach draws metaphysical conclusions by analyzing how multifaceted practices of science work. Broadening attention opens the door to drawing metaphysical conclusions from a wide range of sciences. This chapter analyzes conceptual practice in genetics to argue that the reality investigated by biologists lacks an overall structure. It expands this conclusion to motivate the no general structure thesis, which (...) states that the world lacks a general, overall structure that spans scales. It concludes that the no general structure thesis counts as metaphysics because it says something very important and general about the world. This thesis informs science as well as philosophy of science, and it provides a useful perspective for societies that look upon science to help solve complex problems in our changing world. (shrink)

Philosophers’ traditional emphasis on theories, theoretical modeling, and explanation misguides research in philosophy of science. Articulating and applying core theories is part of scientific practice, but it is not the essence of scientific practice. Insofar as science has an essence, it is to systematically investigate and learn about what is not yet understood. This lecture analyzes genetics to articulate a broad-practice-centered approach to philosophy of science. It concludes by arguing that this approach can lead to richer, deeper, and more useful (...) philosophies of science, philosophies that can better inform science policy and the public’s understanding of science. (shrink)

This article was prepared for the Prepared for the Memorial Service at the University of New Mexico on March 28, 2003. Compared are the philosophy of Standing Bear and Viola Cordova. "Both Standing Bear and Cordova recognized the ruptured consciousness into which Indian students frequently fall when we encounter colonial culture. Both critically challenged the academic education being taught to Native students, in method and content. Both recognized the importance of Native students receiving an education in consonance with their cultural (...) historical ways of being and belief systems. Standing Bear and Cordova, from different tribes, different centuries, both announce a panIndian approach to Native education and healing, urging an immersion in Native cultural values, language, and ways of being." In this article Waters remembers her friend, "And I remember that although we shared a fondness for Wittgenstein, you reminded me that 'They won’t let me teach philosophy.'" At the end of the article Waters presents a poem in honor of Viola's work titled "A Transnational Indigenist Woman’s Agenda". (shrink)

Okasha claims at the outset of his book "Evolution and the Levels of Selection" that the Price equation lays bare the fundamentals underlying all selection phenomena. However, the thoroughness of his subsequent analysis of multi-level selection theories leads him to abandon his fundamentalist commitments. At critical points he invokes cost benefit analyses that sometimes favors the Price approach and sometimes the contextual approach, sometimes favors MLS1 and sometimes MLS2. And although he doesn’t acknowledge it, even the Price approach breaks down (...) into a family of alternative equations that parse the causes in different ways, none of which is uniquely correct and none of which achieves the ultimate isolation of effects due to what Okasha believes are the fundamental causes. I argue that his book provides good reason to re-conceive our understanding of evolutionary theorizing in terms of a toolbox view and to stop subjecting the analyses of evolutionary concepts to a universalist standard. (shrink)

I clarify the difference between pluralist and monist interpretations of levels of selection disputes. Lloyd has challenged my claim that a plurality of models correctly accounts for situations such as maintenance of the sickle-cell trait, and I revisit this example to show that competing theories don’t disagree about the existence of ‘high-level’ or ‘lowlevel’ causes; rather, they parse these causes differently. Applying Woodward’s theory of causation, I analyze Sober’s distinction between ‘selection of’ versus ‘selection for’. My analysis shows that this (...) distinction separates true causes from pseudocauses, but it also reveals that the distinction is irrelevant to the levels debate; it makes no sense to say true causes are at higher levels and not lower levels. The levels debate is not about separating real causes from pseudocauses; it’s about finding useful ways to parse and disentangle causes. (shrink)

Darwinians are realists about the force of selection, but there has been surprisingly little discussion about what form this realism should take. Arguments about the units of selection in general and genic selectionism in particular reveal two realist assumptions: (1) for any selection process, there is a uniquely correct identification of the operative selective forces and the level at which each impinges; and (2) selective forces must satisfy the Pareto-style requirement of probabilistic causation. I argue that both assumptions are false; (...) we must temper realism about the force of selection and revise the way we think about probabilistic causation. (shrink)

Okasha claims at the outset of his book "Evolution and the Levels of Selection" (2006) that the Price equation lays bare the fundamentals underlying all selection phenomena. However, the thoroughness of his subsequent analysis of multi-level selection theories leads him to abandon his fundamentalist commitments. At critical points he invokes cost benefit analyses that sometimes favors the Price approach and sometimes the contextual approach, sometimes favors MLS1 and sometimes MLS2. And although he doesn’t acknowledge it, even the Price approach breaks (...) down into a family of alternative equations that parse the causes in different ways, none of which is uniquely correct and none of which achieves the ultimate isolation of effects due to what Okasha believes are the fundamental causes. I argue that his book provides good reason to re-conceive our understanding of evolutionary theorizing in terms of a toolbox view (developed here) and to stop subjecting the analyses of evolutionary concepts to a universalist standard. (shrink)

I present an account of classical genetics to challenge theory-biased approaches in the philosophy of science. Philosophers typically assume that scientific knowledge is ultimately structured by explanatory reasoning and that research programs in well-established sciences are organized around efforts to fill out a central theory and extend its explanatory range. In the case of classical genetics, philosophers assume that the knowledge was structured by T. H. Morgan’s theory of transmission and that research throughout the later 1920s, 30s, and 40s was (...) organized around efforts to further validate, develop, and extend this theory. I show that classical genetics was structured by an integration of explanatory reasoning and investigative strategies . The investigative strategies, which have been overlooked in historical and philosophical accounts, were as important as the so-called laws of Mendelian genetics. By the later 1920s, geneticists of the Morgan school were no longer organizing research around the goal of explaining inheritance patterns; rather, they were using genetics to investigate a range of biological phenomena that extended well beyond the explanatory domain of transmission theories. Theory-biased approaches in history and philosophy of science fail to reveal the overall structure of scientific knowledge and obscure the way it functions.Author Keywords: Investigation; Genetic approach; Structure of knowledge; Classical genetics. (shrink)

This paper investigates what molecular biology has done for our understanding of the gene. I base a new account of the gene concept of classical genetics on the classical dogma that gene differences cause phenotypic differences. Although contemporary biologists often think of genes in terms of this concept, molecular biology provides a second way to understand genes. I clarify this second way by articulating a molecular gene concept. This concept unifies our understanding of the molecular basis of a wide variety (...) of phenomena, including the phenomena that classical genetics explains in terms of gene differences causing phenotypic differences. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology typically pose questions about individuation by asking “what is an individual?” For example, we ask, “what is an individual species”, “what is an individual organism”, and “what is an individual gene?” In the first part of this chapter, I present my account of the gene concept and how it is used in investigative practices in order to motivate a more pragmatic approach. Instead of asking “what is a gene?”, I ask: “how do biologists individuate genes?”, “for what (...) purposes?”, and “do their practices of individuating genes serve these purposes?" In the second part of this chapter, I propose that we use this approach when analyzing concepts of organisms and biological individuals. Following philosophical pragmatism, I argue that we should abstain from attempts to situate individuation of Darwinian individuals or of holobionts in a philosophy of nature. Instead, we should analyze practices of individuating organisms in terms of three-place relations between the world, ideas, and human purposes and actions. I conclude with three lessons: an ontological, an epistemological, and a meta-philosophical lesson, which I suggest, apply to philosophy of science generally and to philosophy and metaphysics at large. (shrink)

Former discussions of biological generalizations have focused on the question of whether there are universal laws of biology. These discussions typically analyzed generalizations out of their investigative and explanatory contexts and concluded that whatever biological generalizations are, they are not universal laws. The aim of this paper is to explain what biological generalizations are by shifting attention towards the contexts in which they are drawn. I argue that within the context of any particular biological explanation or investigation, biologists employ two (...) types of generations. One type identifies causal regularities exhibited by particular kinds of biological entities. The other type identifies how these entities are distributed in the biological world. (shrink)

“The question for us,” as Ronald Giere writes in Understanding Scientific Reasoning, “is whether analogies play any role in the JUSTIFICATION of [a] new theory.” Giere’s answer is an emphatic “No.” (Giere 1984, pp. 79-80). Although most philosophers of science would probably qualify Giere’s unmitigated rejection of analogical justification, few attribute much significance to analogical arguments in science. And when philosophers do grudgingly acknowledge an analogical argument, they are hesitant to analyze it.Take, for example, Charles Darwin’s argument for natural selection. (...) It is difficult to deny that the analogy between artificial and natural selection played an important justificatory role. After all, artificial selectibn was the topic of the first chapter of Darwin’s Origin of Species and was referred to in countless arguments throughout the text.2. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to introduce readers to the topic of exploratory experimentation and briefly explain how the three articles that follow, by Richard Burian, Kevin Elliott, and Maureen O'Malley, advance our understanding of the nature and significance of exploratory research. I suggest that the distinction between exploratory and theory-driven experimentation is multidimensional and that some of the dimensions are continuums. I point out that exploratory experiments are typically theory-informed even if they are not theory-driven. I also distinguish (...) between research programs and experiments. Research programs that are largely exploratory, such as the ones discussed in these case studies, can involve both exploratory and theory-driven experimentation. (shrink)

Philosophers now treat the relationship between classical genetics and molecular biology as a paradigm of nonreduction and this example is playing an increasingly prominent role in debates about the reducibility of theories in other sciences. This paper shows that the anti-reductionist consensus about genetics will not withstand serious scrutiny. In addition to defusing the main anti-reductionist objections, this critical analysis uncovers tell-tale signs of a significant reduction in progress. It also identifies philosophical issues relevant to gaining a better understanding of (...) what is now happening in genetics and of what we might expect to happen in other sciences. (shrink)

This syllabus explores complex ways that Native peoples form relationships with environments. Topics include Native American environmental thought, ethics, technology, and aesthetics of practice. A comparative approach shows differences and similarities of Native and Western templates of understanding that frame relations in our human environment. Texts discuses understanding of traditional and contemporary indigenous philosophical frameworks of environmental practices, and why they collide with technology. Required text authors include Gregory Cajete, J. Baird Caldicott, Michael P. Nelson, Donald Grinde, and Bruce E. (...) Johansen; recommended readings include Krim Benterrak, Staphen Muecke, Paddy Roe, David Suzuki, and Peter Knudtson. (shrink)

A poem delivered upon the memorial of Viola Cordova in honor of indigenous women everywhere. "Two millennia of indigenous diasporas, yet we are all indigenous to this planet . . . There is a transnational indigenist agenda at work here to preserve and protect the human race for humans to remain among all our relations" .

Philosophers now treat the relationship between classical genetics and molecular biology as a paradigm of nonreduction and this example is playing an increasingly prominent role in debates about the reducibility of theories in other sciences. This paper shows that the anti-reductionist consensus about genetics will not withstand serious scrutiny. In addition to defusing the main anti-reductionist objections, this critical analysis uncovers tell-tale signs of a significant reduction in progress. It also identifies philosophical issues relevant to gaining a better understanding of (...) what is now happening in genetics and of what we might expect to happen in other sciences. (shrink)

Leading philosophical accounts presume that Thomas H. Morgan’s transmission theory can be understood independently of experimental practices. Experimentation is taken to be relevant to confirming, rather than interpreting, the transmission theory. But the construction of Morgan’s theory went hand in hand with the reconstruction of the chief experimental object, the model organism Drosophila melanogaster . This raises an important question: when a theory is constructed to account for phenomena in carefully controlled laboratory settings, what knowledge, if any, indicates the theory’s (...) relevance to phenomena outside highly controlled settings? The answer, I argue, is found within the procedural knowledge embedded within laboratory practice. †To contact the author, please write to: Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, Department of Philosophy, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455‐0310; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Susan Mills and John Beatty proposed a propensity interpretation of fitness (1979) to show that Darwinian explanations are not circular, but they did not address the critics' chief complaint that the principle of the survival of the fittest is either tautological or untestable. I show that the propensity interpretation cannot rescue the principle from the critics' charges. The critics, however, incorrectly assume that there is nothing more to Darwin's theory than the survival of the fittest. While Darwinians all scoff at (...) this assumption, they do not agree about what role, if any, this principle plays in Darwin's theory of natural selection. I argue that the principle has no place in Darwin's theory. His theory does include the idea that some organisms are fitter than others. But greater reproductive success is simply inferred from higher fitness. There is no reason to embody this inference in the form of a special principle of the survival of the fittest. (shrink)

Clark Glymour has argued that hypothetico-deductivism, which many take to be an important method of scientific confirmation, is hopeless because it cannot be reconstructed in classical logic. Such reconstructions, as Glymour points out, fail to uphold the condition of relevance between theory and evidence. I argue that the source of the irrelevant confirmations licensed by these reconstructions lies not with hypothetico-deductivism itself, but with the classical logic in which it is typically reconstructed. I present a new reconstruction of hypothetico-deductivism in (...) relevance logic that does maintain the condition of relevance between theory and evidence. Hence, if hypothetico-deductivism is an important rationale in science, we have good reason to believe that the logic underlying scientific discourse is captured better by relevance logic than by its classical counterpart. (shrink)

Although historians have carefully examined exactly what role the analogy between artificial and natural selection might have played in Charles Darwin's discovery of natural selection, philosophers have not devoted much attention to the way Darwin employed the analogy to justify his theory. I suggest that philosophers tend to belittle the role that analogies play in the justification of scientific theories because they don't understand the special nature of analogical inference. I present a novel account of analogical argument developed by Julian (...) Weitzenfeld and then use it to carry out an in-depth analysis of Darwin's argument from artificial selection. (shrink)