Abstract
Periodically through the history of biology, biologists have tried to do a little philosophy and occasionally a philosopher has turned his attention to biology. In the past decade or so a body of literature has arisen which might legitimately be called 'philosophy of biology'. The purpose of this paper will be to review the contributions made to this literature by phi losophers during the past 10 or 15 years. Earlier work will be discussed only if it has proven especially influential. The contributions made by biologists to the philosophy of biology will be touched on only briefly, both because the biological literature is too vast to permit anything like a fair summary in the confines of a short paper and because the strengths and weaknesses of this literature tend to be quite different from the efforts of philosophers.1 In this paper, though it is sure to result in acrimony, I have not refrained from criticism. There is too great a discrepancy be tween what philosophers produce under the guise of philosophy of biology and what philosophy of biology could be or, in my opinion, should be to pass over without comment. One striking feature of the remarks made by philosophers about biology is how frequently they are misinformed. For example, Mario Bunge in a paper on the weight of simplicity in the construction and assaying of scientific theories asks the following question:
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