Philosophy Of Biology Research Articles

An Epistemology of Scientific Practice: Positioning Hans-Jörg Rheinberger in Twentieth-Century History and Philosophy of Biology.

In this article, I first outline the professionalization of the history and philosophy of biology from the 1960s onward. Then, I attempt to situate the work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger with respect to this field. On the one hand, Rheinberger was marginal with respect to Anglo-American philosophical tradition; on the other, he was very influential in building up an integrated history and philosophy of the life sciences community at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and beyond. This marginality results, I suggest, from three main sources: his use of concepts coming from continental traditions in the study of the life sciences, which are foreign to Anglo-American philosophers of science; his focus on practices instead of theories; and his research trajectory as a molecular biologist, which led him to be critical of disciplinary boundaries. As a first step in situating and historicizing Rheinberger's trajectory, this article invites comparative studies and calls for a history of "continental philosophy of biology" in the twentieth century.

Natural Selection's Explanatory Scope

AbstractThere are ongoing debates in philosophy of biology about what falls within natural selection's explanatory scope. These include debates about whether selection can explain individual‐level traits, the extent to which selection can explain distributions of trait frequencies, and whether selection can explain the origin of novel traits. Here I'll survey these debates, suggest which views seem most plausible, and describe some useful conceptual frameworks for thinking about the issues involved.

Health and environment from adaptation to adaptivity: a situated relational account

The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been challenged by the current global scenarios (e.g., new diseases, new geographical distribution of diseases, effects of climate change on health, etc.) and by the ongoing scholarship in humanities and science. In this paper we question the mainstream definition of health adopted by the WHO—‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO in Preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the international health conference, The World Health Organization, 1948)—and its role in providing tools to understand what health is in the contemporary context. More specifically, we argue that this context requires to take into account the role of the environment both in medical theory and in the healthcare practice. To do so, we analyse WHO documents dated 1984 and 1986 which define health as ‘coping with the environment’. We develop the idea of ‘coping with the environment’, by focusing on two cardinal concepts: adaptation in public health and adaptivity in philosophy of biology. We argue that the notions of adaptation and adaptivity can be of major benefit for the characterization of health, and have practical implications. We explore some of these implications by discussing two recent case studies of adaptivity in public health, which can be valuable to further develop adaptive strategies in the current pandemic scenario: community-centred care and microbiologically healthier buildings.

Functional Biology and Evolutionary Biology: A Different View of the Origin of Living Things

The distinction proposed by Ernst Mayr and François Jacob between functional biology and evolutionary biology is a fundamental key for a clear and conclusive treatment of two problems that, recurrently, are placed in the field of the Philosophy of Biology: that which concerns the possible character teleological of biological explanations and that relative to the autonomy of Biology in relation to Physics and Chemistry. Without supporting an alternative solution for any of these problems, we present that opposition showing its relevance for the treatment of such issues. Our idea is that they should not be raised without specifying which of the two domains of life sciences we are referring to.

Dick Lewontin and the new philosophy of biology.

Dick Lewontin and the new philosophy of biology.

Health as temporally extended: theoretical foundations and implications.

This paper seeks to develop a theory of health that aligns with the shift in contemporary medical practice and research toward a temporally extended epidemiological view of health. The paper describes how such a theory is at the core of life course based approaches to health, and finds theoretical grounding in recent work in the philosophy of biology promulgating a process theory of life.

Teleosemantics and the free energy principle

The free energy principle is notoriously difficult to understand. In this paper, we relate the principle to a framework that philosophers of biology are familiar with: Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. We argue that: (i) systems that minimise free energy are systems with a proper function; and (ii) Karl Friston’s notion of implicit modelling can be understood in terms of Millikan’s notion of mapping relations. Our analysis reveals some surprising formal similarities between the two frameworks, and suggests interesting lines of future research. We hope this will aid further philosophical evaluation of the free energy principle.

The Biological and Cultural Grounds for Ethics: Hans Jonas and Francisco Ayala

Regarding the epistemological borderlines between science and philosophy, this article approaches the human mind and ethics from biological and philosophical theories. For this purpose, the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection provides a scientific foundation to understand the human mind and ethics. However, not only Charles Darwin has studied mental faculties and ethics, this is also a topic researched by eminent contemporary paleontologists and biologists. Prior to modern biology, going back to Greek philosophy, philosophers have traditionally studied the human mind and ethics, separating human beings and the rest of nature ontologically. Following modern biology, the philosopher Hans Jonas has developed a philosophical biology from the perspective of hermeneutical phenomenology to understand life. With the help of his hermeneutical phenomenology, Jonas has presented an ontological theory of organism-metabolism to understand the phenomenon of life from simple living beings to the human mind in relation to nature, based on the body. Recently, the evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala has proposed a coherent scientific and philosophical theory about biological and cultural roots for ethics, considering the evolution of human mental and intellectual capacities and the three conditions for ethical behavior as a part of human intellectual capacity, which scientifically complements and informs Hans Jonas’s philosophical biology and ethics of responsibility.

The integrative approach to inferring homology: morphology and development combined

Reconstructing ancestral species is a challenging endeavour: fossils are often scarce or enigmatic, and inferring ancestral characters based on novel molecular approaches (e.g. comparative genomics or developmental genetics) has long been controversial. A key philosophical challenge pertinent at present is the lack of a theoretical framework capable of evaluating inferences of homology made through integration of multiple kinds of evidence (e.g. molecular, developmental, or morphological). Here, I present just such a framework. I start with a brief history and critical assessment of attempts at inferring morphological homology through developmental genetics. I then bring attention to a recent model of homology, namely Character Identity Mechanisms (DiFrisco et al. 2020), intended partly to elucidate the relationships between morphological characters, developmental genetics, and homology. I utilise and build on this model to construct the evaluative framework mentioned above, which judges the epistemic value of evidence of each kind in each particular case based on three proposed criteria: effectiveness, admissibility, and informativity, as well as providing a generalised guideline on how it can be scientifically operationalised. I then point out the evolution of the eumetazoan body plan as a case in point where the application of this framework can yield satisfactory results, both empirically and conceptually. I will conclude with a discussion on some potential implications for more general philosophy of biology and philosophy of science, especially surrounding evidential integration, models and explanation, and reductionism.

Biological Individuality and the Foetus Problem

The Problem of Biological Individuality is the problem of how to count organisms. Whilst counting organisms may seem easy, the biological world is full of difficult cases such as colonial siphonophores and aspen tree groves. One of the main solutions to the Problem of Biological Individuality is the Physiological Approach. Drawing on an argument made by Eric Olson in the personal identity debate, I argue that the Physiological Approach faces a metaphysical problem - the ‘Foetus Problem’. This paper illustrates how metaphysics can contribute to debates about organisms in the philosophy of biology.

The Prion as Nature’s Undead

Abstract The prion is a self-replicating protein that infects the central nervous system. This essay applies Georges Canguilhem’s criterion for life, biological normativity, to the prion for the purpose of arguing that the existence of the prion within living systems requires attention to how biological matter uses space. Without the involvement of DNA, the prion protein is physically capable of transforming nonprion proteins into prion proteins—a capacity afforded by the specific characteristics of the energy landscape it propagates within, which in turn is determined by the specific arrangement of atoms in its molecular architecture. Like a hammer that is a mirror, the prion compresses and folds surrounding proteins, making its environment identical to itself. This essay studies how information exchange occurs for the prion for the purpose of arguing for a philosophy of biology premised on the analysis of space with attention to form over the analysis of language with attention to genetic code.

Homo Informaticus: Biological and Socioanthropotechnical Evolution

The article is devoted to the philosophical analysis of the problem of the ways of evolution of modern man and the man of the future, who is often called digital, information man or e-homo (electronic man). The purpose of the article is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the digital person, as well as to understand which directions of his evolution are promising, and which are dangerous and lead to dehumanization. The author’s hypothesis is that, although the main directions of evolution of Homo sapiens in Homo informaticus lie in the socio-anthropotechnical plane, that is, they are carried out using artificial methods, yet the possibilities of biological evolution are not completely exhausted. The methodological basis of the research is a systematic review and analysis of literature in two main areas: biological (evolutionary biology, neurophysiology) and socio-philosophical (literature on the problems of building an information society and human existence in it). Interdisciplinary analysis shows that the brain of the becoming Homo informaticus undergoes significant physiological changes, entailing changes in thinking, memory, human behavior, and, therefore, indirectly – and changes in society and culture. From the “book culture” of perception of a voluminous coherent printed text, we move on to the “clip culture”. Stress has proven evolutionary significance, accordingly, in the impact of information stress, to which the inhabitants of a digital society are very much exposed, one can look for evolutionary potential. This problem is acutely relevant for modern research in the field of philosophy of biology and human ecology, as it opens up new perspectives in understanding the problem of human evolution. Never before in the history of mankind have technologies reached a level that allows them to directly interfere with the foundations of human existence. The result of the research is a philosophically grounded answer to the question in which direction the further evolution of man is possible, which, in turn, will allow us to find new and take a fresh look at the already known philosophical meanings of the concept of “man”.

Values in evolutionary biology: a comparison between the contemporary debate on organic progress and Canguilhem’s biological philosophy

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison and build up a dialogue between two different philosophical approaches to values in evolutionary biology. First, I present the approach proposed by Alexander Rosenberg and Daniel McShea in their contribution to the contemporary debate on organic progress. i.e. the idea that there has been some kind of improvement concerning organisms over the history of life. Discussing organic progress raises the question of what “better” exactly means. This requires an explicit clarification on what legitimately means to speak about “good” in evolutionary biology, thus to speak about values. Second, I move on to present an approach to values that has been proposed by Georges Canguilhem in the context of a different philosophical tradition (i.e. the “continental” tradition). Canguilhem’s original theses are conceived in a Darwinian framework and clearly relate to the question of values in evolutionary biology. I shall then propose a comparison between these two heterogeneous perspectives on values by critically evaluating their common points and main differences. I will argue that both perspectives agree that the question of values in evolutionary biology takes on its full meaning with respect to the relationship between the organism and the environment. However, the framework for conceptualizing values in evolutionary biology provided by Rosenberg and McShea neglects a significant point highlighted by Canguilhem, i.e. the active role that the organism can play in evaluating the environment. In line with recent developments of biology (e.g. niche construction), this point can be easily integrated into Rosenberg and McShea’s framework. Finally, I will point out some main differences between the two perspectives relative to the specificity of Canguilhem’s biological philosophy.

Philosophy in Science: Some Personal Reflections

AbstractThe task of Philosophy in Science (PinS) is to use philosophical tools to help solve scientific problems. This article describes how I stumbled into this line of work and then addressed several topics in philosophy of biology—units of selection, cladistic parsimony, robustness and trade-offs in model building, adaptationism, and evidence for common ancestry—often in collaboration with scientists. I conclude by offering advice for would-be PinS practitioners.

Individuation in the Light of Notions of Form and InformationOn the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects

Simondon is scarcely known to English-language philosophers, though with these translations that may begin to change. They have been a long time coming. Simondon writes a complicated academic prose in French and calls on an unusually wide range of expertise, but reading his books is worth the effort. Individuation in the Light of Notions of Form and Information (1964) is a dense and at times technical contribution to the philosophy of biology, though there is little in metaphysics that is not implicated in his argument. Science and philosophy are enjoined to pursue knowledge of individuation, a genetic process, rather than starting with individuals of any sort. Individuation, the process, is primitive, and individuals a relative reality.On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958) is the best work ever in the philosophy of technology. Contributions by Heidegger and others pale in comparison. Simondon analyzes a wide variety of technical objects with a mastery of engineering science. Heidegger would not know a diode from a triode. He thought meditation on ancient Greek words would take philosophy closer to “the essence of Teknik” than anything learned from science and engineering. Simondon shows why this view is mistaken. In this one, very technical difference (diode and triode), which is replicated ubiquitously in modern technology, he discerns what makes something technical rather than natural or accidental. He applies his thesis about the priority of individuation. Technical objects are phases of a technical individuation that he calls concretization, by which their operation becomes more internally resonant, as for example in the step from diode to triode (to pentode, to transistor and integrated circuit). There is much, much more of value in this book; for instance, his argument is implicitly anti-Marxist. Workers’ alienation is not attributable to economy. Industrial technology alienates workers because machines do what used to be the most satisfying, skillful (and expensive) part of industrial production, leaving workers with only regulative and custodial functions—which is alienating to people born, as we all are, to the technical life.

Two Problems of the Biological Philosophy of Technology

Two Problems of the Biological Philosophy of Technology

The Concept of Genetic Information and Historical Epistemology

The information concept in molecular biology and genetics has a duality inherent in any canon: on the one hand, now it looks universal, and it is difficult to think of transcending this discourse; on the other hand, historians of science show that one's emergence is culturally contingent and is associated with the “informatization” of science and society during WWII and the Cold War. This kind of duality is analyzed by historical epistemology (critical presentism), trying to understand science, on the one hand, as rational (truth is universal), on the other, as contingent (other possible worlds of scientific knowledge are conceivable). In this article, using the concept of genetic information as an example, it is shown how the first goal of historical epistemology is achieved by criticizing the science of the past with the help of modern science and philosophy of science. The second goal is achieved by criticizing modern science from the point of view of past science. Namely, the rapid rise of the concept of information in biology in the middle of the 20th century and the fast transition from quantitative mathematical information theory to information-linguistic metaphors can be rationally understood within the framework of the teleosemantic concept of information developed in the modern philosophy of biology. On the other hand, delving into the past of biology, we find all the more radical alternatives to the information concept and informational and linguistic metaphors: from the mathematical theory of information to the “chemical” concept of “absolute” specificity as stereospecificity to the “physical” concept of relative specificity as a consequence of collective effects. This historical perspective makes it possible to discern feasible alternatives to the information concept in modern biology.

Teleology and the organism: Kant's controversial legacy for contemporary biology

This paper distinguishes two ways in which Kant's ideas concerning the relation between teleology and biological organization have been taken up in contemporary philosophy of biology and theoretical biology. The first sees his account as the first instance of the modern understanding of teleology as a heuristic tool aimed at producing mechanistic explanations of organismal form and function. The second sees in Kant's concept of intrinsic purposiveness the seed of a radically new way of thinking about biological systems that should be developed by turning teleology into a legitimate concept of natural science. We name the two approaches heuristic and naturalistic, respectively. Our aim is to critically evaluate these approaches and suggest that the naturalistic option, which remains a minority position, deserves to be taken more seriously than it currently is in contemporary biological theory. While evolution by natural selection closes the case on intelligent design, it does not close the case on teleology in general. In fact, the current return of the organism and the recent calls for an agential perspective in evolutionary biology point out that we still have some thinking to do concerning this side of Kant's legacy.

Mechanisms of macromolecular reactions.

During the past two decades, philosophers of biology have increasingly turned their attention to mechanisms of biological phenomena. Through analyses of mechanistic proposals advanced by biologists, the goal of these philosophers is to understand what a mechanism is and how mechanisms explain. These analyses have generally focused on mechanistic proposals for phenomenon that occur at the cellular or sub-cellular level, such as synapse firing, protein synthesis, or metabolic pathway operation. Little is said about the mechanisms of the macromolecular reactions that underpin these phenomena. These reactions comprise a diverse family of reaction types, and include protein folding, macromolecular complex formation, receptor-ligand interactions, and enzyme catalysis. In this paper, I develop an account of mechanism that focuses exclusively on macromolecular reactions. I begin by reviewing how mechanism is understood in enzymology, and how mechanistic concepts of enzymology apply to macromolecular reactions in general. We will see that the mechanism of a macromolecular reaction is most accurately described as a progression of reaction intermediates, where the evolution of intermediates, from one to the next, is characterized by an energetic coupling between chemistry and protein dynamics. I then make the case that this description necessitates a grounding in a process ontology. To describe the mechanism by which a macromolecular reaction occurs is to describe a process.

Characteristics of COVID-19 and Research Progresses on Genetic Engineering Vaccine Based on Big Data.

Big data platforms can effectively analyze the data and maximize the value of the data by mining the text, digital, video, and image data in various industries. The combination of big data and various industries has brought great changes to the development of the industry. Providing data according to demand can save more time and promote the development of the industry. SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is sweeping across the world, and it has spread to several countries and regions. Human infections have been reported all around the world. Due to the unique characteristics of COVID-19, no specific medicine is available yet to cure patients before the successful research and development of vaccines. Hence, it is of important significance to research and develop vaccines. Guided by the biological characteristics of COVID-19 and the philosophy of synthetic biology, this study reviews the developed genetic engineering vaccines.