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878Causal graphs and biological mechanismsIn Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the special sciences: The case of biology and history, Springer. pp. 55-86. 2014.Modeling mechanisms is central to the biological sciences – for purposes of explanation, prediction, extrapolation, and manipulation. A closer look at the philosophical literature reveals that mechanisms are predominantly modeled in a purely qualitative way. That is, mechanistic models are conceived of as representing how certain entities and activities are spatially and temporally organized so that they bring about the behavior of the mechanism in question. Although this adequately characterize…Read more
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1145Problems and Prospects of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of Philosophy of ScienceInterdisciplinary Science Reviews 41 (1): 61-70. 2016.In this paper, we discuss some problems and prospects of interdisciplinary encounters by focusing on philosophy of science as a case study. After introducing the case, we give an overview about the various ways in which philosophy of science can be interdisciplinary in Section 2. In Section 3, we name some general problems concerning the possible points of interaction between philosophy of science and the sciences studied. In Section 4 we compare the advantages and risks of interdisciplinarity f…Read more
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17What is the level of organization on which natural selection operates? Are genes, organisms or groups the entities that are selected in adaptive evolutionary processes? This book discusses recent pluralistic solutions to the problem of the units of selection. After introducing central concepts and ideas from evolutionary biology, this book constructs a novel map of the philosophical debate and locates gene selectionism, multilevel selection theory, and description pluralism on the map. The book …Read more
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500On the Limits of Causal Modeling: Spatially-Structurally Complex Biological PhenomenaPhilosophy of Science 83 (5): 921-933. 2016.This paper examines the adequacy of causal graph theory as a tool for modeling biological phenomena and formalizing biological explanations. I point out that the causal graph approach reaches it limits when it comes to modeling biological phenomena that involve complex spatial and structural relations. Using a case study from molecular biology, DNA-binding and -recognition of proteins, I argue that causal graph models fail to adequately represent and explain causal phenomena in this field. The i…Read more
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1697The Limits of Reductionism in the Life SciencesHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33 (4): 453-476. 2011.In the contemporary life sciences more and more researchers emphasize the “limits of reductionism” (e.g. Ahn et al. 2006a, 709; Mazzocchi 2008, 10) or they call for a move “beyond reductionism” (Gallagher/Appenzeller 1999, 79). However, it is far from clear what exactly they argue for and what the envisioned limits of reductionism are. In this paper I claim that the current discussions about reductionism in the life sciences, which focus on methodological and explanatory issues, leave the concep…Read more
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472Individuating Part-whole Relations in the Biological WorldIn O. Bueno, R. Chen & M. B. Fagan (eds.), Individuation across Experimental and Theoretical Sciences, Oxford University Press. 2018.What are the conditions under which one biological object is a part of another biological object? This paper answers this question by developing a general, systematic account of biological parthood. I specify two criteria for biological parthood. Substantial Spatial Inclusionrequires biological parts to be spatially located inside or in the region that the natural boundary of t he biological whole occupies. Compositional Relevance captures the fact that a …Read more
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481Well-Ordered Philosophy? Reflections on Kitcher's Proposal for a Renewal of Philosophy.In Marie I. Kaiser & A. Seide (eds.), Philip Kitcher – Pragmatic Naturalism., Ontos. pp. 161-174. 2013.In his recent article Philosophy Inside Out, Philip Kitcher presents a metaphilosophical outlook that aims at nothing less than a renewal of philosophy. His idea is to draw philosophers’ attention away from “timeless questions” in the so-called “core areas” of philosophy. Instead, philosophers should address questions that matter to human lives. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to reconstruct Kitcher’s view of how philosophy should be renewed; second, to point out some difficulties relat…Read more
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424An Ontic Account of Explanatory Reduction in BiologyKölner Hochschulschriften. 2012.Convincing disputes about explanatory reductionism in the philosophy of biology require a clear and precise understanding of what a reductive explanation in biology is. The central aim of this book is to provide such an account by revealing the features that determine the reductive character of a biological explanation. Chapters I-IV provide the ground, on which I can then, in Chapter V, develop my own account of explanatory reduction in biology: Chapter I reveals the meta-philosophical assumpti…Read more
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233ReductionIn W. Dubitzky, O. Wolkenhauer, K.-H. Cho & H. Yokota (eds.), Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, Vol. X, Springer. pp. 1827-1830. 2013.This is a contribution to the encyclopedia of systems biology on reduction.
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686Der evolutionäre Naturalismus in der EthikIn Jochen Oehler (ed.), Der Mensch - Evolution, Natur und Kultur: Beiträge zu unserem heutigen Menschenbild, Springer. pp. 261-283. 2010.Charles Darwin hat eindrucksvoll gezeigt, dass der Mensch ebenso wie alle anderen Lebewesen ein Produkt der biologischen Evolution ist. Die sich an Darwin anschließende Forschung hat außerdem plausibel gemacht, dass sich nicht nur viele der körperlichen Merkmale des Menschen, sondern auch (zumindest einige) seiner Verhaltensdispositionen in adaptiven Selektionsprozessen herausgebildet haben. Die Vorstellung, dass auch die menschliche Moralität evolutionär bedingt ist, scheint daher auf den erste…Read more
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928Pragmatism, Realism, and Science. From Argument to PropagandaIn Andreas Vieth (ed.), Richard Rorty: His Philosophy Under Discussion, Verlag. pp. 65-78. 2005.Richard Rorty is well known as a propagandist of pragmatism and of a "post-philosophical" culture in which many traditional philosophical debates are dismissed as outrightly fruitless. The paper is mainly concerned with Rorty's dismissal of the realism-antirealism debate. The shift from argument to propaganda which is typical of much of Rorty's reasoning is critically investigated from different perspectives. In particular, it is argued that Rorty cannot convincingly establish a pragmatist posit…Read more
University of Cologne
PhD, 2012
Bielefeld, NRW, Germany
Areas of Specialization
Metaphilosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Epistemology |