-
32Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences (edited book)Springer. 2015.The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life. The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinis…Read more
-
21Special Issue Editor’s Introduction: “Revisiting the Modern Synthesis”Journal of the History of Biology 52 (4): 509-518. 2019.
-
20Revisiting darwinian teleology: A case for inclusive fitness as design explanationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 76 101188. 2019.
-
18How the Modern Synthesis Came to EcologyJournal of the History of Biology 52 (4): 635-686. 2019.Ecology in principle is tied to evolution, since communities and ecosystems result from evolution and ecological conditions determine fitness values. Yet the two disciplines of evolution and ecology were not unified in the twentieth-century. The architects of the Modern Synthesis, and especially Julian Huxley, constantly pushed for such integration, but the major ideas of the Synthesis—namely, the privileged role of selection and the key role of gene frequencies in evolution—did not directly or …Read more
-
21The Modern Synthesis: Theoretical or Institutional Event?Journal of the History of Biology 52 (4): 519-535. 2019.This paper surveys questions about the nature of the Modern Synthesis as a historical event : was it rather theoretical than institutional? When and where did it actually happen? Who was involved? It argues that all answers to these questions are interrelated, and that systematic sets of answers define specific perspectives on the Modern Synthesis that are all complementary.
-
Introduction: Time Between Metaphysics and Natural Sciences: From Physics to BiologyIn Philippe Huneman & Christophe Bouton (eds.), Time of Nature and the Nature of Time: Philosophical Perspectives of Time in Natural Sciences, Springer. 2017.
-
28The Multifaceted Legacy of the Human Genome Program for Evolutionary Biology: An Epistemological PerspectivePerspectives on Science 27 (1): 117-152. 2019.
-
47Naturalising purpose: From comparative anatomy to the ‘adventure of reason’Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (4): 649-674. 2006.Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the perio…Read more
-
22Neutral Spaces and Topological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology: Lessons from Some Landscapes and MappingsPhilosophy of Science 85 (5): 969-983. 2018.I consider recent uses of the notion of neutrality in evolutionary biology and ecology, questioning their relevance to the kind of explanation recently labeled ‘topological explanation’. Focusing on fitness landscapes and genotype-phenotype maps, I explore the explanatory uses of neutral subspaces, as modeled in two perspectives: hyperdimensional fitness landscapes and RNA sequence-structure maps. I argue that topological properties of such spaces account for features of evolutionary systems: re…Read more
-
8Temps de la nature, nature du temps: Etudes philosophiques sur le temps dans les sciences naturelles (edited book)CNRS Editions. 2018.Dans l'histoire de la philosophie, la question du temps a été abordée selon deux tendances opposées : le temps de la nature avec Aristote et le temps de la conscience avec Augustin. Ces deux formes irréductibles l'une à l'autre ont vu leur relation se complexifier, notamment avec la théorie de la relativité au début du XXe siècle, puis la mécanique quantique, qui ont bousculé notre perception et compréhension du temps. Cet ouvrage, écrit par des scientifiques et des philosophes, se concentre plu…Read more
-
29Time of Nature and the Nature of Time: Philosophical Perspectives of Time in Natural Sciences (edited book)Springer. 2017.This volume addresses the question of time from the perspective of the time of nature. Its aim is to provide some insights about the nature of time on the basis of the different uses of the concept of time in natural sciences. Presenting a dialogue between philosophy and science, it features a collection of papers that investigate the representation, modeling and understanding of time as they appear in physics, biology, geology and paleontology. It asks questions such as: whether or not the noti…Read more
-
24Realizability and the varieties of explanationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 68 37-50. 2018.
-
19Mapping an expanding territory: computer simulations in evolutionary biologyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 36 (1): 60-89. 2014.The pervasive use of computer simulations in the sciences brings novel epistemological issues discussed in the philosophy of science literature since about a decade. Evolutionary biology strongly relies on such simulations, and in relation to it there exists a research program (Artificial Life) that mainly studies simulations themselves. This paper addresses the specificity of computer simulations in evolutionary biology, in the context (described in Sect. 1) of a set of questions about their sc…Read more
-
28Kant’s Concept of Organism Revisited: A Framework for a Possible Synthesis between Developmentalism and Adaptationism?The Monist 100 (3): 373-390. 2017.
-
11Introduction: the plurality of modelingHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 36 (1): 5-15. 2014.Philosophers of science have recently focused on the scientific activity of modeling phenomena, and explicated several of its properties, as well as the activities embedded into it. A first approach to modeling has been elaborated in terms of representing a target system: yet other epistemic functions, such as producing data or detecting phenomena, are at least as relevant. Additional useful distinctions have emerged, such as the one between phenomenological and mechanistic models. In biological…Read more
-
23The behavioural ecology of irrational behavioursHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 39 (3): 23. 2017.Natural selection is often envisaged as the ultimate cause of the apparent rationality exhibited by organisms in their specific habitat. Given the equivalence between selection and rationality as maximizing processes, one would indeed expect organisms to implement rational decision-makers. Yet, many violations of the clauses of rationality have been witnessed in various species such as starlings, hummingbirds, amoebas and honeybees. This paper attempts to interpret such discrepancies between eco…Read more
-
56Assessing statistical views of natural selection: Room for non-local causation?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4): 604-612. 2013.Recently some philosophers have emphasized a potentially irreconcilable conceptual antagonism between the statistical characterization of natural selection and the standard scientific discussion of natural selection in terms of forces and causes. Other philosophers have developed an account of the causal character of selectionist statements represented in terms of counterfactuals. I examine the compatibility between such statisticalism and counterfactually based causal accounts of natural select…Read more
-
29From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality (edited book)MIT Press. 2013.Our intuitive assumption that only organisms are the real individuals in the natural world is at odds with developments in cell biology, ecology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Although organisms have served for centuries as nature’s paradigmatic individuals, science suggests that organisms are only one of the many ways in which the natural world could be organized. When living beings work together—as in ant colonies, beehives, and bacteria-metazoan symbiosis—new collective in…Read more
-
3Kant's Critique Of Leibnizian Theory Of Organisms: An Unnoticed Cornerstone For Criticism?Yeditepe'de Felsefe (Philosophy at Yeditepe) 4
-
90From the critique of judgment to the hermeneutics of nature: Sketching the fate of philosophy of nature after Kant (review)Continental Philosophy Review 39 (1): 1-34. 2006.This paper proposes an interpretative framework for some developments of the philosophy of nature after Kant. I emphasize the critique of the economy of nature in the Critique of judgement. I argue that it resulted in a split of a previous structure of knowledge; such a structure articulated natural theology and natural philosophy on the basis of the consideration of the order displayed by living beings, both in their internal organisation and their ecological distribution. The possibility of a …Read more
-
92Understanding purpose: Kant and the philosophy of biology (edited book)University of Rochester Press. 2007.A collection of essays investigating key historical and scientific questions relating to the concept of natural purpose in Kant's philosophy of biology.
-
113Emergence and adaptationMinds and Machines 18 (4): 493-520. 2008.I investigate the relationship between adaptation, as defined in evolutionary theory through natural selection, and the concept of emergence. I argue that there is an essential correlation between the former, and “emergence” defined in the field of algorithmic simulations. I first show that the computational concept of emergence (in terms of incompressible simulation) can be correlated with a causal criterion of emergence (in terms of the specificity of the explanation of global patterns). On th…Read more
-
27Montpellier Vitalism and the Emergence of Alienism in France (1750–1800): The Case of the PassionsScience in Context 21 (4): 615-647. 2008.ArgumentThis paper considers how certain ideas elaborated by the Montpellier vitalists influenced the rise of French alienism, and how those ideas framed the changing view of passions during the eighteenth century. Various kinds of evidence attest that the passions progressively became the focus of medical attention, rather than a theme specific to moralists and philosophers. Vitalism conceived of organisms as animal economies understandable through the transformations of the various modes of th…Read more
-
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-SorbonneDepartment for Teaching and Research in Philosophy (UFR10)Regular Faculty
-
Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueInstitute for the History and Philosophy of Science and TechnologyRegular Faculty
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Biology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |