-
9Adaptations in Transitions: How to Make Sense of Adaptation WhenIn Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. pp. 141. 2013.
-
118Natural Selection: A Case for the Counterfactual Approach (review)Erkenntnis 76 (2): 171-194. 2012.This paper investigates the conception of causation required in order to make sense of natural selection as a causal explanation of changes in traits or allele frequencies. It claims that under a counterfactual account of causation, natural selection is constituted by the causal relevance of traits and alleles to the variation in traits and alleles frequencies. The “statisticalist” view of selection (Walsh, Matthen, Ariew, Lewens) has shown that natural selection is not a cause superadded to the…Read more
-
62Inscrutability and the Opacity of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift: Distinguishing the Epistemic and Metaphysical AspectsErkenntnis 80 (S3): 491-518. 2015.‘Statisticalists’ argue that the individual interactions of organisms taken together constitute natural selection. On this view, natural selection is an aggregated effect of interactions rather than some added cause acting on populations. The statisticalists’ view entails that natural selection and drift are indistinguishable aggregated effects of interactions, so that it becomes impossible to make a difference between them. The present paper attempts to make sense of the difference between sele…Read more
-
36Formal Darwinism as a tool for understanding the status of organisms in evolutionary biologyBiology and Philosophy 29 (2): 271-279. 2014.This paper uses the framework of Formal Darwinism (FD) to evaluate organism-centric critiques of the Modern Synthesis (MS). The first section argues that the FD project reconciles two kinds of selective explanations in biology. Thus it is not correct to say that the MS neglects organisms—instead, it explains organisms’ design, as argued in the second section. In the third section I employ a concept of the organism derived from Kant that has two aspects: the parts presupposing the whole, and the …Read more
-
118Determinism, predictability and open-ended evolution: lessons from computational emergenceSynthese 185 (2): 195-214. 2012.Among many properties distinguishing emergence, such as novelty, irreducibility and unpredictability, computational accounts of emergence in terms of computational incompressibility aim first at making sense of such unpredictability. Those accounts prove to be more objective than usual accounts in terms of levels of mereology, which often face objections of being too epistemic. The present paper defends computational accounts against some objections, and develops what such notions bring to the u…Read more
-
The Plurality of ModelingHistory and Philosophy of the Life Science 36 (1): 1-11. 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
-
7Biodiversity and the Diversities of LifeRivista di Estetica 59 44-62. 2015.I am first going to develop a sort of cartography of the different meanings and usages of “biodiversity”, which will emphasize a few leitmotives. Next, to introduce some of these leitmotives, I will highlight two or three important elements in the process through which the term came to form a decisive role both for scientists from different fields linked to ecology, and the politicians or lawyers involved with the policies that govern the consequences of human actions on nature. In the conclusio…Read more
-
14Natural sciencesIn Allen W. Wood & Songsuk Susan Hahn (eds.), The Cambridge history of philosophy in the nineteenth century (1790-1870), Cambridge University Press. 2011.
-
54The neutral theory of biodiversity assumes that coexisting organisms are equally able to survive, reproduce and disperse, but predicts that stochastic fluctuations of these abilities drive diversity dynamics. It predicts remarkably well many biodiversity patterns, although substantial evidence for the role of niche variation across organisms seems contradictory. Here, we discuss this apparent paradox by exploring the meaning and implications of ecological equivalence. We address the question whe…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 |