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141Individuality, subjectivity, and minimal cognitionBiology and Philosophy 31 (6): 775-796. 2016.The paper links discussions of two topics: biological individuality and the simplest forms of mentality. I discuss several attempts to locate the boundary between metabolic activity and ‘minimal cognition.’ I then look at differences between the kinds of individuality present in unicellular life, multicellular life in general, and animals of several kinds. Nervous systems, which are clearly relevant to cognition and subjectivity, also play an important role in the form of individuality seen in a…Read more
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139Explanatory symmetries, preformation, and developmental systems theoryPhilosophy of Science 67 (3): 331. 2000.Some central ideas associated with developmental systems theory (DST) are outlined for non-specialists. These ideas concern the nature of biological development, the alleged distinction between "genetic" and "environmental" traits, the relations between organism and environment, and evolutionary processes. I also discuss some criticisms of the DST approach
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135Review of P. Maddy, Defending the Axioms: On the Philosophical Foundations of Set Theory (review)Mind 121 (481): 195-200. 2012.
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133Group Selection, Pluralism, and the Evolution of Altruism (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3): 685-691. 2002.One version of pluralism was defended in a well-known paper by Sterelny and Kitcher. In this sense, pluralism is the view that any given selective process can be described at a variety of different levels in the biological hierarchy. On Sterelny and Kitcher’s view, one can explain giraffe necks in terms of competition among longer-necked and shorter-necked giraffes, and one can also explain them in terms of competition among the genes that lead to these differences in neck size. Although these d…Read more
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131Darwinian Populations and Natural SelectionOxford University Press. 2009.The book presents a new way of understanding Darwinism and evolution by natural selection, combining work in biology, philosophy, and other fields.
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130Dewey on naturalism, realism and scienceProceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2002 (3). 2002.An interpretation of John Dewey’s views about realism, science, and naturalistic philosophy is presented. Dewey should be seen as an unorthodox realist, with respect to both general metaphysical debates about realism and with respect to debates about the aims and achievements of science.
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123On the evolution of representational and interpretive capacitiesThe Monist 85 (1): 50-69. 2002.How did our capacities mentally to represent the world evolve? Here is one kind of answer: To represent the world is to have a special kind of wiring inside your head, and special physical connections between that wiring and the world. How do organisms come to have that kind of wiring? Both evolution and individual learning are involved, but there has at least to be an evolutionary explanation of how some organisms acquired the capacity to wire themselves up as representers. This evolutionary st…Read more
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122The Evolution of Agency and Other EssaysMind 112 (447): 567-572. 2003.1Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305‐2155, USAThe Evolution of Agency and Other Essays Kim Sterelny Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2001 xvi + 310 Hardback£42.50, $60.00 Paperback£15.95, $22.00.
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118Varieties of population structure and the levels of selectionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (1): 25-50. 2008.Group-structured populations, of the kind prominent in discussions of multilevel selection, are contrasted with ‘neighbor-structured’ populations. I argue that it is a necessary condition on multilevel description of a selection process that there should be a nonarbitrary division of the population into equivalence classes (or an approximation to this situation). The discussion is focused via comparisons between two famous problem cases involving group structure (altruism and heterozygote advant…Read more
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118Agents and acacias: replies to Dennett, Sterelny, and QuellerBiology and Philosophy 26 (4): 501-515. 2011.The commentaries by Dennett, Sterelny, and Queller on Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (DPNS) are so constructive that they make it possible to extend and improve the book’s framework in several ways. My replies will focus on points of disagreement, and I will pick a small number of themes and develop them in detail. The three replies below are mostly self-contained, except that all my comments about genes, discussed by all three critics, are in the reply to Queller. Agential views of…Read more
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116In the beginning there was information?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 80 101239. 2020.
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116Is 'no' a force-indicator? Sometimes, possiblyAnalysis 72 (2): 225-231. 2012.Some bilateralists have suggested that some of our negative answers to yes-or-no questions are cases of rejection. Mark Textor (2011. Is ‘no’ a force-indicator? No! Analysis 71: 448–56) has recently argued that this suggestion falls prey to a version of the Frege-Geach problem. This note reviews Textor's objection and shows why it fails. We conclude with some brief remarks concerning where we think that future attacks on bilateralism should be directed
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112On the theoretical role of "genetic coding"Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 26-44. 2000.The role played by the concept of genetic coding in biology is discussed. I argue that this concept makes a real contribution to solving a specific problem in cell biology. But attempts to make the idea of genetic coding do theoretical work elsewhere in biology, and in philosophy of biology, are probably mistaken. In particular, the concept of genetic coding should not be used (as it often is) to express a distinction between the traits of whole organisms that are coded for in the genes, and the…Read more
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107Knowledge, trade-offs, and tracking truth (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (1): 231-239. 2009.No Abstract
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102Sender-Receiver Systems within and between OrganismsPhilosophy of Science 81 (5): 866-878. 2014.Drawing on models of communication due to Lewis and Skyrms, I contrast sender-receiver systems as they appear within and between organisms, and as they function in the bridging of space and time. Within the organism, memory can be seen as the sending of messages over time, communication between stages as opposed to spatial parts. Psychological memory and genetic memory are compared with respect to their relations to a sender-receiver model. Some puzzles about “genetic information” can be resolve…Read more
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102Niche construction in biological and philosophical theoriesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (1): 153-154. 2000.I distinguish different versions of the “niche construction” idea. Some are primarily scientific, while others are more philosophical. Laland, Odling-Smee & Feldman's is mostly scientific, but given that fact, there are some changes they could make to their account. I also compare the target article to Lewontin's classic 1983 paper.
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101Information, arbitrariness, and selection: Comments on Maynard SmithPhilosophy of Science 67 (2): 202-207. 2000.Maynard Smith is right that one of the most striking features of contemporary biology is the ever-increasing prominence of the concept of information, along with related concepts like representation, programming, and coding. Maynard Smith is also right that this is surely a phenomenon which philosophers of science should examine closely. We should try to understand exactly what sorts of theoretical commitment are made when biological systems are described in these terms, and what connection ther…Read more
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95Folk Psychology Under Stress: Comments on Susan Hurley’s ”Animal Action in the Space of Reasons’Mind and Language 18 (3): 266-272. 2003.My commentary on Hurley is concerned with foundational issues. Hurley's investigation of animal cognition is cast within a particular framework—basically, a philosophically refined version of folk psychology. Her discussion has a complicated relationship to unresolved debates about the nature and status of folk psychology, especially debates about the extent to which folk psychological categories are aimed at picking out features of the causal organization of the mind.
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94John Dewey’s Experience and NatureTopoi 33 (1): 285-291. 2014.John Dewey’s Experience and Nature has the potential to transform several areas of philosophy. The book is lengthy and difficult, but it has great importance for a knot of issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. It bears also on metaphilosophy, devoting many pages to the discipline’s characteristic pathologies, and advancing a view of what sort of guidance “naturalism” provides. Later chapters move on to discuss art, morality, and value. So this is a major statement by Dewey…Read more
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85Senders, receivers, and genetic information: comments on Bergstrom and RosvallBiology and Philosophy 26 (2): 177-181. 2011.
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83Why Semantic Properties Won’t Earn their KeepPhilosophical Studies 50 (September): 223-36. 1986.
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71Complexity revisitedBiology and Philosophy 32 (3): 467-479. 2017.I look back at my 1996 book Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature, responding to papers by Pamela Lyon, Fred Keijzer and Argyris Arnellos, and Matt Grove.
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70Is it a revolution?Biology and Philosophy 22 (3): 429-437. 2007.Jablonka and Lamb's claim that evolutionary biology is undergoing a ‘revolution’ is queried. But the very concept of revolutionary change has uncertain application to a field organized in the manner of contemporary biology. The explanatory primacy of sequence properties is also discussed.
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69Signs and Symbolic BehaviorBiological Theory 9 (1): 78-88. 2014.Research in archaeology and anthropology on the evolution of modern patterns of human behavior often makes use of general theories of signs, usually derived from semiotics. Recent work generalizing David Lewis’ 1969 model of signaling provides a better theory of signs than those currently in use. This approach is based on the coevolution of behaviors of sign production and sign interpretation. I discuss these models and then look at applications to human prehistoric behavior, focusing on body or…Read more
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68Dewey on Naturalism, Realism and SciencePhilosophy of Science 69 (S3). 2002.An interpretation of John Dewey’s views about realism, science, and naturalistic philosophy is presented. Dewey should be seen as an unorthodox realist, with respect to both general metaphysical debates about realism and with respect to debates about the aims and achievements of science