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30Blinded by “science”: How not to think about social problemsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (2): 382-383. 1992.
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30The Metaphysics of BiologyCambridge University Press. 2021.This Element is an introduction to the metaphysics of biology, a very general account of the nature of the living world. The first part of the Element addresses more traditionally philosophical questions - whether biological systems are reducible to the properties of their physical parts, causation and laws of nature, substantialist and processualist accounts of life, and the nature of biological kinds. The second half will offer an understanding of important biological entities, drawing on the …Read more
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29Darwin’s empty idea (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 49 23-32. 2010.“It’s not good enough to say there’s some mechanism such that you start out with amoebas and you end up with us. Everybody agrees with that. The question is in this case in the mechanical details. What you need is an account, as it were step by step, about what the constraints are, what the environmental variables are, and Darwin doesn’t give you that.”
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29The philosophical foundations of animal welfareBehavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (1): 19-20. 1990.
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28The Structure of Biological Science. Alexander Rosenberg (review)Philosophy of Science 53 (3): 461-463. 1986.
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27Methodological Individualism and Reductionism in BiologyCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 20 (sup1): 165-184. 1994.Methodological individualism is a thesis generally associated with the social sciences, the thesis that ultimately all social explanations should be given in terms of properties only of individuals, never of social groups, societies, etc. It is a methodological thesis grounded on a metaphysical view: it is impossible for a social group to have any property not entailed by properties of its constituent individuals. This latter thesis, finally, is a straightforward consequence of a standard reduct…Read more
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25Metagenomics and biological ontologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (4): 834-846. 2005.
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25Social Science: City Center or Leafy SuburbPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (6): 548-564. 2016.This article argues, in opposition to a common interpretation of Wittgenstein deriving from Winch, that there is nothing especially problematic about the social sciences. Familiar Wittgensteinian theses about language, notably on the open-endedness of linguistic rules and on the importance of family resemblance concepts, have great relevance not only to the social sciences but also to much of the natural sciences. The differences between scientific and ordinary language are much less sharp than …Read more
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24Response to Open Peer Commentaries on "The Study of Socioethical Issues in Systems Biology"American Journal of Bioethics 7 (4): 7-9. 2007.Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethi…Read more
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23Scientism, sexism and sociobiology: One more link in the chainBehavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (2): 292-292. 1993.
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23Review of Rosenberg's "instrumental biology or the disunity of science" (review)Dialogue 15 283-285. 1995.This book is the apologia of a frustrated reductionist. The frustration derives from Rosenberg's clear perception that the project of physicalist reduction, the reduction of all the sciences of complex objects to physics, is impossible, at least, as he often says, for beings hampered by our limited cognitive and computational abilities. The reductionism that survives this realisation is purely metaphysical. It is the firm commitment to the view that ultimately whatever happens happens because of…Read more
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23Commentary on John Dupré's Human Nature and the Limits of SciencePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (2): 473-483. 2004.
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22Arbitrariness and bias in evolutionary speculationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 98-99. 1992.
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22Inmaculada de Melo-Martín and Kristen Intemann. The Fight against Doubt: How to Bridge the Gap between Scientists and the PublicPhilosophy of Science 87 (1): 204-207. 2020.
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21Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology. Daniel R. Brooks, E. O. WileyIsis 81 (1): 149-150. 1990.
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21Review of Inmaculada de Melo-Martín and Kristen Intemann's The Fight Against Doubt (review)Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
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20Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of BiologyOxford University Press UK. 2011.John Dupré explores recent revolutionary developments in biology and considers their relevance for our understanding of human nature and human society. Epigenetics and related areas of molecular biology have eroded the exceptional status of the gene and presented the genome as fully interactive with the rest of the cell. Developmental systems theory provides a space for a vision of evolution that takes full account of the fundamental importance of developmental processes. Dupré shows the importa…Read more
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18In Defence of the Baldwin Effect: A Reply to WatkinsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (3). 2000.A recent paper by John Watkins argues that the Baldwin effect, a hypothetical evolutionary process by which a culturally evolved behavior might promote the evolution of a genetic basis for that behavior, is inconsistent with evolutionary theory. In this reply, I argue that in case the genetic basis of the behavior in question determines separable constituents of the behavior, Watkins's argument is unsound
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18Review of Steven Pinker, how the mind works (review)Philosophy of Science 66 (3): 489-493. 1999.
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18Social Science: City Center or Leafy SuburbPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (6): 548-564. 2016.This article argues, in opposition to a common interpretation of Wittgenstein deriving from Winch, that there is nothing especially problematic about the social sciences. Familiar Wittgensteinian theses about language, notably on the open-endedness of linguistic rules and on the importance of family resemblance concepts, have great relevance not only to the social sciences but also to much of the natural sciences. The differences between scientific and ordinary language are much less sharp than …Read more
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University of ExeterDepartment of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology
Egenis, Centre for the Study of Life SciencesProfessor
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Metaphysics |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Metaphysics |