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58Contemporary feminist perspectives on biological scienceBiology and Philosophy 4 (1): 107-119. 1989.
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231Discussion. In defence of the Baldwin effect: a reply to WatkinsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (3): 477-479. 2000.
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58Comments on Philosophy of Science after Feminism, by Janet KouranyPerspectives on Science 20 (3): 310-319. 2012.
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87Against scientific imperialismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994. 1994.Most discussion of the unity of science has concerned what might be called vertical relations between theories: the reducibility of biology to chemistry, or chemistry to physics, and so on. In this paper I shall be concerned rather with horizontal relations, that is to say, with theories of different kinds that deal with objects at the same structural level. Whereas the former, vertical, conception of unity through reduction has come under a good deal of criticism recently (see, e.g., Dupré 1993…Read more
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70Could There Be a Science of Economics?Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1): 363-378. 1993.Much scientific thinking and thinking about science involves assumptions that there is a deep and pervasive order to the world that it is the business of science to disclose. A paradigmatic statement of such a view can be found in a widely discussed paper by a prominent economist, Milton Friedman (a paper which will be discussed in more detail shortly): A fundamental hypothesis of science is that appearances are deceptive and that there is a way of looking at or interpreting or organizing the ev…Read more
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31Across the Boundaries: Extrapolation in Biology and Social SciencePhilosophical Review 119 (1): 123-126. 2010.
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117Are There Genes?Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 56 16-17. 2005.Contrary to one possible interpretation of my title, this paper will not advocate any scepticism or ontological deflation. My concern will rather be with how we should best think about a realm of phenomena the existence of which is in no doubt, what has traditionally been referred to as the genetic. I have no intention of questioning a very well established scientific consensus on this domain. It involves the chemical DNA, which resides in almost all our cells, which is capable of producing copi…Read more
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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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1Alexander Rosenberg, Instrumental Biology or The Disunity of Science Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 15 (4): 283-285. 1995.
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101Against reductionist explanations of human behaviour: John dupréAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 72 (1). 1998.[John Dupré] This paper attacks some prominent contemporary attempts to provide reductive accounts of ever wider areas of human behaviour. In particular, I shall address the claims of sociobiology (or evolutionary psychology) to provide a universal account of human nature, and attempts to subsume ever wider domains of behaviour within the scope of economics. I shall also consider some recent suggestions as to how these approaches might be integrated. Having rejected the imperialistic ambitions o…Read more
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Alexander Rosenberg, Instrumental Biology or The Disunity of Science (review)Philosophy in Review 15 283-285. 1995.
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42Against maladaptationism: Or what's wrong with evolutionary psychologyIn Massimo Mazzotti (ed.), Knowledge as Social Order: Rethinking the Sociology of Barry Barnes, Ashgate Pub Co. pp. 165--180. 2008.
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98Animalism and the Persistence of Human OrganismsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 52 (S1): 6-23. 2014.Humans are a kind of animal, and it is a natural and sensible idea that the way to understand what it is for a human person to persist over time is to reflect on what it is for an animal to persist. This paper accepts this strategy. However, especially in the light of a range of recent biological findings, the persistence of animals turns out to be much more problematic than is generally supposed. The main philosophical premise of the paper is that living systems generally are best treated as pr…Read more
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22Arbitrariness and bias in evolutionary speculationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 98-99. 1992.
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146A fine book, but who’s it for?Metascience 21 (1): 175-177. 2011.A fine book, but who’s it for? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9582-9 Authors John Dupré, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis), University of Exeter, Byrne House, St. German’s Road, Exeter, EX4 4PJ UK Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796
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145Towards a processual microbial ontologyBiology and Philosophy 28 (2): 379-404. 2013.Standard microbial evolutionary ontology is organized according to a nested hierarchy of entities at various levels of biological organization. It typically detects and defines these entities in relation to the most stable aspects of evolutionary processes, by identifying lineages evolving by a process of vertical inheritance from an ancestral entity. However, recent advances in microbiology indicate that such an ontology has important limitations. The various dynamics detected within microbiolo…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 |