Université de Montréal
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2009
Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada
  •  2
    Extrapolating animal consciousness
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 104 (C): 150-159. 2024.
  •  6
    I argue that informational models of consciousness, including those proposed by the Integrated Information Theory, don’t presuppose or entail any particular view about the physical or metaphysical nature of consciousness. Such models only tell us how certain properties of consciousness can be mathematically described, thus providing a quantitative characterization of the phenomenon of consciousness that may contribute to the development of new methods of assessment and guide the explanatory proj…Read more
  •  15
    The Problem of Hard and Easy Problems
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (6): 606-621. 2022.
    David Chalmers advocates the view that the phenomenon of consciousness is fundamentally different from all other phenomena studied in the life sciences, positing a uniquely hard problem that precludes the possibility of a mechanistic explanation. In this paper, I evaluate three demarcation criteria for dividing phenomena into hard and easy problems: functional definability, the puzzle of the accompanying phenomenon, and the first-person data of subjective experience. I argue that none of the pro…Read more
  •  377
    It has been argued that supervenience generates unavoidable confounding problems for interventionist accounts of causation, to the point that we must choose between interventionism and supervenience. According to one solution, the dilemma can be defused by excluding non-causal determinants of an outcome as potential confounders. I argue that this solution undermines the methodological validity of causal tests. Moreover, we don’t have to choose between interventionism and supervenience in the fir…Read more
  •  73
    Models and the mosaic of scientific knowledge. The case of immunology
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 45 (1): 49-56. 2014.
    A survey of models in immunology is conducted and distinct kinds of models are characterized based on whether models are material or conceptual, the distinctiveness of their epistemic purpose, and the criteria for evaluating the goodness of a model relative to its intended purpose. I argue that the diversity of models in interdisciplinary fields such as immunology reflects the fact that information about the phenomena of interest is gathered from different sources using multiple methods of inves…Read more
  •  67
    The purpose of this article is to update and defend syntax-based gene concepts. I show how syntax-based concepts can and have been extended to accommodate complex cases of processing and gene expression regulation. In response to difficult cases and causal parity objections, I argue that a syntax-based approach fleshes out a deflationary concept defining genes as genomic sequences and organizational features of the genome contributing to a phenotype. These organizational features are an importan…Read more
  •  15
    A mechanistic guide to reductive physicalism
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (4): 1-21. 2022.
    Causal mediation mechanisms are well supported by available experimental evidence and provide a practicable way to reductive physicalism. According to the causal mediation account of mechanistic explanation, descriptions as diverse as ‘black-box’ phenomena, mechanistic sketches and schemas mixing physically interpreted and operationalized biological, psychological and social variables, and detailed descriptions of mechanisms refer to the same causal structure circumscribed within the spatiotempo…Read more
  •  16
    Causal pluralism can be defended not only in respect to causal concepts and methodological guidelines, but also at the finer-grained level of causal inference from a particular source of evidence for causation. An argument for this last variety of pluralism is made based on an analysis of causal inference from randomized experiments (RCTs). Here, the causal interpretation of a statistically significant association can be established via multiple paths of reasoning, each relying on different assu…Read more
  •  13
    In Defence of an Inferential Account of Extrapolation
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 34 (2): 81-100. 2021.
    According to the hypothesis-generator account, valid extrapolations from a source to a target system are circular, since they rely on knowledge of relevant similarities and differences that can onl...
  •  12
    The Virtues and Limitations of Randomized Experiments
    Acta Analytica 37 (4): 453-470. 2022.
    Despite the consensus promoted by the evidence-based medicine framework, many authors continue to express doubts about the superiority of randomized controlled trials. This paper evaluates four objections targeting the legitimacy, feasibility, and extrapolation problems linked to the experimental practice of random allocation. I argue that random allocation is a methodologically sound and feasible practice contributing to the internal validity of controlled experiments dealing with heterogeneous…Read more
  •  54
    On the Possibility of Crucial Experiments in Biology
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (2): 407-429. 2019.
    The article analyses in detail the Meselson–Stahl experiment, identifying two novel difficulties for the crucial experiment account, namely, the fragility of the experimental results and the fact that the hypotheses under scrutiny were not mutually exclusive. The crucial experiment account is rejected in favour of an experimental-mechanistic account of the historical significance of the experiment, emphasizing that the experiment generated data about the biochemistry of DNA replication that is i…Read more
  •  59
    An important strategy in the discovery of biological mechanisms involves the piecing together of experimental results from interventions. However, if mechanisms are investigated by means of ideal interventions, as defined by James Woodward and others, then the kind of information revealed is insufficient to discriminate between modular and non-modular causal contributions. Ideal interventions suffice for constructing webs of causal dependencies that can be used to make some predictions about exp…Read more
  •  198
    Genomic Programs as Mechanism Schemas: A Non-Reductionist Interpretation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 649-671. 2012.
    In this article, I argue that genomic programs are not substitutes for multi-causal molecular mechanistic explanations of inheritance, but abstract representations of the same sort as mechanism schemas already described in the philosophical literature. On this account, the program analogy is not reductionistic and does not ignore or underestimate the active contribution of epigenetic elements to phenotypes and development. Rather, genomic program representations specifically highlight the genomi…Read more
  •  65
    Defining Species: A Multi-Level Approach
    Acta Biotheoretica 60 (3): 239-255. 2011.
    Different concepts define species at the pattern-level grouping of organisms into discrete clusters, the level of the processes operating within and between populations leading to the formation and maintenance of these clusters, or the level of the inner-organismic genetic and molecular mechanisms that contribute to species cohesion or promote speciation. I argue that, unlike single-level approaches, a multi-level framework takes into account the complex sequences of cause-effect reinforcements …Read more
  •  102
    Filling in the mechanistic details: two-variable experiments as tests for constitutive relevance (review)
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3): 337-353. 2012.
    This paper provides an account of the experimental conditions required for establishing whether correlating or causally relevant factors are constitutive components of a mechanism connecting input (start) and output (finish) conditions. I argue that two-variable experiments, where both the initial conditions and a component postulated by the mechanism are simultaneously manipulated on an independent basis, are usually required in order to differentiate between correlating or causally relevant fa…Read more
  •  115
    Emergent antireductionism in biological sciences states that even though all living cells and organisms are composed of molecules, molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties that can only be understood from the perspective of cellular and organismal levels of composition. Thus, an emergence claim (molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties) is thought to support a form of antireductionism (properties of higher-level molecular wholes can only be understood by taking …Read more
  •  86
    Mechanisms in Molecular Biology
    In Stuart Glennan & Phyllis Illari (eds.), Routledge Handbook of mechanisms. pp. 308-318. 2017.
  •  183
    Multidisciplinary models aggregating ‘lower-level’ biological and ‘higher-level’ psychological and social determinants of a phenomenon raise a puzzle. How is the interaction between the physical, the psychological and the social conceptualized and explained? Using biopsychosocial models of pain as an illustration, I argue that these models are in fact level-neutral compilations of empirical findings about correlated and causally relevant factors, and as such they neither assume, nor entail a con…Read more
  •  8
    Mechanisms in Molecular Biology
    Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    The new mechanistic philosophy is divided into two largely disconnected projects. One deals with a metaphysical inquiry into how mechanisms relate to issues such as causation, capacities and levels of organization, while the other deals with epistemic issues related to the discovery of mechanisms and the intelligibility of mechanistic representations. Tudor Baetu explores and explains these projects, and shows how the gap between them can be bridged. His proposed account is compatible both with …Read more
  •  251
    Pain in psychology, biology and medicine: Some implications for pain eliminativism
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 82 101292. 2020.
  •  259
    Causal inference in biomedical research
    Biology and Philosophy 35 (4): 1-19. 2020.
    Current debates surrounding the virtues and shortcomings of randomization are symptomatic of a lack of appreciation of the fact that causation can be inferred by two distinct inference methods, each requiring its own, specific experimental design. There is a non-statistical type of inference associated with controlled experiments in basic biomedical research; and a statistical variety associated with randomized controlled trials in clinical research. I argue that the main difference between the …Read more
  •  13
    Models and the mosaic of scientific knowledge. The case of immunology
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 45 49-56. 2013.
  •  78
    Genes after the human genome project
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (1): 191-201. 2012.
  •  60
    The Completeness of Mechanistic Explanations
    Philosophy of Science 82 (5): 775-786. 2015.
    The paper discusses methodological guidelines for evaluating mechanistic explanations. According to current accounts, a satisfactory mechanistic explanation should include all of the relevant features of the mechanism, its component entities and activities, and their properties and organization, as well as exhibit productive continuity. It is not specified, however, how this kind of mechanistic completeness can be demonstrated. I argue that parameter sufficiency inferences based on mathematical …Read more
  •  83
    The ‘Big Picture’: The Problem of Extrapolation in Basic Research
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4): 941-964. 2016.
    Both clinical research and basic science rely on the epistemic practice of extrapolation from surrogate models, to the point that explanatory accounts presented in review papers and biology textbooks are in fact composite pictures reconstituted from data gathered in a variety of distinct experimental setups. This raises two new challenges to previously proposed mechanistic-similarity solutions to the problem of extrapolation: one pertaining to the absence of mechanistic knowledge in the early st…Read more
  •  58
    Chance, Experimental Reproducibility, and Mechanistic Regularity
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 253-271. 2013.
    Examples from the sciences showing that mechanisms do not always succeed in producing the phenomena for which they are responsible have led some authors to conclude that the regularity requirement can be eliminated from characterizations of mechanisms. In this article, I challenge this conclusion and argue that a minimal form of regularity is inextricably embedded in examples of elucidated mechanisms that have been shown to be causally responsible for phenomena. Examples of mechanistic explanati…Read more
  •  81
    Mechanistic Constraints on Evolutionary Outcomes
    Philosophy of Science 79 (2): 276-294. 2012.
    Understanding the role mechanistic constraints play in shaping evolution can relieve the tension between the generally accepted intuition that there are no strict laws in biology and empirical findings showing that evolutionary processes are biased toward preferred outcomes. Mechanistic constraints explain why some evolutionary outcomes are more probable than others and allow for predictions in specific lineages. At the same time, mechanistic constraints are neither necessary nor universal in th…Read more
  •  69
    The Referential Convergence of Gene Concepts Based on Classical and Molecular Analyses
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 24 (4): 411-427. 2010.
    Kenneth Waters and Marcel Weber argue that the joint use of distinct gene concepts and the transfer of knowledge between classical and molecular analyses in contemporary scientific practice is possible because classical and molecular concepts of the gene refer to overlapping chromosomal segments and the DNA sequences associated with these segments. However, while pointing in the direction of coreference, both authors also agree that there is a considerable divergence between the actual sequences…Read more