Experimental Realization of Individuality

Chen, Ruey-Lin

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199382514.003.0018

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The two aspects of the debate are related, at least in the sense that taking into account more biological fields is likely to increase the number of possible individuality criteria. The second objection is that philosophers have unduly privileged a theoretical approach to biological individuality-at the expense of more practical and experimental considerations (Kovaka 2015;Chen 2016;Love and Brigandt 2017). The influence of Hull-and, less directly, of Quine-helps explain this situation: in several texts (e.g., Hull 1992), Hull explained that the only way to distance ourselves from intuition-based approaches to individuality was to construct a theory-based perspective (which also explains why he sees the heavily theoretical field of evolutionary biology as the best pathway to defining biological individuality).…”

Section: Recent Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The move from theory-centrism (Objection #2) to a stronger attention to practices and experimental contexts is made in many parts of current philosophy of science (e.g., Waters 2008;Ankeny et al 2011;Love 2015), and this move is gaining prominence in the debate about biological individuality (Chen 2016;Fagan 2016;Love and Brigandt 2017). The combination of historical and philosophical approaches (in response to Objection #3) is the main topic of a forthcoming volume edited by Scott Lidgard and Lynn Nyhart (Lidgard and Nyhart 2017).…”

Section: Recent Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The many faces of biological individuality

Pradeu¹

2016

Biol Philos

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Biological individuality is a major topic of discussion in biology and philosophy of biology. Recently, several objections have been raised against traditional accounts of biological individuality, including the objections of monism (the tendency to focus on a single individuality criterion and/or a single biological field), theory-centrism (the tendency to discuss only theory-based individuation), ahistoricity (the tendency to neglect what biologists of the past and historians of biology have said about biological individuality), disciplinary isolationism (the tendency to isolate biological individuality from other scientific and philosophical domains that have investigated individuality), and the multiplication of conceptual uncertainties (the lack of a precise definition of ''biological individual'' and related terms). In this introduction, I will examine the current philosophical landscape about biological individuality, and show how the contributions gathered in this special issue address these five objections. Overall, the aim of this issue is to offer a more diverse, unifying, and scientifically informed conception of what a biological individual is.

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Section: Recent Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recent Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The many faces of biological individuality

Pradeu¹

2016

Biol Philos

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“…This approach is championed by philosophers who are interested in how scientists go about their day‐to‐day work, in particular the way they gain evidence, come to conclusions and offer explanations (e.g. Latour & Woolgar, ; Love, ; Chen, ). The link to biological individuality comes from asking how the everyday practice of biologists reflects the way biologists define the individual in their experimental work.…”

Section: The Concept Of Biological Individualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can't see the colony for the bees: behavioural perspectives of biological individuality

Smith-Ferguson

Beekman

2019

Biological Reviews

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The question 'what is an individual' does not often arise in studies within the field of behavioural ecology. Generally behavioural ecologists do not think about what makes an individual because they tend to use intuitive working concepts of individuality. Rarely do they explicitly mention how individuality affects their experimental design and interpretation of results. By contrast, the concept of individuality continues to intrigue philosophers of biology. It is interesting that while philosophers of biology debate definitions of individuality, biologists generally use the concept of individuality every day without much thought. Here we review the philosophical approaches to defining biological individuality, and illustrate how the biological individuality concepts used by biologists are affected by their study question and choice of organism. We clarify the behavioural perspective of biological individuality by introducing the concept of the behavioural individual. The notion of the behavioural individual is particularly interesting when explored in less-conventional study organisms. By including less-conventional organisms, it becomes clear why the concept of biological individuality is usually intuitive in behavioural ecology.

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“…To this end, metaphysicians of science must take into account the best scientific theories but also pay special attention to scientific practices (e.g., in terms of modeling, simulations, measurement, etc.) (Hacking 1983;Radder 2003;Chen 2016). 9 Second, its point of reference is current science, and not science of the past, nor science of a hypothetical future.…”

Section: Our View Of Metaphysics Of Science: a Broader And More Open-mentioning

confidence: 99%

Right out of the box: how to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Guay

Pradeu

2017

Synthese

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Several advocates of the lively field of "metaphysics of science" have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between "metaphysics of science" and "traditional metaphysics", and that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional "box", with one axis distinguishing "descriptive metaphysics" from "revisionary metaphysics," a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing "commonsense metaphysics", "traditional metaphysics" and "metaphysics of science." We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity.

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Experimental Realization of Individuality

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

The many faces of biological individuality

The many faces of biological individuality

Can't see the colony for the bees: behavioural perspectives of biological individuality

Right out of the box: how to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

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