Philosophy of Biology: Ingo Brigandt
Philosophy of Biology: Ingo Brigandt
Philosophy of Biology: Ingo Brigandt
Philosophy of Biology
Ingo Brigandt
Philosophical questions about biology have been addressed by philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Yet as a genuine discipline within philosophy, philosophy of biology started to emerge
in the 1970s (Byron, 2007). One motivation for this was the fact that much of traditional
of science. Thereby past philosophy of science simply assumed that accounts of confirmation,
theory structure, laws, and explanation would apply to biology as well, creating biased or
inadequate views about the nature of science. But rather than directly addressing issues in
general philosophy of science in the context of biology, philosophers of biology have for the
most part engaged in questions that originate from within biology, pertaining to concepts from a
specific biological field or to phenomena from a particular biological domain. Some of these
questions have been raised by biologists, resulting in debate and fruitful interaction among
biology is illustrated by the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and the Social
Studies of Biology, and by philosophical journals to which many scientists contribute. Most
questions in philosophy of biology are epistemological questions, e.g., about the character of
particular biological explanations, models, and concepts, and are sometimes combined with
issues about scientific method and practice. Yet these issues also tap into metaphysical
considerations, at least insofar as they hinge on facts about the biological world.
biology and systematics. For instance, the units of selection debate ponders which kind of entity
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is the fundamental player driving evolutionary change—the individual, the group of individuals,
the gene, or even the species. Arising out of disputes among evolutionary biologists, the
epistemological question is how genuine explanations in terms of natural selection actually work.
The related metaphysical issue is at what level of biological organization evolutionary causation
by selection takes place, and philosophers have offered several clarifications to these biological
questions. Given the many statistical models of evolutionary theory, philosophical interpretations
of the nature and role of probabilistic factors (e.g. genetic drift) are put forward. The
adaptationism debate concerns the circumstances in which phenotypic traits of species are best
and cognitive traits have been criticized by philosophers as falling short of the standards for
function’ discuss what the ascription of functions to biological traits involves (occasionally, but
not always a reference to a trait’s selection history), and whether functional and teleological
In addition to the traditional philosophical questions pertaining to evolution (which are still
live issues), nowadays molecular and experimental biology are of increasing philosophical focus.
This philosophical trend is largely due to the rise of genetics and molecular biology, with such
biological advances prompting the philosophical debate as to whether classical genetics and
possibly other biological disciplines can be reduced to molecular biology. It has also been argued
in biology. Apart from the role of genes and non-genetic factors in explanations of the
development of organismal traits, developmental biology has recently become a biological field
subject to philosophical interest, as a link to evolutionary issues has been created by the recent
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emergence of evolutionary developmental biology. With the scientific advance and societal
importance of the life sciences and modern biomedical sciences, contemporary philosophers of
biology also address issues in philosophy of medicine. Whereas views about the biological world
have traditionally been based on higher animals (and plants), very recent scientific findings about
microorganisms (largely driven by their now recognized medical relevance) may soon lead to
challenges for philosophical views of biological individuality, social organization, the notion of
It is beyond the scope of any single article to provide a review of the major issues and
positions in philosophy of biology (for overviews see Hull, 1974; Sober, 1993; Griffiths and
Sterelny, 1999; Hull and Ruse, 2007). Instead, the aim of this chapter is to lay out what
implications biology has for some issues in general philosophy of science, including natural
kinds, conceptual change, discovery and confirmation, explanation and reduction, and
naturalism. Some of these offer additions and corrections to general metaphysical, semantic and
epistemological views, and illustrate fruitful ways of conducting philosophical investigations that
go beyond the practice of most of general philosophy (as the section on ‘Naturalism’ discusses).
Natural kinds
A few decades ago, the notion of natural kinds gained prominence in philosophy, in particular in
the context of the causal theory of reference (Putnam, 1975) and rigid designation across
possible world (Kripke, 1980). Ever since, it has enjoyed widespread acceptance, particularly in
metaphysics. However, while philosophers not acquainted with the philosophy of biology still
take species and higher taxa (e.g. vertebrates) to be a prime example of natural kinds, in the
1970s the biologist Michael Ghiselin (1974) and the philosopher David Hull (1978) argued that
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species are not natural kinds. Instead, a particular species is an individual, a whole having the
organisms of that species as its parts. This position has been extremely influential among
biologists and philosophers of biology. Recently, following Richard Boyd (1999), some
philosophers have put forward a revised notion of natural kinds that is claimed to apply to
species. As a result, in contemporary philosophy of biology there are diverging views about
which of the various biological things are natural kinds, what notion of ‘natural kind’ is
appropriate for biological kinds, and how biological kinds relate to kinds studied by other
sciences.
Whereas in a nominal kind several objects are grouped together by mere human convention,
the idea of a natural kind is that there are groupings of objects that conform to the objective
structure of the world (Bird and Tobin, 2009). The traditional notion of natural kinds was closely
tied to kinds in physics and chemistry. It assumes that a kind is defined by a property called an
‘essence’, which has two functions. First, the essence determines the metaphysical identity of the
kind. An object belongs to the kind if and only if the object possesses the essence. Second, the
essence causally brings about the various properties characteristic of that kind, grounding the
explanatory importance of natural kinds. For instance, the essence of oxygen is its atomic
structure (including having eight protons and electrons). This atomic structure explains various
physical and chemical properties of oxygen, in particular which compounds it can form and how
it behaves in chemical reactions. Typically, essences have been taken to be intrinsic (internal)
But it is easy to see that on this construal species cannot be natural kinds. For species are
able to undergo unlimited evolutionary change. Whatever intrinsic property of an organism one
existing at a point in time may share this internal property, future members of this species may
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not. Likewise, applying the traditional view of natural kinds to species does not do justice to
biological variation. While acknowledging differences among species members, the so-called
essentialism still assumes that there is a natural biological state of the species governing all its
members (Sober, 1980). The deviation of individuals from this alleged natural state is seen as
being due to unusual intervening factors (e.g. environmental influences), so that the natural state
(species essence) is seen as real, and any variation is explained away as an accident. The
empirically adequate picture, in contrast, is that variation across individuals is maintained and
Arguing that species are not natural kinds, Ghiselin (1974) and Hull (1978) suggested that
individual made up of organisms. A species does not have members as a set, class or kind does;
instead, a species is a whole that has various organisms as its mereological parts. The motivation
for this position is that an individual is precisely the metaphysical thing that is able to undergo
change. An individual exists in a certain period of time only, being present at specific spatial
locations at any point in time. An individual can substantially change across time; and similarity
among its mereological parts is not required of an individual, in contrast to the view that the
members of natural kinds are identical in many properties. In analogy to this, a species comes
into being at a specific point in time, inhabits concrete locations, undergoes evolutionary
The view that species are individuals became the dominant view among philosophers of
biology and in particular biologists (Ereshefsky, 2007). But recently Richard Boyd (1999)
developed a revised notion of natural kinds that is designed to capture kinds as found in biology
and the social sciences; and several philosophers and handful of biologists have picked up on it
(Wilson et al., in press; Rieppel, 2008). On this approach, a natural kind is a so-called
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homeostatic property cluster (HPC). First, the major assumption is that a natural kind is not
defined by a simple property that all kind members share (an essence). Instead, a kind is
characterized by a cluster of many properties that are more or less correlated, where a kind
member need not possess all of these properties, and none of the properties is shared by all kind
members. In fact, exhibiting a certain kind of variation can be characteristic for being a certain
biological kind, and such a correlation and variation structure is in need of explanation (Wilson
et al., in press). The correlation of properties is not accidental, but due to some causal features
(dubbed ‘homeostatic mechanisms’). For this reason, the grouping of the members into a kind
answers to features existing in nature, so it is a natural rather than a nominal kind. The statistical
correlations or causal relations among the properties of the cluster make it possible for the kind
Second, the HPC construal of kinds explicitly maintains that properties of the cluster
characterizing a natural kind need not be intrinsic, but may well be relational properties. For
instance, a higher taxon (e.g. mammals) includes those species that are descended from a
founding species, and having a certain ancestry is an extrinsic property of a species. Several
species can share this relational property of having the same ancestry while differing in various
(intrinsic) properties. Apart from common ancestry, the identity of a species may be defined by
the ability of individuals to interbreed, which is also a relational property (of an individual)
consistent with evolutionary change. As a result, historical entities such as species and higher
taxa can be natural kinds, assuming that the identity of the latter is at least partially characterized
These developments in philosophy of biology have several implications for theorizing about
natural kinds in general. First, accounts that species are individuals pointed to serious drawbacks
of traditional, essentialist conceptions of natural kinds, and have offered a whole new way of
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thinking about biological entities. In addition, the HPC construal of kinds developed a revised
and novel notion of natural kinds, motivated by a naturalism according to which philosophical
notions should be tied to scientific practice, in this case kinds as they occur in biology. While the
individuals vs. kinds debate focused on species and higher taxa, the HPC approach has
broadened this scope by considering and attempting to capture many other putative biological
kinds. In fact, Boyd developed the HPC account to likewise include kinds from the social
sciences. Kinds are studied by different scientific disciplines, and there may well be different
types of natural kinds, a diversity to which philosophical theories should be sensitive. It has also
been suggested that some things (e.g. species) can at the same time be an individual and a natural
kind (Dupré, 1999; LaPorte, 2004; Brigandt, 2009), offering new metaphysical possibilities and
Second, the HPC approach has highlighted the relevance of relational properties. Samir
Okasha (2002) acknowledges that relational properties often individuate biological kinds
(individuation being one function of traditional essences), but he claims that relational properties
do not support biological explanations (in contrast to the second function of traditional essences).
However, relational properties are in fact an important ingredient in explanations in biology and
the social sciences (Brigandt, 2009). Equations in ecology and economics explain dynamic
change based on the existence of stable relations among some entities. More generally, while the
causal capacities of biological entities (including molecular entities such as genes) are partially
based on their internal structure, these causal capacities obtain only in certain biological contexts
or given a suitable relation with other biological entities. Many causal capacities being non-
(Biologists arguing against some versions of reductionism have always emphasized the
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explanatory relevance of the structured contexts in which some entities occur [Brigandt and
Love, 2008].)
Finally, while proponents of the view that species are individuals have defended it by
metaphysical arguments (Hull, 1978; Ereshefsky, 2007), the HPC approach highlights
and explanation (thereby ‘accommodating’ scientific demands, as put by Boyd, 1999). More
generally, any kind of representation scheme used by scientists (be it grouping objects into kinds,
purposes such as making particular inductive inferences or putting forward certain explanations.
Philosophical accounts of the metaphysical nature of scientific entities have to pay attention to
the epistemological reasons that make scientists refer to these (rather than other) entities and use
them successfully in their theorizing by representing them in a certain way (Brigandt, 2009;
Love, 2009). Different representations and classifications are used in different scientific contexts,
resulting in the philosophically relevant fact that the totality of kind concepts and classification
Conceptual change
Recent philosophical accounts of conceptual change have often been developed as a reply to the
incommensurability challenge. Thomas Kuhn (1962) argued that the same term can be used with
frameworks), so that effective communication across paradigms and a rational choice of one
such theory over the other is impossible. Paul Feyerabend (1970) claimed that the content of two
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theories containing incommensurable concepts cannot be compared. The standard reply to the
incommensurability challenge has been to focus on the reference of scientific terms (Putnam,
1975; Fine, 1975; Devitt, 1979). For even if a term is used with different meanings in two
theories, the term may nonetheless refer to the same entity across these theories, so that the
theories can potentially make conflicting claims about this common referent and are thus
comparable. The causal theory of reference provided an explanation of how stable reference
despite substantially different theoretical views about the referent is possible (Sankey, 1994).
According to this theory, a term’s reference is not fixed by (potentially false) descriptions of the
referent, but a term is introduced by causal interaction with the referent and refers to that natural
kind thusly picked out (so that the structure of the world plays a part in reference determination).
Some cases from the philosophy of biology offer a broader the perspective for general
discussions of conceptual change. With the advent of evolutionary theory, biological views about
the nature of species clearly changed. However, given that Darwin could communicate his
arguments to his contemporaries, philosophers have questioned whether the pre-evolutionary and
the Darwinian conception of species are incommensurable concepts and whether they are even
different concepts at all (Beatty, 1986). Thus, the question is how these two conceptions of
species are related, whether they are distinct concepts, and in either case how to make room for
some conceptual continuity despite theoretical change. Moreover, nowadays different species
definitions are used by biologists (Mayden, 1997 lists 22 major definitions), and philosophers
typically assume that many of them are indeed distinct concepts. One species concept considers
those organisms that can interbreed with each other to be of the same species. Other species
concepts focus on considerations of common ancestry and phylogenetic lineages, and still other
use ecological criteria to delineate species. Not only do these concepts offer different criteria of
what a species is, but they also lead to different classifications of individuals into species, so that
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these concepts differ in their extensions / reference. Most philosophers and biologists endorse a
pluralism about species concepts, i.e., the idea that there is not one single true species concepts
(yet to be found or agreed upon), but that biology needs a multitude of different species concepts
(Dupré, 1999; Ereshefsky, 1992; Kitcher, 1984b; Wheeler and Meier, 2000). The justification is
that each species concept picks out some causal factors that influence the formation of partially
distinct groups of organisms and that different species concepts are needed for different scientific
questions. How are these different definitions of species related? Arguably the fact that the term
‘species’ is used in many different ways does not lead to substantial problems in communication
among scientists (Kitcher, 1984b), but a philosophical analysis of this issue is needed. Does the
context of use determine which particular species concept is referred to on a certain use of
‘species’ (so that no ambiguity arises), or is there some ambiguity that does not matter much as
A case that is currently subject to extensive philosophical debate is the gene concept. With
the scientifically important advent of molecular genetics, semantic change resulted, with the
classical gene concept and the molecular gene concept typically being considered different
concepts. A philosophical question is how the molecular concept could rationally grow out of the
classical gene concept (Kitcher, 1982), where it has to be taken into account that the molecular
concept neither replaced nor reduced the classical concept, and both continue to be used in
tandem (Weber, 2005). Moreover, even reference changed in this historical period (Burian et al.,
1996), as among other things both gene concepts individuate genes differently and thus differ in
their extensions. Marcel Weber argues that geneticists have tracked not one but several
(overlapping yet distinct) kinds by the term ‘gene’, and uses the notion of ‘floating reference’ for
the idea that the reference of the gene concept has changed constantly, though in a gradual
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fashion, suggesting that “this floating of the term’s reference seems not to have diminished its
In addition to conceptual change in the course of history, nowadays the molecular gene
concept is used in quite different ways by different types of molecular biologists, resulting in the
meaning and reference of the term ‘gene’ sometimes varying from context to context (Beurton et
al., 2000; Brigandt, in press-b; Falk, 1986; Stotz and Griffiths, 2004). This situation is due to
findings in molecular genetics and recently in genomics. A gene is not a continuous stretch of
DNA coding for one product, where all genes have the same structural features (which would
permit a unique definition of what a gene is). Instead, it turned out that many different kinds of
(structurally characterized) DNA segments are involved in the production of RNA and
polypeptides. One genetic segment can code for many products, and several separate genetic
segments may be needed for a single product. In the latter case some biologists consider these
separate DNA segments as different genes and others as one gene physically spread out within
the genome. As a result, philosophers discuss how to study and characterize the current semantic
variation surrounding the molecular gene concept. While Moss (2003) argues that there are two
distinct gene concepts used in molecular biology and Griffiths and Stotz (2007) opt for three
basic gene concepts, Waters (2000) controversially maintains that one shared molecular gene
concept underlies all varying uses. Since apart from ‘gene’ nowadays further terms are used to
refer to DNA elements involved in the coding for gene products (e.g., ‘transcription unit’,
‘exon’), another possible, though very unconventional option is to suggest that in the future the
term ‘gene’ will be or should be replaced by a plurality of other terms (Kitcher, 1992).
These considerations from recent philosophy of biology have implications for general
ensures that a scientific term has the same referent in two theories (so that they can make
conflicting claims), given that the term may be used with a different meaning in each of these
theories the notion of reference alone does not solve Kuhn’s original challenge—how
communication across different approaches and rational theory choice is possible despite
variation in meaning. Several accounts of conceptual change have already acknowledged that the
1982; Nersessian, 1984). Cases from biology like the change of the gene concept show that
scientists confidently discard previous definitions they used to put forward, and philosophical
accounts have to explain why it can be rational for scientists to modify a term’s definition. And
even the very reference of a biological term can be subject to change, so that a philosophical
approach that assumes stability of reference cannot account for this aspect of conceptual change.
Furthermore, in addition to diachronic change, terms such as ‘species’ and ‘gene’ show that
even at one point in history both the meaning and the reference of a scientific term can vary
across uses. (Other possible such cases are the homology concept [Brigandt, 2003] and the
notion of a stem cell [Shostak, 2006].) Semantic variation raises several questions to be
addressed (Brigandt, in press-b). What are the reasons for variation in a particular term’s usage?
How are different uses of a term related, and what structure does the semantic variation have—
do different biological subdisciplines or approaches each favour a different use, can one and the
same scientists use the term differently in different research contexts? To which extent does
semantic variation hamper communication? While in his early work Kuhn assumed that
differences in meaning are intrinsically problematic, some instances of semantic variation may in
fact be beneficial to scientific practice, e.g., by promoting a division of semantic labour (Wilson,
2006). To the extent that semantic variation is compatible with successful communication, why
is this possible and when and how does semantic variation support scientific practice?
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that is as universal as possible and covers all scientific fields and empirical domains. Assuming
that confirmation in science is inductive, such a logic of induction describes the form of the
confirmation relation between evidence statements and theory, abstracting away from the
logic determines whether premisses entail the conclusion in terms of the form but not of the
content of the statements involved. However, recently the philosopher of physics John Norton
(2003) pointed out that the search for formal schemata of inductive inference has proven largely
futile. Reviewing different kinds of inductive schemes and their known flaws (such as inductive
Bayesianism), he concludes that there is a strong trade off between generality and inductive
strength: schemas of induction that are of universal scope are either unreliable (conclusion is not
supported by premisses in too many instances) or circular (and thus useless for the purposes of
inductive as ampliative inference). His diagnosis is that we have been misled by deductive logic
which induction is grounded not in universal schemas but rather in empirical matters of fact. To
illustrate this with a simple example (of mine), formal accounts of analogical reasoning as a type
of induction construe an inference from an object a having property P to object b having this
property as justified in case objects a and b are similar in that they share properties Q1, Q2, …
Such a formal account has to acknowledge that the inductive inference Pa ├─ Pb is justified only
insofar as the degree of similarity between objects a and b is significant and the properties Qi are
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relevant for the property P to be projected (Salmon, 2002). However, what is relevant or
significant crucially depends on features of the particular case, and thus the plausibility of the
inference’s logical form is actually quite insignificant for its justification. On Norton’s account,
new empirical knowledge generates new inferential power (by providing additional matters of
fact), but not by yielding novel abstract schemes of inference. As matters of fact relevant for an
induction hold only in certain scientific domains, scientific induction is local. Individual
more direct support for the idea that confirmation in science is not based on universal schemes,
but domain-restricted and contingent upon specific empirical content. For instance, Marcel
Weber (2005, Ch. 4-5) offers a detailed discussion of confirmation in experimental biology. He
1961 with two rival accounts but could not be settled until 1977. Weber rejects Bayesian
confirmation theory, arguing that in this scientific case it would have made erroneous normative
suggestions about theory acceptance. (On a Bayesian analysis the true biochemical theory should
have been accepted too early—in 1966, at a point where the total evidence did not favour one
hypothesis over the other.) Deborah Mayo’s (1996) error-statistical theory aligns with
experimental biology better than Bayesianism, as her approach does not assume that scientific
inference solely consists of a confirmation relation between theory and evidence and it instead
captures the piecemeal production of evidence and scientists’ attempts to control for error.
However, Weber argues that a statistical notion of error cannot apply to experimental biology, as
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the relevant reference class for an experiment is unclear, so that no error frequencies can be
assigned. Based on the practice of experimental biology, he concludes that epistemic norms used
by biologists are not universal rules (as in Bayesianism and error statistics), but domain-specific,
empirical considerations. In the context of evolutionary biology, Elliott Sober (2008) argues for a
pluralism about scientific inference, where different inference methods are appropriate in
different situations. He emphasizes that scientific inference methods are not a priori and valid for
every case, but presuppose specific empirical assumptions and thus are legitimate only in a
growing out of logical positivism—did not view scientific discovery as a philosophical issue at
all. Back then the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification
was such construed that while scientists may come up with hypotheses by any possible means
always has to follow standards of rationality. Consequently, only confirmation was viewed as a
subject for philosophy, while the process of discovery may be studied by psychology or
sociology. Due to more recent developments in philosophy of science such as the New
theoretical science is nowadays viewed as a rational process—in the sense that scientists use
reasoning strategies and discovery heuristics that are reliable at yielding plausible hypotheses, or
at least more likely to yield to fruitful hypotheses than other strategies (Nickles, 1980; Wimsatt,
However, given the traditional philosophical ideal according to which rationality consists in
formal logic and the use of universal principles, early accounts of discovery in biology have
followed this philosophical model. For instance, Ken Schaffner (1974) initially argued that
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discovery (just like justification) is reasoning using deductive logic, though he himself came to
abandon this idea. In his reanalysis of the biological case addressed by Schaffner (the lac operon
model of gene regulation), Weber (2005, Ch. 3) argues that this instance of discovery involved a
Another prominent account of discovery in biology was put forward by Lindley Darden (1991)
modelling, and she lays out a set of general strategies of discovery. She acknowledges that it is
historically impossible to tell whether these strategies have actually been used, but argues that
they could have been used to arrive at the hypotheses put forward in the history of Mendelian
genetics. However, Weber (2005) rightly objects that this does not settle one important
philosophical issue—whether general and domain-unspecific rules actually are or have been used
sceptical about this, and prefers the interpretation that reasoning in discovery involves strategies
that are limited to certain domains and cannot be universal as they are based on specific
empirical considerations.
In sum, many accounts of discovery and confirmation in general philosophy of science have
focussed on formal rules of inference, which by abstracting away from particular empirical
content apply to any scientific field and domain. But “to show that a kind of reasoning can be
rational … is not the same as showing that it employs general rules or procedures” (Weber, 2005,
p. 86). A look at biological practice suggests that scientists’ reasoning in discovery and
confirmation is contingent upon empirical content specific to a particular case and thereby
conforms at best to local and domain-specific principles. This is not to say that a philosophical
be of limited use, more insightful studies reveal the particular scientific principles and
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considerations used in certain cases, highlighting the concrete empirical content (in addition to
formal structure) that justifies the effectiveness and rationality of this kind of reasoning in the
respective empirical domain. This aligns to a large extent with the practice of contemporary
a direct fashion—at least they often do not phrase their studies in these terms from general
philosophy of science. But their many case studies and discussions pertaining to biological issues
shed light on scientific method and reasoning as used in different parts of biology.
Just like the precise nature of discovery and confirmation in biology can vary with the empirical
domain, biological explanations can take different shapes in different cases and what counts as
accounts of explanation have been put forward in general philosophy of science. The deductive-
nomological model assumes that an explanation is a logical deduction from law statements,
which presupposes that a certain scientific discipline contains laws in the first place (Hempel and
Oppenheim, 1948). Statistical relevance models argue that explanations are not logical
arguments at all (neither deductive nor inductive), and take instead statistical relevance relations
contend that explanations exhibit causal structures as they occur in physical processes (Salmon,
1984) or biological mechanisms (Machamer et al., 2000). While sometimes these accounts have
been seen as rival approaches, at least from the point of view of many philosophers of biology
there is no need to choose one of them as the correct theory of explanation. For different such
types of explanations occur in different parts of biology, and can even be used in one discipline.
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For instance, explanations in evolutionary biology often combine quantitative models (in line
application to concrete populations that exhibit the material features accounting e.g. for fitness
differences (in line with causal-mechanistic models). Furthermore, following the logical
positivist ideal, early accounts attempted to capture what a good explanation is in purely formal
terms, so that for instance the deductive-nomological approach had to offer a syntactic construal
contrast, while taking some notion of ontological reduction for granted (e.g. that every particular
biological system is constituted by nothing but molecules and their interactions), the
issues. In a nutshell, epistemic reduction is that idea the knowledge about one scientific domain
(typically about higher level processes) can be reduced to another body of scientific knowledge
(typically concerning a lower level). This broad idea can be spelled out in different (stronger and
weaker) ways, so that the reductionism debate concerned not only the question of whether
reduction is possible, but which notion of reduction is the appropriate one for biology—leading
One basic notion of reduction is theory reduction. Originally developed by Ernest Nagel
(1961) as a general framework for science, it is the idea that one theory (construed as a formal
system) can be logically deduced from a more fundamental theory. Inspired by the rise of
molecular biology, Ken Schaffner (1976) applied it to biology by claiming that the theory of
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classical genetics can deduced from the theory of biochemistry. However, the notion of theory
reduction was immediately criticized (Hull, 1976; Kitcher, 1984a). The proponents of theory
reduction acknowledged that a reduction of classical genetics to molecular biology has not been
achieved yet (and that theory reduction is not an aim of scientists), while arguing that theory
reduction is in principle possible. Yet the critics wondered why such a notion of reduction is
relevant for understanding biological research in practice, including reductionistic methods and
explanations (Wimsatt, 2007). As a result, the notion of theory reduction was largely abandoned
in favour of another class of models, which may be called accounts of explanatory reduction
(Brigandt and Love, 2008). There are different such models, but they differ from the earlier
approach (which assumes that whole theories are reduced) by assuming that generalizations of
varying scope, mechanisms, or even individual facts are the features reductively explained. A
reductive explanation need not be a logical deduction from a theory containing laws; and while it
proceeds by explaining a complex whole in terms of its (lower-level) parts, the explanans need
not exclusively contain terms referring to lower-level entities (in contrast to the logical premisses
in theory reduction consisting of statements of the reducing theory only). Due to these
differences, models of explanatory reduction are much better able to capture the piecemeal
philosopher may be inclined to focus on one notion of reduction and use it as an overarching
issues about their particular empirical cases, so that ‘reduction’ as used across different research
Many arguments against epistemic reduction fall into one of two categories (Brigandt and
Love, 2008). One type of consideration is that the effects of a biological system, especially of
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lower-level molecular processes, depends on the overall biological context in which it occurs.
One molecular kind can correspond to many higher levels kinds, if this molecular kind is part of
different overall systems. As a result, reductions must usually be able take the context of and
relations among molecular entities and processes into account. The second argument proceeds
from the fact that many molecular kinds correspond to one higher level kinds, due to the fact that
a higher level biological structure or process can be instantiated by different kinds of molecular
processes (in line with multiple realization arguments known from the philosophy of mind). As a
result, explanations in terms of such higher level kinds can have a higher generality
(encompassing several different lower level accounts) or point to causally more robust features
(picking out entities that are stable across time while their underlying molecular constitution
changes). These arguments are effective against accounts of theory reduction, and possibly also
reduction, the rejection of theory reduction led many philosophers of biology to endorse
pluralism, i.e., the idea that biology needs a diversity of methods, models, and modes of
theoretical reasoning (Mitchell, 2003). Sometimes this was phrased in a bold anti-reductionist
stance as an argument for the disunity of biology (Dupré, 1993; Rosenberg, 1994).
Theory reduction as a model assuming the reduction of various biological fields to one
theory does not do justice to the diversity of different biological approaches. At the same time,
the mere endorsement of pluralism or a disunity of science fails to study the intellectual relations
that exist across disciplines. For this reason, arguably the most promising philosophical
approaches in the last few decades concern the coordination and integration of different
concepts, models, and explanations. For instance, Lindley Darden and Nancy Maull (1977)
developed a model (of ‘non-reductive unification’, as they put it) that argues that integration
proceeds by two fields coming to be linked by so-called interfield theories. For example, the
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chromosome theory of inheritance is an interfield theory that in the early 20th century came to
connect Mendelian genetics (the study of phenotypic inheritance across generations) and
cytology (the study of the material contents of cells). This was a non-reductive integration
because neither did genetics reduce cytology, nor did cytology reduce genetics. In contrast to the
Philosophical studies on integration in biology have often been conducted in the context of
molecular, cellular, and experimental biology, with related attention to disciplinary change and
domains have shown that mechanistic explanations often appeal to entities on several levels of
biological organization at the same time (Craver, 2005; Darden, 2005). In a similar vein, the
units of selection debate in evolutionary biology led to some agreement that units of selection
can be found on different levels, so that there is no single level that would a priori be the most
which level(s) selection takes place (Brandon, 1988). Studies of the emerging integration of
problems addressed by biologists (Love, 2008). A complex scientific problem such as the
explanation of the evolutionary origin of novel structures necessitates the integration of different
ideas and approaches. Apart from motivating integration, a problem also structures integration by
determining which disciplines, methods, concepts, and models are to be integrated. Integration
(or unification) is not a regulative ideal or aim in itself for biologists, but may be needed to solve
Naturalism
strands of philosophy in general. Yet ‘naturalism’ as used by different philosophers can denote
different ideas (Papineau, 2009). It can express certain metaphysical tenets, such as the
commitment to a purely physicalist ontology or the idea that humans (including their intellectual
and moral capacities) are a part of nature as well. A methodological variety of naturalism is
particularly germane to the practice of philosophy of biology (Wimsatt, 2007). Here the idea is
first that given philosophy of science’s task to understand science and its success, philosophical
accounts have to do justice to and reflect actual science. Second, the practice of philosophy of
science is continuous with scientific practice, and empirical methods of science can be useful
tools for philosophers in their attempts to form philosophical notions. This was illustrated by
several themes from this chapter’s earlier sections. Given the plurality of kinds of explanation
used in biology and the fact that ‘reduction’ as used by biologists expresses different specific
considerations and the particular shape of discovery and confirmation (and what makes it
justified) can vary across biological domains, philosophical accounts of discovery and
confirmation must accommodate this. In the case of conceptual change, sometimes the notion of
reference and the existence of stable reference across theoretical change were considered a
philosophy of science have taken place under these assumptions and within these limits, we saw
that the notion of reference alone does not explain how rational theory choice is possible in the
face of meaning differences, and that the reference of biological terms can be far from stable,
In philosophy as a whole, concepts are often put forward and debated by the use of
intuitions. Various possible scenarios are considered and it is determined whether the concept
biology suggests that a more fruitful approach is to view philosophical concepts as technical
terms that—just like scientific terms—are introduced for certain theoretical tasks. Any
this task (an a posteriori question), rather than conforming to a priori intuitions. For instance,
essence. Yet an actual justification for the traditional notion of a natural kind is that it captures
features of physical and chemical kinds and how they figure in scientific explanation (which can
in principle be empirically contested). A novel notion of natural kinds such as the notion of
homeostatic property clusters is needed to the extent that it is necessary to deal with biological
kinds. Above I indicated that different notions and models of epistemic reduction have been put
forward. It is not sufficient to simply motivate one definition of ‘reduction’ and then argue that
classical genetics can be (or cannot be) reduced to molecular biology on this definition, but the
philosophical relevance of this notion of reduction has to be defended, which also involves
reference to scientific practice. Indeed, the notion of theory reduction (defended by the mere in
principle possibility of theory reduction) was challenged for failing to shed light on
causation. Any such definition of ‘cause’ is subject to counterexamples (i.e., a scenario that
intuitively is an instance of x causing y but not according to the definition, or vice versa). This
has led to philosophical debates, where the method of conceptual analysis by intuitions does not
even suggest how such a controversy can be settled. On a naturalistic approach, in contrast, a
PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 24
look at physics shows that the term ‘cause’ is not used there at all, suggesting that different terms
altogether may be more suitable to philosophically understand the properties of physical systems
and how they make explanations possible. The notion of causation is used in biology (and the
social sciences), but causal talk there can be diverse, so that a philosophical account of causation
and causal explanation in biology has to capture this and cannot assume that a simple definition
explanatory practice.
In philosophy of mind and several other fields, providing a naturalistic account is often
‘scientific’ vocabulary. For instance, the aim is to offer a naturalistic reduction of semantic and
the normativity associated with correct vs. incorrect representation. (Some such attempts are
a philosopher’s fiction. For as we saw in the section on ‘Explanation and reduction’, scientists
use concepts referring to entities on many levels of organization and do not attempt to
reductively define their concepts in terms of the vocabulary of a particular field such as
settle a priori on a specific vocabulary and attempt to reduce philosophical concepts to it. (To
mention another way of using biological practice as a guideline for philosophical method, Burian
et al. [1996] argue that there is probably no unique philosophical account of meaning and
reference. Just like biological concepts are often used in varying ways—with there being several
PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 25
gene concepts—philosophical concepts require local analyses and are best employed in different
When philosophers talk about ‘explanation’ (e.g. ‘explaining reference’), they often mean a
in biology (e.g. ‘explaining life’) involves something different. Biologists do not aim at giving a
definition of life. Instead, the aim is to gain partial but ever increasing insights into the causal
workings of various life processes. Likewise, naturalistic philosophy of science is not so much
concerned with defining ‘knows that p’ in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but to
understand the various aspects of knowledge production. This includes empirical issues such as
the cognitive factors involved in belief formation. Various social aspects of the organization of
scientific research are a major reason for the success of modern science, so that many
philosophers of biology pay attention to the sociology of science and history of science (Hull,
1988; Downes, 1993). This use of social and other empirical factors is not inconsistent with
philosophy of science dealing with normative concerns such as the rationality of discovery and
the justified endorsement of theories, as certain social factors can be precisely those that underlie
the rational and effective generation of knowledge (Longino, 2002). Ron Giere (1988) assumes
be concerned with normative considerations. However, biologists freely use normative notions,
for instance when talking about proper method, adequate representations, justified hypotheses,
relevant problems, and the proper intellectual aims of their discipline. In a similar vein,
matter, the study of science (Laudan, 1990). Just like biologists fruitfully study the causal
interactions of entities on several levels of organization, the aim for philosophers of science
should be to shed light on the relations among phenomena referred to by philosophical (including
PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 26
normative) concepts and the phenomena studied by the cognitive, natural and social sciences.
Rather than being reduced or eliminated, normativity is thereby one out of many factors. Due to
its methodological construal of naturalism and its interaction with biologists, historians, and
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Marc Ereshefsky, Alan Love, and Steven French for comments on a draft of this
essay. I thank Steven French and Juha Saatsi for the invitation to contribute to this volume. The
work on this essay was funded with Standard Research Grant 410-2008-0400 by the Social
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