Surrounding Space

Theory in Biosciences 121 (2):139-162 (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The history of evolution is a history of development from less to more complex organisms. This growth in complexity of organisms goes hand in hand with a concurrent growth in complexity of environments and of organism-environment relations. It is a concern with this latter aspect of evolutionary development that motivates the present paper. We begin by outlining a theory of organism-environment relations. We then show that the theory can be applied to a range of different sorts of cases, both biological and non-biological, in which objects are lodged or housed within specific environments, or niches. Biological science is interested in types—for example in genotypes, phenotypes, and environment types—in regularities that can serve as the basis for the formulation of laws or general principles. Types, however, can exist only through their corresponding tokens. Our theory of token environments is meant to plug this gap and to provide a first step towards a general theory of causally relevant spatial volumes.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
203 (#126,759)

6 months
69 (#87,999)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Achille C. Varzi
Columbia University
Barry Smith
University at Buffalo

Citations of this work

Sixteen days.Barry Smith & Berit Brogaard - 2003 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 28 (1):45 – 78.
SNAP and SPAN: Towards dynamic spatial ontology.Pierre Grenon & Barry Smith - 2004 - Spatial Cognition and Computation 4 (1):69–103.
Introduction: What is Ontology for?Katherine Munn - 2008 - In Katherine Munn & Barry Smith, Applied Ontology: An Introduction. Frankfurt: ontos. pp. 7-19.

View all 19 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Fiat and Bona Fide Boundaries.Barry Smith & Achille C. Varzi - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (2):401-420.
More Things in Heaven and Earth.Barry Smith - 1995 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 50 (1):187-201.
Methodology and analyses of the preposition in.Claude Vandeloise - 1994 - Cognitive Linguistics 5 (2):157-184.

Add more references