Depuis les pensées de l’écologie que peut-on entendre par le terme « humanités »? Si une révolution théorique et pratique permettant d’opérer par-delà sciences naturelles et sciences humaines est en cours, on insiste encore trop rarement sur les enjeux décoloniaux qui sont constitutifs de ces conceptions écologiques. Produisant des savoirs situés en vue de lutter contre les destructions, les pensées de l’écologie semblent éclairer d’une lumière nouvelle les façons radicalement différentes qu’ Homo sapiens a d’habiter la Terre.

Behaving presents an overview of the recent history and methodology of behavioral genetics and psychiatric genetics, informed by a philosophical perspective. Kenneth F. Schaffner addresses a wide range of issues, including genetic reductionism and determinism, "free will," and quantitative and molecular genetics. The latter covers newer genome-wide association studies that have produced a paradigm shift in the subject, and generated the problem of "missing heritability." Schaffner also presents cases involving pro and con arguments for genetic testing for IQ (...) and for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Schaffner examines the nature-nurture controversy and Developmental Systems Theory using C. elegans or "worm" studies as a test case, concluding that genes are special and provide powerful tools, including "deep homology," for investigating behavior. He offers a novel account of biological knowledge emphasizing the importance of models, mechanisms, pathways, and networks, which clarifies how partial reductions provide explanations of traits and disorders. The book also includes examinations of personality genetics and of schizophrenia and its etiology, alongside interviews with prominent researchers in the area, and discusses debates about psychosis that led to changes in the DSM-5 in 2013.Schaffner concludes by discussing additional philosophical implications of the genetic analyses in the book, some major worries about "free will," and arguments pro and con about why genes and DNA are so special. Though genes are special, newer perspectives presented in this book will be needed for progress in behavioral genetics- perspectives that situate genes in complex multilevel prototypic pathways and networks. With a mix of optimism and pessimism about the state of the field and the subject, Schaffner's book will be of interest to scholars in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and psychiatry. (shrink)

Kenneth F. Schaffner compares the practice of biological and medical research and shows how traditional topics in philosophy of science—such as the nature of theories and of explanation—can illuminate the life sciences. While Schaffner pays some attention to the conceptual questions of evolutionary biology, his chief focus is on the examples that immunology, human genetics, neuroscience, and internal medicine provide for examinations of the way scientists develop, examine, test, and apply theories. Although traditional philosophy of science has regarded (...) scientific discovery—the questions of creativity in science—as a subject for psychological rather than philosophical study, Schaffner argues that recent work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence enables researchers to rationally analyze the nature of discovery. As a philosopher of science who holds an M.D., he has examined biomedical work from the inside and uses detailed examples from the entire range of the life sciences to support the semantic approach to scientific theories, addressing whether there are "laws" in the life sciences as there are in the physical sciences. Schaffner's novel use of philosophical tools to deal with scientific research in all of its complexity provides a distinctive angle on basic questions of scientific evaluation and explanation. (shrink)

Four current accounts of theory reduction are presented, first informally and then formally: (1) an account of direct theory reduction that is based on the contributions of Nagel, Woodger, and Quine, (2) an indirect reduction paradigm due to Kemeny and Oppenheim, (3) an "isomorphic model" schema traceable to Suppes, and (4) a theory of reduction that is based on the work of Popper, Feyerabend, and Kuhn. Reference is made, in an attempt to choose between these schemas, to the explanation of (...) physical optics by Maxwell's electromagnetic theory, and to the revisions of genetics necessitated by partial biochemical reductions of genetics. A more general reduction schema is proposed which: (1) yields as special cases the four reduction paradigms considered above, (2) seems to be in better accord with both the canons of logic and actual scientific practice, and (3) clarifies the problems of meaning variance and ontological reduction. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the nature of a broad class of biomedical theories which I have termed "middle-range theories." I define them and relate the nature of biomedical theorizing to other investigations, such as a recent inquiry by the National Academy of Sciences. I also suggest that some of the knowledge representation tools from artificial intelligence may give us a purchase on this type of biological theorizing, and try to show in a rather preliminary and exploratory manner by using (...) the lac operon model of genetic control, what some of those AI applications, such as frames and semantic nets, might look like in this context. Finally, I suggest some difficulties, such as the non-monotonicity of reasoning, which such tools may generate. (shrink)

The article attempts to portray architecture as a spatial medium and to analyse the processing and storage of information, objects and persons. In doing so, architectural space becomes not only the effect of these medial operations, but it also forms and materializes these processes at the same time. Openings are characterized as fundamental elements of architectural media. Also, in this regard, such classic elements as doors and windows in the sense of a room perceived as a perforated membrane, acquire a (...) new medial quality. (shrink)

En este texto nos proponemos abordar la última clase del semanario de Deleuze sobre el poder en Foucault a partir de dos momentos. El primero tiene que ver con el concepto de imagen y la interpretación sobre el cine que ya venía siendo una constante —aunque marginalmente— en estas clases de Deleuze. Seguidamente, el segundo momento tiene que ver con la relación entre poder y resistencia que arroja como resultado una interpretación del pensamiento de Foucault por parte de Deleuze como (...) una obra viva y en constante construcción. Así, cumpliremos con la exigencia de una lectura que invita a pensar en los conceptos como herramientas de análisis integradas al desarrollo de situaciones donde el poder se presenta como noción central. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose two theses, and then examine what the consequences of those theses are for discussions of reduction and emergence. The first thesis is that what have traditionally been seen as robust, reductions of one theory or one branch of science by another more fundamental one are a largely a myth. Although there are such reductions in the physical sciences, they are quite rare, and depend on special requirements. In the biological sciences, these prima facie sweeping reductions (...) fade away, like the body of the famous Cheshire cat, leaving only a smile.... The second thesis is that the "smiles" are fragmentary patchy explanations, and though patchy and fragmentary, they are very important, potentially Nobel-prize winning advances. To get the best grasp of these "smiles," I want to argue that, we need to return to the roots of discussions and analyses of scientific explanation more generally, and not focus mainly on reduction models, though three conditions based on earlier reduction models are retained in the present analysis. I briefly review the scientific explanation literature as it relates to reduction, and then offer my account of explanation. The account of scientific explanation I present is one I have discussed before, but in this paper I try to simplify it, and characterize it as involving field elements and a preferred causal model system abbreviated as FE and PCMS. In an important sense, this FE and PCMS analysis locates an "explanation" in a typical scientific research article. This FE and PCMS account is illustrated using a recent set of neurogenetic papers on two kinds of worm foraging behaviors: solitary and social feeding. One of the preferred model systems from a 2002 Nature article in this set is used to exemplify the FE and PCMS analysis, which is shown to have both reductive and nonreductive aspects. The paper closes with a brief discussion of how this FE and PCMS approach differs from and is congruent with Bickle's "ruthless reductionism" and the recently revived mechanistic philosophy of science of Machamer, Darden, and Craver. (shrink)

I have not attempted to provide here an analysis of the methodology of molecular biology or molecular genetics which would demonstrate at what specific points a more reductionist aim would make sense as a research strategy. This, I believe, would require a much deeper analysis of scientific growth than philosophy of science has been able to provide thus far. What I have tried to show is that a straightforward reductionist strategy cannot be said to be follwed in important cases of (...) theory development in molecular biology, and that in at least one important case, the Jacob-Monod operon theory, the methodology followed was more biological than chemical. It should be noted in closing, however, that since biological systems are thought by molecular biologists to be nothing but chemical systems, in the long run detailed investigations of such systems will be in full accord with the dictates suggested by the general reduction model. (shrink)

In the above pages I have sketched a history of the genesis and comparative evaluation of the repressor model of genetic regulation of enzyme induction. I have not attempted in this article to carry out an analysis of the more scientifically interesting fully developed Jacob-Monod operon theory of genetic regulations but such an analysis of the operon theory would not, I believe, involve any additional logical or epistemological features than have been discussed above. I have argued that the above account (...) of the development of a theory of enzyme induction involved inferential moves and well-characterized desiderata, of both empirical and non-empirical character, in the genesis and evaluation of new hypotheses and theories. I have also contended that the reasoning displayed in the genesis of a theory is in a large measure identical to that utilized in evaluating a theory. Both of these conclusions are at variance with the views of philosophers such as H. Reichenbach, Sir Karl Popper, and C.G. Hempel who have argued that the genesis of new hypotheses is primarily an irrational affair and that only the context of justification is susceptible of rational reconstruction. In the alternative view presented here, scientific discovery and scientific justification represent the application in contexts, which are primarily telically distinguishable, of a fundamentally unitary logic of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

The question of the influence of genes on behavior raises difficult philosophical and social issues. In this paper I delineate what I call the Developmentalist Challenge (DC) to assertions of genetic influence on behavior, and then examine the DC through an indepth analysis of the behavioral genetics of the nematode, C. elegans, with some briefer references to work on Drosophila. I argue that eight "rules" relating genes and behavior through environmentally-influenced and tangled neural nets capture the results of developmental and (...) behavioral studies on the nematode. Some elements of the DC are found to be sound and others are criticized. The essay concludes by examining the relations of this study to Kitcher's antireductionist arguments and Bechtel and Richardson's decomposition and localization heuristics. Some implications for human behavioral genetics are also briefly considered. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

This essay selectively reviews, from an historical and philosophical perspective, the dopamine (DA) hypothesis of schizophrenia (DHS; Table 1 lists the abbreviations used in this essay). Our goal is not to adjudicate the validity of the theory—although we arrive at a generally skeptical conclusion—but to focus on the process whereby the DHS has evolved over time and been evaluated. Since its inception, the DHS has been the most prominent etiologic theory in psychiatry and is still referred to widely in current (...) textbooks (e.g., Buchanan and Carpenter, Jr. 2005, 1336; Cohen 2003, 225; Gazzaniga 2004, 1257;Kandel et al. 2000, 1200). Understanding its origins and evolution should help to clarify the nature of modern .. (shrink)

This chapter notes that reduction and reductionism in the sciences and in medicine mean a number of different things, and provides a typology of those different senses, including those of the most relevance to psychiatry. Alternatives to reductionism are discussed, including antireductionism and different forms of emergence. Specific examples of reductionist and emergentist programs tied to a range of psychiatric disorders are presented, including autism, depression, and schizophrenia. These programs are also related to ongoing attempts of psychiatry to secure the (...) validity of disorders by appealing to genetics and neuroscience. (shrink)

Sustainable development – as a concept of changes directed at creating an environment in which a person lives in harmony with nature – is nowadays an imperative. Laws and regulations concerning sustainable development exist, but the implementation of related topics in curricula is sporadic, led by few teachers sensible to eco-topics, and realized mainly through specific project activities. Even though the curricular reform in Croatia recognized the importance of sustainable development and introduced the cross-curricular topic devoted to it, the realization (...) of related educational goals is questionable. The conceptual complexity of the new curriculum that is based on interdisciplinarity presupposes knowledge and skills that go beyond those provided to future teachers during their formal education. The aim of this paper is to present the most important moments in the history of education for sustainable development in Croatia. Further, based on the research by different authors, we shall present didactic guidelines that can help teachers with implementation of the new curriculum. (shrink)

How should driverless vehicles respond to situations of unavoidable personal harm? This paper takes up the case of self-driving cars as a prominent example of algorithmic moral decision-making, an emergent type of morality that is evolving at a high pace in a digitised business world. As its main contribution, it juxtaposes dilemma decision situations relating to ethical crash algorithms for autonomous cars to two edge cases: the case of manually driven cars facing real-life, mundane accidents, on the one hand, and (...) the dilemmatic situation in theoretically constructed trolley cases, on the other. The paper identifies analogies and disanalogies between the three cases with regard to decision makers, decision design, and decision outcomes. The findings are discussed from the angle of three perspectives: aspects where analogies could be found, those where the case of self-driving cars has turned out to lie in between both edge cases, and those where it entirely departs from either edge case. As a main result, the paper argues that manual driving as well as trolley cases are suitable points of reference for the issue of designing ethical crash algorithms only to a limited extent. Instead, a fundamental epistemic and conceptual divergence of dilemma decision situations in the context of self-driving cars and the used edge cases is substantiated. Finally, the areas of specific need for regulation on the road to introducing autonomous cars are pointed out and related thoughts are sketched through the lens of the humanistic paradigm. (shrink)

Cats and Conservationists: The Debate Over Who Owns the Outdoors explores the hotly contested debate surrounding outdoor cats, free-living animals, and humans’ role in nature—a debate grounded in conflicting science, ethics, and public policy goals. The authors attempt to sort out the data and values related to this debate and find common ground. However, in so doing, they create several false equivalencies. More helpful to those working on the ground to address outdoor cats would have been a book that, in (...) sorting out the values and data, meaningfully compared the competing arguments. (shrink)

Two problems in the paper by EGR are considered. One is the lack of any direct confirmatory evidence for the elegant rational reconstruction. The second is a significant gap in the historical account, just at the critical point in Einstein's discovery process -- namely, the reanalysis of simultaneity. In addition, the EGR account appears in danger of being overly focused on the electrodynamical aspect of special relativity to the exclusion of optical null experiments, and in particular to the exclusion of (...) the role of the 1887 Michelson-Morely interferometer experiment. The author disagrees with Miller on the Kantian aspects of Poincare, and on the role of Anschauungen, preferring to sketch instead a more important role for a Mach-like analysis of fundamental scientific concepts. It is argued that Miller has misconstrued the difference between an axiomatic theory and a "theory of principle" in Einstein's approach. Finally, some suggestions are made as to how the gap in our analysis of Einstein's revolution in simultaneity might be reexamined. (shrink)

Cat Wars is a dangerous book that declares war on all free-roaming cats. Filled with hyperbole and exaggerated statistics, the book argues that cats are a danger to humans, birds, and other free-living animals and should be eradicated from the landscape—a devastating, expensive, inhumane, and useless result. This review exposes the flaws in the authors’ analysis and ethical approach and redirects the dialogue toward an ethic that protects all animals. Compassionate conservationism promotes the use of nonlethal management strategies to protect (...) individual birds and other animals while compassionately reducing the number of free-roaming cats. (shrink)

The traditional role which correspondence rules, coordinating definitions, or semantical rules, have in a logical analysis of a scientific theory is questioned by providing an alternative analysis. The alternative account suggests that scientific theories are "meaningful" prior to the establishment of correspondence rules, and that correspondence rules are introduced to permit explanation and testing in the "observational" sector. The role of models is briefly assessed in connection with this prior or "antecedent theoretical meaning," and a causal sequence analysis of a (...) class of correspondence rules is presented which makes explicit the interdependence of scientific theories. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to the three preceding comments, I provide some additional philosophical warrant for the biomedical sciences' focus on model organisms. I then relate the inquiries on model systems to the concept of 'deep homology', and indicate that the issues that appear to divide my commentators and myself are in part empirical ones. I cite recent work on model organisms, and especially C. elegans that supports my views. Finally, I briefly readdress some of the issues raised by Developmental Systems (...) Theory. (shrink)

Hart offers a biologically based explanation for the use of an ‘epistemic positioning strategy’ aimed by speakers/writers at the legitimization of assertions, at persuading addressees of the veracity of the propositions, as a prior condition for the discursive legitimization of actions. This article focuses on various issues addressed in Hart’s article, among them the degree of commitment invoked in speakers/writers’ choice of epistemic stance expressions as legitimization strategies, as well as the expression of subjectivity/intersubjectivity in discourse and the degree to (...) which this involves responsibility and accountability for the speaker/writer. The article also provides an alternative proposal of the categories identified by Bednarek for the conceptual domain of evidentiality. (shrink)

This article considers claims that biology should seek general theories similar to those found in physics but argues for an alternative framework for biological theories as collections of prototypical interlevel models that can be extrapolated by analogy to different organisms. This position is exemplified in the development of the Hodgkin‐Huxley giant squid model for action potentials, which uses equations in specialized ways. This model is viewed as an “emergent unifier.” Such unifiers, which require various simplifications, involve the types of heuristics (...) discussed in Wimsatt’s writings on reduction, but with a twist. Here, the heuristics are used to generate emergent rather than reductive explanations. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)