The Structure of Biological Science

Alexander Rosenberg (Author)

9780521275613, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 January 1985

296 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.529 kg

'The Golden Age of Biology has been with us for over three decades, and yet Rosenberg is the first philosopher to write a book on the philosophy of biology which makes significant use of all the recent advances in biochemistry and molecular biology. He is the first philosopher to know enough about these advances to make use of them. If Rosenberg's book is any indication, philosophy of biology is entering into its own Golden Age. David L. Hull, Northwestern University

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the conceptual methodological, and epistemological problems of biology, and treats in depth the major developments in molecular biology and evolutionary theory that have transformed both biology and its philosophy in recent decades. At the same time the work is a sustained argument for a particular philosophy of biology that unifies disparate issues and offers a framework for expectations about the future directions of the life sciences. The argument explores differences between autonomist and anti-autonomist views of biology. The result is a vindication of reductionism, but one that is unexpectedly hollow. For it leaves the exponents of the autonomy of biology from physical science with as much as their view of biology really requires - and rather more than the reductionist might comfortably concede. Professor Rosenberg shows how the problems of the philosophy of biology are interconnected and how their solutions are interdependent, However, this book focuses more on the direct concerns of biologists, rather than the traditional agenda of philosophers' problems about biology. This departure from earlier books on the subject results both in greater understanding and relevance of the philosophy of science to biology as a whole.

Preface
1. Biology and its philosophy
2. Autonomy and provincialism
3. Teleology and the roots of autonomy
4. Reductionism and the temptation of provincialism
5. The structure of evolutionary theory
6. Fitness
7. Species
8. New problems of functionalism
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA]