Books in the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology series

What makes a biological entity an individual? Jack Wilson shows that past philosophers have failed to explicate the conditions an entity must satisfy to be a living individual. He explores the reason for this failure and explains why we should limit ourselves to examples involving real organisms rather than thought experiments. This book explores and resolves paradoxes that arise when one applies past notions of individuality to biological examples beyond the conventional range and presents an analysis of identity and persistence. The book's main purpose is to bring together two lines of research, theoretical biology and metaphysics, which have dealt with the same subject in isolation from one another. Wilson explains an alternative theory about biological individuality which solves problems which cannot be addressed by either field alone. He presents a more fine-grained vocabulary of individuation based on diverse kinds of living things, allowing him to clarify previously muddled disputes about individuality in biology.

David Hull, one of the dominant figures in contemporary philosophy of science, sets out in this 2001 volume a general analysis of a selection process that applies equally to biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, operant learning, and social and conceptual change in science.

First published in 2000, this set of essays by some of the best names in philosophy of science explores a range of diverse issues in the intersection of biology and epistemology. The studies, taken together, help to develop and deepen our understanding of how biology works and what counts as warranted knowledge.

The papers collected in this 2001 volume, written by a pre-eminent figure in the field of Aristotle's philosophy and biology, examine Aristotle's approach to biological inquiry and explanation, his concepts of matter, form and kind, and his teleology.

This 2001 book offers an examination of functional explanation as it is used in biology and the social sciences, and focuses on the kinds of philosophical presuppositions that such explanations carry with them. It tackles such questions as: why are some things explained functionally while others are not? What do the functional explanations tell us about how these objects are conceptualized? What do we commit ourselves to when we give and take functional explanations in the life sciences and the social sciences? McLaughlin gives a critical review of the debate on functional explanation in the philosophy of science. He discusses the history of the philosophical question of teleology, and provides a comprehensive review of the post-war literature on functional explanation. What Functions Explain provides a sophisticated and detailed Aristotelian analysis of our concept of natural functions, and offers a positive contribution to the ongoing debate on the topic.

Adaptationism and Optimality combines contributions from biologists and philosophers, and offers a systematic treatment of foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues surrounding the theory of adaptationism. It presents an up-to-date view of adaptationism and reflects the dramatic changes in our understanding of evolution that have occurred in the last twenty years.

Between 1940 and 1970, pioneers in the new field of cell biology discovered the operative parts of cells and their contributions to cell life. William Bechtel emphasises how mechanisms were discovered by cell biologists, focusing especially on the way in which new instruments made these inquiries possible.

These essays examine the developments in three fundamental biological disciplines - embryology, evolutionary biology, and genetics. These disciplines were in conflict for much of the twentieth century and the essays in this collection examine key methodological problems within these disciplines and the difficulties faced in overcoming the conflicts between them.

Robert Brandon is one of the most important and influential of contemporary philosophers of biology. This collection of his recent essays covers all the traditional topics in the philosophy of evolutionary biology and as such could serve as an introduction to the field.

Adaptationism and Optimality combines contributions from biologists and philosophers, and offers a systematic treatment of foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues surrounding the theory of adaptationism. It presents an up-to-date view of adaptationism and reflects the dramatic changes in our understanding of evolution that have occurred in the last twenty years.

This collection of essays renews the question: what are genes? This book is unique in that it is the first interdisciplinary volume, written by philosophers, historians and working scientists, solely devoted to the quest for the gene.

The first book to offer a historical perspective on the relation of biology and ethics. The essays, by leading scholars in the field, ask such questions as whether humans are innately selfish, and whether there are particular facets of human nature that bear directly on social practices.

This book offers a philosophical interpretation of the history of theoretical Darwinism, from its origins and early problems in the nineteenth century to the genetic theory of natural selection developed between 1920 and 1960. It will appeal to philosophers and historians of science and to evolutionary biologists.

The Immune Self is a critical study of immunology from its origins at the end of the nineteenth century to its contemporary formulation. The book offers the first extended philosophical critique of immunology, in which the function of the term 'self' that underlies the structure of current immune theory is analysed.

The question of whether biologists should continue to use the Linnaean hierarchy has been a hotly debated issue. Ereshefsky argues that biologists should abandon the Linnaean system and adopt an alternative that is in line with evolutionary theory. He then makes specific recommendations for a post-Linnaean method of classification.

Ron Amundson examines two hundred years of scientific views on the evolution-development relationship from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). This new perspective challenges several popular views about the history of evolutionary thought by claiming that many earlier authors had made history come out right for the Evolutionary Synthesis.