Books in the Elements in the Philosophy of Biology series

Biological accounts of art typically start with evolutionary, psychological or neurobiological theories. A more comprehensive framework, based also on the ecology of art and how art behaviors get expressed in engineered niches, can help us better understand the full range of art behaviors.

In this Element, Tudor Baetu explores the metaphysical inquiry into how mechanisms relate to issues such as causation, capacities and levels of organization, and epistemic issues related to the discovery of mechanisms and the intelligibility of mechanistic representations. He shows how the gap between them can be bridged.

What is the Darwinian revolution and why is it important for philosophers? These are the questions tackled in this Element. In four sections, the topics covered are the story of the revolution, the question of whether it really was a revolution, the nature of the revolution, and the implications for philosophy, both epistemology and ethics.

This Element argues that knowledge of something's history makes a difference to how we engage with it aesthetically. This means that investigation of the deep past can contribute to aesthetic aims. Aesthetic engagement with fossils and landscapes is also crucial to explaining paleontology's epistemic successes.

In this Element we give an exposition of what we believe to be 'biology's first law'. We believe that through this law we can throw light on hitherto-puzzling aspects of the evolutionary process, including the tendency of organisms to diversity and the somewhat vague, but unmistakable, progressive nature of the evolutionary process.

The role of mathematical modeling in modern evolutionary theory has raised concerns on how abstract formulae can say anything about empirical phenomena of evolution. This Element introduces philosophical approaches to this problem and proposes a new account according to which evolutionary models are based on causal and mathematical assumptions.

This Element focuses on three challenges of evolution to religion: teleology, human origins, and the evolution of religion itself. We show how tensions arise and offer potential responses for religion. Individual religions can meet these challenges, if some of their metaphysical assumptions are adapted or abandoned.

Introduces game theory, before assessing working using signaling games to explore questions related to communication, meaning, language, and reference. O'Connor then addresses prosociality - strategic behavior that contributes to the successful functioning of social groups - using the prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and bargaining games.

A philosophical history of Social Darwinism. Discusses the meaning of the term, moving then to its origins, before moving on to Social Darwinism as found in American thought. Then explores the twentieth century, looking at Adolf Hitler, and in the Anglophone world, Julian Huxley and Edward O. Wilson.

What is a stem cell? The very idea offers a new perspective on fundamental questions about biological development. This book traces the origins of the stem cell concept, its use in stem cell research today, and implications of the idea for stem cell experiments, results, and hoped-for clinical advances.

This Element introduces this literature and proposes a novel contribution. It defends a realist stance and offers a way of delineating genuine levels of selection by invoking the notion of a functional unit.

Immunology is central to contemporary biology and medicine, but it also provides novel philosophical insights. Its most significant contribution to philosophy concerns the understanding of biological individuality: what a biological individual is, what makes it unique, how its boundaries are established and what ensures its identity through time. Immunology also offers answers to some of the most interesting philosophical questions. What is the definition of life? How are bodily systems delineated? How do the mind and the body interact? In this Element, Thomas Pradeu considers the ways in which immunology can shed light on these and other important philosophical issues. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

In this book, we consider three questions. What are ecological models? How are they tested? How do ecological models inform environmental policy and politics? Through several case studies, we see how these representations which idealize and abstract can be used to explain and predict complicated ecological systems. Additionally, we see how they bear on environmental policy and politics.