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  • Articles  (19)
  • teleology  (10)
  • sociobiology  (9)
  • Springer  (19)
  • 2015-2019
  • 1990-1994  (19)
  • 1915-1919
  • Philosophy  (19)
  • Sociology
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  • Articles  (19)
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  • Springer  (19)
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  • 1
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Ahistorical intentional content (1994)
    Springer
    Journal for general philosophy of science 25 (1994), S. 241-259 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8587
    Keywords: Intentionality ; history ; biosemantics ; teleology ; function ; cosmic accident ; computationalism
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Philosophy , Nature of Science, Research, Systems of Higher Education, Museum Science
    Notes: Summary One of the main problems of current theory of intentionality concerns the possibility of ahistorical intentional content, that is, content in the absence of any developmental history of the respective item. Biosemanticists like Millikan (1984) argue that content is essentially historical, while computationalists like Cummins (1989) hold that a system's current ahistorical state alone determines content. In the present paper, this problem is discussed in terms of some popular ‘cosmic accident’ thought experiments, and the conceptual framework of these experiments is enriched by some new versions like accidental ‘duplicates’ without any preexisting original. As a result of these evaluations, it is argued that for an item to bear intentional content it is necessary to have a ‘function’ in the forward-looking sense introduced by Bigelow & Pargetter (1987). Since historicity is not necessary for functionality, ahistorical states can be intentional as long as they have functions. This result does not support computationalism, since functionality cannot be determined in terms of current ashistorical state alone, but only with reference to the present and future environmental context of the cognitive system that harbours these states.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00763823
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  • 2
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Bioaltruism reconsidered (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 75-84 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Altruism ; ethics ; ethology ; evolution ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Altruistic behavior is often regarded as sociobiology's most central theoretical problem, but is it? Altruism in biology, bioaltruism, has many meanings, which can be grouped into two categories. The first I will callcommon bioaltruism. It is primarily of ethological relevance. The second,evolutionary bioaltruism, is a special category in evolutionary respects in that it may indeed pose a problem for evolutionary theory. These categories are logically independent. Moreover, both of them are logically different from altruism in its everyday psychological or moral sense. Sociobiological examples of bioaltruistic behavior concern bioaltruism in the first sense only, so the theoretical problem ‘altruism’ is supposed to pose, is indeed nothing but a theoretical problem and the bioaltruism that actually occurs has no evolutionary relevance. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory is relevant to our understanding of the possibility of common bioaltruism, and that possibility — even though bioaltruism is conceptually different from ethical altruism — is relevant for ethicists: it sheds light on what we can ask people to do or not to do.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00849915
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  • 3
    Electronic Resource
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    Anatomy, metaphysics, and values: The ape brain debate reconsidered (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 129-165 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Metaphysical realism ; internal realism ; social constructivism ; Thomas Huxley ; Richard Owen ; organism ; development ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Conventional wisdom teaches that Thomas Huxley discredited Richard Owen in their debate over ape and human brains. This paper reexamines the dispute and uses it as a test case for evaluating the metaphysical realist, internal realist, and social constructivist theories of scientific knowledge. Since Owen worked in the Kantian tradition, his anatomical research illustrates the implications of internal realism for scientific practice. As an avowed Cartesian, Huxley offered a well developed attack on Owen's position from a metaphysical realist perspective. Adrian Desmond's political retrospective on the dispute affords the additional opportunity to contrast internal realism with social constructivism. I argue that since Huxley ultimately based his attack on his valuing Europeans as superior to blacks, his argument illustrates the hazards of accepting the metaphysical realist promise of value free science. Desmond overlooks this racial dimension of the dispute, and his work shows how social constructivism can distract the historian and philosopher from even the social meaning of science. As internal realists like Putnam have argued, values enter science not from without, but from within the very process of science itself.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00857930
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  • 4
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Teleology by another name: A reply to Ghiselin (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 493-495 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Adaptation ; Darwin ; final cause ; Ghiselin ; natural selection ; plant sexuality ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00850378
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  • 5
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Darwin's language may seem teleological, but his thinking is another matter (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 489-492 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Darwin ; teleology ; teleonomy ; function ; morphology ; anatomy ; epistemology ; metaphor
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Darwin's biology was “teleological” only if the term “teleology” is defined in a manner that fails to recognize his contribution to the metaphysics and epistemology of modern science. His use of teleological metaphors in a strictly teleonomic context is irrelevant to the meaning of his discourse. The myth of Darwin's alleged teleology is partly due to misinterpretations of discussions about whether morphology should be a purely formal science. Merely rejecting such notions as special creation and vitalism does not prevent the pernicious effects of teleological reasoning, even at the present time.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00850377
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  • 6
    Electronic Resource
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    Evolutionary naturalism and the objectivity of morality (1993)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 47-60 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Ethics ; morality ; naturalism ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract We propose an objective and justifiable ethics that is contingent on the truth of evolutionary theory. We do not argue for the truth of this position, which depends on the empirical question of whether moral functions form a natural class, but for its cogency and possibility. The position we propose combines the advantages of Kantian objectivity with the explanatory and motivational advantages of moral naturalism. It avoids problems with the epistemological inaccessibility of transcendent values, while avoiding the relativism or subjectivism often associated with moral naturalism. Our position emerges out of criticisms of the contemporary sociobiological views of morality found in the writings of Richard Alexander, Michael Ruse, and Robert Richards.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00868505
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  • 7
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    An intellectual legacy of the past: The reception of sociobiology in the East-European countries (1993)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 399-407 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: German anthropology ; Lysenko ; Marx ; sociobiology ; Stalin
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Sociobiology has not been well received in Eastern Europe. Reasons for this are listed and discussed. It is suggested that times are changing and that sociobiology will have more success in the future.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00857686
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  • 8
    Electronic Resource
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    Darwin was a teleologist (1993)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 409-421 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Adaptation ; Darwin ; final cause ; natural selection ; plant sexuality ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract It is often claimed that one of Darwin's chief accomplishments was to provide biology with a non-teleological explanation of adaptation. A number of Darwin's closest associates, however, and Darwin himself, did not see it that way. In order to assess whether Darwin's version of evolutionary theory does or does not employ teleological explanation, two of his botanical studies are examined. The result of this examination is that Darwin sees selection explanations of adaptations as teleological explanations. The confusion in the nineteenth century about Darwin's attitude to teleology is argued to be a result of Darwin's teleological explanations not conforming to either of the dominant philosophical justifications of teleology at that time. Darwin's explanatory practices conform well, however, to recent defenses of the teleological character of selection explanations.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00857687
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  • 9
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Life and teleology (1992)
    Springer
    Journal for general philosophy of science 23 (1992), S. 85-103 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8587
    Keywords: life ; teleology ; evolution ; reality ; representation ; experience
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Philosophy , Nature of Science, Research, Systems of Higher Education, Museum Science
    Notes: Summary A comprehensive definition of the phenomenon called “life” led to the addition of many dimensions to the natural sciences, and especially the conscious mental dimension. Historical attention is paid not only to those employing the natural philosophical paradigms, but also to evolutionary theories and to the Kantian teleological philosophy. The belief that science can solve the riddle of life is a category of purposal thinking. A revised version of critical teleology is essential for comprehension of life.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01801797
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  • 10
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    An ecological approach to biosystem thermodynamics (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 35-60 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Action principles ; ecosystem structure ; evolution ; information ; natural selection ; non-equilibrium thermodynamics ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract The general attributes of ecosystems are examined and a naturally occurring “reference ecosystem” is established, comparable with the “isolated” system of classical thermodynamics. Such an autonomous system with a stable, periodic input of energy is shown to assume certain structural characteristics that have an identifiable thermodynamic basis. Individual species tend to assume a state of “least dissipation”; this is most clearly evident in the dominant species (the species with the best integration of energy acquisition and conservation). It is concluded that ecosystem structure results from the antagonistic interaction of two nearly equal forces. These forces have their origin in the Principle of Most Action (“least dissipation” or “least entropy production”) and the universal Principle of Least Action. “Most action” is contingent on the equipartitioning of the energy available, through uniform interaction of similar individuals. The trend to “Least action” is contingent on increased dissipation attained through increasing diversity and increasing complexity. These principles exhibit a basic asymmetry. Given the operation of these opposing principles over evolutionary time, it is argued that ecosystems originated in the vicinity of thermodynamic equilibrium through the resonant amplification of reversible fluctuations. On account of the basic asymmetry the system was able to evolve away from thermodynamic equilibrium provided that it remained within the vicinity of “ergodynamic equilibrium” (equilibrium maintained by internal work, where the opposing forces are equal and opposite). At the highest level of generalization there appear to be three principles operating: i) maximum association of free-energy and materials; ii) energy conservation (deceleration of the energy flow) through symmetric interaction and increased homogeneity; and iii) the principle of least action which induces acceleration of the energy flow through asymmetrical interaction. The opposition and asymmetry of the two forces give rise to natural selection and evolution.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00130163
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  • 11
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Biology intersects religion and morality (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 77-88 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Morality ; Arthur Peacocke ; reductionism ; Michael Ruse ; science and religion ; sociobiology ; theology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Michael Ruse's writings explore what sociobiology says about morality. Further, he claims that sociobiology undermines the base for Christian morality. After responding to criticisms of Ruse, especially those of Arthur Peacocke, I lay a base for meeting his challenge.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00130166
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  • 12
    Electronic Resource
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    Evolution, altruism, and the prisoner's dilemma (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 161-175 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Altruism ; evolution ; Prisoner's Dilemma ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract I first argue against Peter Singer's exciting thesis that the Prisoner's Dilemma explains why there could be an evolutionary advantage in making reciprocal exchanges that are ultimately motivated by genuine altruism over making such exchanges on the basis of enlightened long-term self-interest. I then show that an alternative to Singer's thesis — one that is also meant to corroborate the view that natural selection favors genuine altruism, recently defended by Gregory Kavka, fails as well. Finally, I show that even granting Singer's and Kavka's claim about the selective advantage of altruism proper, it is doubtful whether that type of claim can be used in a particular sort of sociobiological argument against psychological egoism.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00129881
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  • 13
    Electronic Resource
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    Moral and nonmoral innate constraints (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 189-202 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Epigenetic rule ; ethics ; human behavioral ecology ; innate constraint ; morality ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Charles J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson, in their writings together and individually, have proposed that human behaviors, whether moral or nonmoral, are governed by innate constraints (which they have termed “epigenetic rules”). I propose that if a genetic component of moral behavior is to be discovered, some sorting out of specifically moral from nonmoral innate constraints will be necessary. That some specifically moral innate constraits exist is evidenced by virtuous behaviors exhibited in nonhuman mammals, whose behavior is usually granted to be importantly governed by genetic factors. Propensities for such virtuous behaviors may have been passed to humans as highly conserved mammalian genes and continue to influence us. I propose that these constitute at least a “rudimentary morality” and may account in part for the moral intuitions. But other innate constraints which are nonmoral in nature interact with the specifically moral innate constraints and with culture to yield human moral decisions and actions. Any model which aims to identify the genetic component of moral behaviors or behaviors with moral import must provide not only a delineation of cultural causes but must also distinguish between those genetic causes which may have their origin in innate moral constraints from others which are fundamentally nonmoral because the critical faculty necessary to higher level human morality itself arises in part from innate constraints of a nonmoral type; i.e., the processes of inductive reasoning common to both ethics and science. Finally, humans who could bring the nonmoral evaluative capacities to bear upon whatever moral intuitions might be genetically conserved in mammalian heritage would have an advantage over similar beings who could not.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00129883
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  • 14
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    Evolution: Teleology or chance? (1991)
    Springer
    Journal for general philosophy of science 22 (1991), S. 133-141 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8587
    Keywords: evolution ; teleology ; chance ; purpose ; anthropomorphism
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Philosophy , Nature of Science, Research, Systems of Higher Education, Museum Science
    Notes: Summary Revaluation of the problem of natural teleology seems an important precondition for elucidating our environmental crisis and for formulating an ‘ecological ethics’, because it calls for a recognition of an intrinsic value in nature and organisms. Therefore, it is necessary to show that the concept of natural teleology is not in contradiction with scientific theories, in particular not with the theory of evolution. In this paper I shall argue that there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the concepts of teleology and chance in modern thinking. This as a result of a radical transformation of the Aristotelian concept of teleology by Christian theologians during the Middle Ages. This confusion resulted in the rejection of teleology from evolution and in an exaggeration of the role of chance. However, not a solution for the problem of teleology is given here, but only an attempt to prove that neither the fossil-record, nor the role of chance in evolution can give adequate arguments for the negation of teleology in evolution. That is not to say that, therefore there exists teleology in evolution, but the problem of teleology in nature cannot, be solved by the scientific theory of evolution, but only be elucidated by philosophical analysis. At the end of the paper it is argued that teleology must be rather presupposed in evolution.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01801253
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  • 15
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    A semiotical reflection on biology, living signs and artificial life (1991)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 325-340 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Artificial life ; biology ; information ; Peirce ; philosophy of science ; semiotic realism ; semiotics ; tign ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract It is argued, that theory sf signs, especially in the tradition of the great philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) can inspire the study of central problems in the philosophy of biology. Three such problems are considered: (1) The nature of biology as a science, where a semiotically informed pluralistic approach to the theory of science is introduced. (2) The peculiarity of the general object of biology, where a realistic interpretation of sign- and information-concepts is required to see sign-processes as immanent in nature. (3) The possibility of an artificial construction of life, hereby discussed as a conceptual problem in the present form of the artificial life project and its implied definition of life.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00132235
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  • 16
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    Holism and reduction in sociobiology: Lessons from the ants and human culture (1991)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 401-412 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Ants ; behavior ; culture ; Holism ; human ; meaning ; reduction ; sociobiology ; symbol
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Most research in the natural sciences passes through repeated cycles of a analytic reduction to the next lower level of organization, then resynthesis to the original level, then new analyticareduction, and so on. A residue of unexplained phenomena at the original level appears at first to require a “holistic” description independent of the lower level, but the residue shrinks as knowledge increases. This principle is well illustrated by recent studies from the social organization of insects, several examples of which are cited here. In theory it should also apply to human social organization. Culture is biological: meaning in culture can be approached as the outcome of mechanism-based causation, because culture stems from individual cognition, which has a biological basis. It would seem to follow that the most effective way to study culture is across all levels of organization from gene to society, passing repetitively through a cycle of reduction and synthesis in the manner of the natural sciences. Reductionistic analysis is favored by the tendency of semantic memory and culture to occur in discrete units that are arranged hierarchically.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00128710
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  • 17
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    Künstliche Intelligenz und Philosophie (1990)
    Springer
    Journal for general philosophy of science 21 (1990), S. 347-358 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8587
    Keywords: artificial intelligence ; understanding ; representation ; meaning ; intentionality ; teleology ; subjectivity ; semiotics ; philosophical anthropology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Philosophy , Nature of Science, Research, Systems of Higher Education, Museum Science
    Notes: Summary Artificial Intelligence can be considered as the so far last attempt to decode the anthropological comparison between human beings and machines. Thereby it also represents in a prominent way what can be called “systemic thought”. Searle's conclusive argument against strong AI (that is the idea of computers having intention in a literal way) refers to his precise distinction between syntax and semantics. This difference obviously opposing some of Searle's other essential ideas will only convince if it also explains the genetic-pragmatic aspect. A theory explaining the “life of mind” and the possibility of understanding needs to combine representation and intention with the subjective causation of signs. At the same time they have to be contextualized within a model of teleologically interpreted life recognized with the help of self-experience and self-reflection. This suggests that AI is a simulation which wrongly believes to be a real duplication. Actually it is a semiotic reduction (syntax and semantic surface of signs only) and a psychological compensation (Turing test) connected with a genetic or abductive fallacy. The biological decontextualization, in fact the elimination of teleology and intention, the deconstruction of subjectivity, the loss of the genetic-pragmatic dimension and the abductive fallacy induce the strong AI to confuse its surface-illusion of simulated understanding with the real process itself.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01801043
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  • 18
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    Really taking Darwin seriously: An alternative to Michael Ruse's Darwinian metaethics (1990)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 5 (1990), S. 149-173 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Darwinian ethics ; ethics ; evolution ; evolutionary ethics ; M. Ruse ; naturalistic fallacy ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionary based casual explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification. We find that Ruse's proposal distorts, overextends and weakens both Darwinism and naturalism. So we propose an alternative Darwinian metaethics that both remedies the problems in Ruse's proposal and shows how a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness avoids the naturalistic fallacy and can provide genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical claims. Thus, we propose to really take Darwin seriously.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00127485
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  • 19
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    Causes, proximate and ultimate (1990)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 5 (1990), S. 401-415 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Proximate cause ; ultimate cause ; function ; functionalism ; structuralism ; adaptation ; sociobiology ; behavioral ecology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Within evolutionary biology a distinction is frequently made between proximate and ultimate causes. One apparently plausible interpretation of this dichotomy is that proximate causes concern processes occurring during the life of an organism while ultimate causes refer to those processes (particularly natural selection) that shaped its genome. But “ultimate causes” are not sought through historical investigations of an organisms lineage. Rather, explanations referring to ultimate causes typically emerge from functional analyses. But these functional analyses do not identify causes of any kind, much less ultimate ones. So-called “ultimate explanations” are not about causes in any sense resembling those of proximate explanations. The attitude, implicit in the term “ultimate cause”, that these functional analyses are somehow superordinate to those involving “proximate causes” is unfounded. “Ultimate causes” are neither ultimate nor causes.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02207379
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