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Further Reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2020

Edited by
Kostas Kampourakis  and
Tobias Uller
Kostas Kampourakis
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Tobias Uller
Affiliation:
Lunds Universitet, Sweden
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Philosophy of Science for Biologists , pp. 313 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Further Reading

This section provides some suggestions for where to find out more about the philosophy of science, and its relationship to biology. The list that follows is short relative to the literature that actually is out there, and many more books and articles can be found by browsing the literature cited in each chapter. For simplicity, only the main titles are given in the text; for a full reference, please see the list at the end of this section.

It can be useful to begin with a general introduction to the philosophy of science, especially if some of the chapters in this book felt challenging. The Meaning of Science by Tim Lewens, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction by Samir Okasha, and Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction by Gillian Barker and Philip Kitcher are particularly accessible due to their style, conciseness, and extensive use of biological examples. Other highly accessible introductions are Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey Smith, and Recipes for Science: An Introduction to Scientific Methods and Reasoning by Angela Potochnik, Cory Wright, and Matteo Colombo.

Several of the classics in philosophy of science will still be highly readable by biologists today, including Thomas Kuhn’s the Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Imre Lakatos’s The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.

For more on the nature of science, we recommend Ignorance by Stuart Firenstein and Uncertainty by Kostas Kampourakis and Kevin McCain. For how to discriminate between science and pseudoscience, see Massimo Pigliucci’s Nonsense on Stilts and Pigliucci and Boudry’s Philosophy of Pseudoscience.

An alternative route into the philosophy of science are introductions to the philosophy of biology. These are more directly concerned with the aims, methods, and concepts of the biological sciences, which means they are more specialized. However, the topics they cover will of course be directly relevant to many biologists. Good recent introductions include Philosophy of Biology by Peter Godfrey-Smith and Philosophy of Biology: A Very Short Introduction by Samir Okasha. Two somewhat older, but still very useful, books are Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction by Alex Rosenberg and Daniel McShea and Sex and Death by Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths. The series Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy and Biology includes many useful titles, such as Genetics and Philosophy: An Introduction by Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz. Concise and biologist-friendly introductions to many of the key themes of philosophy of biology are found in The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators edited by Kostas Kampourakis. A more popular but highly recommended book that weaves together philosophy of science and biology is Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith.

The specialized literature on explanation, understanding, and knowledge can be difficult to explore for biologists, and it may be hard to know where to start. Idealization and the Aims of Science by Angela Potochnik is biologist-friendly not only because of its scope but also because she frequently relies on examples from physiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The arguments in James Woodward’s Making Things Happen will likely appeal to many biologists, and it is an important book that has shaped much of the recent discussion about causal explanation in biology. Philosophical theories of causation meet scientific practice in Causality by Phyllis Illari and Federica Russo. A recent award-winning account of the relationship between explanation and understanding is Understanding Scientific Understanding by Henk De Regt. The Nature of Scientific Knowledge by Kevin McCain covers many more ideas than what we could fit within the pages of the book you are reading now.

The chapters in this book give many good pointers to papers that explore the role of conceptual analysis in biology. For a book-length overview of the role of metaphors in science, we particularly recommend Metaphors We Live by by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Nancy Nersessian explores how concepts arise and evolve in Creating Scientific Concepts. One of the trickiest concepts in biology is undoubtedly that of a mechanism. In Search of Mechanisms by Carl Craver and Lindley Darden offers an argument for why mechanism is central to biology and how biologists go on to discover and characterize them. If mechanisms lie at one end of the explanatory agenda, then we find historical events like the extinction of dinosaurs at the other. Adrian Currie’s Bone, Rock and Ruin is a passionate argument for the scientific value of historical biology.

Many of the topics covered by the authors in the present book are examined in detail from the perspective of cancer research by Anya Plutuynski in Understanding Cancer. Making Sense of Genes by Kostas Kampourakis explains genetics by making extensive use of philosophical analysis. Biology today is very data intense, and this raises important philosophical issues that are explored in Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study by Sabina Leonelli. Heather Douglas discusses the role of values in science in Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Bernard Rollin’s Science and Ethics is a very informative and accessible book on bioethics.

Looking to the history of a science can tell us much about how it works in practice. The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller is an engaging account of classical and molecular genetics, rich in philosophical insight. Ron Amundson’s history of evolutionary developmental biology – The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought – illustrates how concepts and idealizations shape entire scientific disciplines. Daniel Sepkoski’s Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline is an excellent illustration of the social and scientific interplay during the establishment of a research program. At the heart of many biological controversies are different views on the organism itself, which is the theme of Jessica Riskin’s The Restless Clock and Erik Peterson’s The Life Organic. While it is not about biology, Hasok Chang’s Is Water H20? is a captivating case study of conceptual change and a thought-provoking argument for scientific pluralism.

In addition to these suggestions and the references in individual chapters, many entries to topics in philosophy of science can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some professional journals devoted to the philosophy of biology are Biology and Philosophy and Philosophy, Theory and Practice in Biology.

Amundsen, R. (2005). The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barker, G. & Kitcher, P. (2013). Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, H. (2013). Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Craver, C. F. & Darden, L. (2013). In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2018). Rock, Bone and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
De Regt, H. (2017). Understanding Scientific Understanding. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, H. E. (2009). Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Firenstein, S. (2012). Ignorance: How It Drives Science. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003). Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2014). Philosophy of Biology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2017). Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. London: William Collins.Google Scholar
Griffiths, P. & Stotz, K. (2013). Genetics and Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illari, P. & Russo, F. (2014). Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kampourakis, K. (2013). The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kampourakis, K. (2017). Making Sense of Genes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kampourakis, K. & McCain, K. (2019). Uncertainty: How It Makes Science Advance. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, E. F. (2000). The Century of the Gene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakatos, I. (1978). The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers Volume 1 (eds. Worrall, J. & Currie, G.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Leonelli, S. (2016). Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewens, T. (2015). The Meaning of Science. Milton Keynes, UK: Penguin Random House.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N. J. (2010). Creating Scientific Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. (2016). Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, E. L. (2016). The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Pigliucci, M. 2010. Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pigliucci, M. & Boudry, M. (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plutynski, A. (2018). Explaining Cancer: Finding Order in Disorder. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Potochnik, A. (2017). Idealization and the Aims of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potochnik, A., Colombo, M., & Wright, C. (2019). Recipes for Science: An Introduction to Scientific Methods and Reasoning. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Riskin, J. (2018). The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rollin, B. (2006). Science and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, A. & McShea, D. W. (2007). Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, D. (2017). Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology As an Evolutionary Discipline. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. & Griffiths, P. (1999). Sex and Death: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2003). Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Amundsen, R. (2005). The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barker, G. & Kitcher, P. (2013). Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, H. (2013). Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Craver, C. F. & Darden, L. (2013). In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2018). Rock, Bone and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
De Regt, H. (2017). Understanding Scientific Understanding. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, H. E. (2009). Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Firenstein, S. (2012). Ignorance: How It Drives Science. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003). Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2014). Philosophy of Biology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2017). Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. London: William Collins.Google Scholar
Griffiths, P. & Stotz, K. (2013). Genetics and Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illari, P. & Russo, F. (2014). Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kampourakis, K. (2013). The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kampourakis, K. (2017). Making Sense of Genes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kampourakis, K. & McCain, K. (2019). Uncertainty: How It Makes Science Advance. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, E. F. (2000). The Century of the Gene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakatos, I. (1978). The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers Volume 1 (eds. Worrall, J. & Currie, G.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Leonelli, S. (2016). Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewens, T. (2015). The Meaning of Science. Milton Keynes, UK: Penguin Random House.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N. J. (2010). Creating Scientific Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. (2016). Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, E. L. (2016). The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Pigliucci, M. 2010. Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pigliucci, M. & Boudry, M. (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plutynski, A. (2018). Explaining Cancer: Finding Order in Disorder. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Potochnik, A. (2017). Idealization and the Aims of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potochnik, A., Colombo, M., & Wright, C. (2019). Recipes for Science: An Introduction to Scientific Methods and Reasoning. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Riskin, J. (2018). The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rollin, B. (2006). Science and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, A. & McShea, D. W. (2007). Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, D. (2017). Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology As an Evolutionary Discipline. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. & Griffiths, P. (1999). Sex and Death: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2003). Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

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  • Further Reading
  • Edited by Kostas Kampourakis, Université de Genève, Tobias Uller, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
  • Book: Philosophy of Science for Biologists
  • Online publication: 04 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648981.017
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Further Reading
  • Edited by Kostas Kampourakis, Université de Genève, Tobias Uller, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
  • Book: Philosophy of Science for Biologists
  • Online publication: 04 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648981.017
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Further Reading
  • Edited by Kostas Kampourakis, Université de Genève, Tobias Uller, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
  • Book: Philosophy of Science for Biologists
  • Online publication: 04 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648981.017
Available formats
×