Search results for "philosophy of biology"

How not to Resist the Natural Kind Talk in Biology

2019

Abstract: After the dawn of the traditional, essentialist view of natural kinds in contemporary philosophy (exacerbated in philosophy of biology by “population thinking”), non-essentialist cluster conceptions of natural kinds have been extensively supported and applied to numerous biological categories. However, salient philosophers have put forward two challenging arguments against cluster kind theories. I argue that, in both cases, discontent with a cluster conception of natural kinds is motivated by tacit and previous assumptions that can be challenged. I conclude that the concerns expressed in the objections do not make good reasons to resist natural kinds talk in biology unless one is …

Mirror neurons : physiological requirement for emotional empathy and social and moral behaviour of human and nonhuman primates

2018

Fil: Claramonte Sanz, Vicente. Universitat de València. Departament de Filosofia. Área de Lògica i Filosofia de la Ciència; España. Claramonte Sanz, V. (2018). Las neuronas espejo: presupuesto fisiológico de la empatía emocional y de las conductas sociales y morales en primates humanos y no humanos. Metatheoria, 8(2), 15-22. A partir de la evidencia científica y los análisis debidos a los estudios de investigadores como Rizzolatti, Sinigaglia, Galle-se, Goldman, Iacoboni, etc., este artículo argumenta que el vínculo entre neuronas espejo y empatía emocional resulta corroborado por los estudios de Neurociencia sobre la actividad perceptiva y las reacciones emocionales. En particular, con las…

A lack of meaning?

2020

This article explores the ‘lack of meaning’ in contemporary society as a consequence of Western dualist thought paradigms and ontologies, via Gilles Deleuze’s concept of ‘reactive nihilism’ following the colloquial murder of God. The article then explores processual and new materialist approaches in the understanding of the lived and carnal self, arguing for immanent and senseful materiality as an ethical platform for religious, environmental, and societal solidarity for tomorrow. For the theoretical justification of the processual approach in understanding the enfleshed self, the article employs John Dupré’s processual approach in the philosophy of biology, as well as Astrida Neimani’s cri…

Genetics after World War II: The Laboratories at Gif

1989

(Ire partie); National audience

Perturbations of the classical Lotka-Volterra system by behavioral sequences

1995

The complexity and the variability of parameters occurring in ecological dynamical systems imply a large number of equations.

The Vesalian movement in sixteenth-century Spain.

1979

In the middle of the sixteenth-century under the direct influence of Vesalius's works there arose in Spain a movement devoted to the renewal of anatomical knowledge. It was one of the initial forces in the spread of the Vesalian reform, but in spite of that it has been almost completely ignored by specialized historical research.' The purpose of this article is to provide a general study of the movement with special emphasis on the conditions which determined its development. In the first place I should make it clear that the renewal in question did not arise from the relationship that Vesalius maintained throughout

A metaphysical approach to holobiont individuality: Holobionts as emergent individuals

2019

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their argu-ments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms of what it takes for a ?conglomerate? to be considered an interesting individual from a biological point of view. However, the debates about holobiont individualit…

Juan Bautista Bru (1740?1799) and the description of the genus Megatherium

1988

Evolution in Space and Time: The Second Synthesis between Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and the Philosophy of Biology

2023

Es un hecho sorprendente que para la mayor parte de la biología evolutiva, rara vez hemos estudiado cómo se desarrolla típicamente la evolución en la naturaleza, en ambientes ecológicos cambiantes, en el espacio y el tiempo. Si bien la ecología desempeñó un papel importante en la eventual aceptación del punto de vista de la evolución genética de poblaciones en la síntesis moderna (alrededor de 1918-1950), desempeñó un papel menor en el desarrollo de la teoría evolutiva hasta la década de 1980, cuando comenzamos a estudiar sistemáticamente la teoría de la evolución. dinámica evolutiva de las poblaciones naturales en el espacio y el tiempo. Como resultado, la teoría evolutiva se construyó ini…

The singular fate of Genetics in the History of French Biology, 1900-1940

1988

In this study we have examined the reception of Mendelism in France from 1900 to 1940, and the place of some of the extra-Mendelian traditions of research that contributed to the development of genetics in France after World War II. Our major findings are: (1) Mendelism was widely disseminated in France and thoroughly understood by many French biologists from 1900 on. With the notable exception of Lucien Cuenot, however, there were few fundamental contributions to the Mendelian tradition, and virtually none from about 1915 to the midthirties. Prior to 1900, Cuenot's work was already marked by a striking interest in physiological mechanisms; his physiological preoccupations played a consider…