Reductionism article

Two of my favourite philosophers, Ingo Brigandt and Alan Love, have just published an extremely useful and relatively complete summary essay on "Reductionism in Biology" at the Stanford Encyclopedia. They clearly identify the issues and confusions, which is what an encyclopedia article ought to do.

If I have a criticism, it is that they do not attend, as most modern philosophy doesn't, to the nineteenth century origins of this debate. I mean not only Mill, but Whewell, Jevons and all those who debated the relationship between scientific theories. Those who began the twentieth century debate knew that literature well. But then the nineteenth century is my milieu, so much so that I sometimes think I should retitle this blog Fin de Siecle Thoughts.

More like this

I've been so busy reading and assimilating the latest issue of Biology and Philosophy I forgot to let you all know about it. It's a special issue on Homology, edited by Paul Griffiths and Ingo Brigandt. A discussion group has now been set up at Matt Haber's blog The Philosophy of Biology Café.…
This three-part series is a talk I gave a while back to some ecologists and molecular biologists. It is a brief overview of the aims and relationship between science and philosophy of science, with a special reference to the classification wars in systematics, and the interface of science and the…
Following on from my previous post "Are species theoretical objects", I want now to discuss what the status of species as phenomenal objects is. Some recent papers by Ingo Brigandt and Paul Griffiths (see refs), a view has been developed for some core concepts of biology - gene and homology - in…
Theory: A word that gets used a lot in discussing science, or attacking it. Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed. [Claude Bernard, 1865,…

Criticism at Evolving Thoughts is good, but criticism at the discussion thread on the "Reductionism in Biology" SEP entry is even better. Alan Love and I set up this discussion thread at the Philosophy of Biology Cafe to gather feedback on our SEP entry, which we will consider when we revise the article the next time.

Your suggestion is quite relevant (and pertains to our section 2). May I ask that you repost it at the discussion thread, so that we can keep track of who made particular suggestions. And everyone else is encouraged to comment at the discussion thread on our SEP entry!

If I had sufficient data or knowledge to do so, I would. But displaying my ignorance is what this blog is for...

I'll keep a record of what I encounter, and let you guys know on that thread. For a start, though, obviously Mill's System is a place to delve.

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 28 May 2008 #permalink