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[Review of the book The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought, by Parruthers]
Download2008
Introduction: Recent cognitive developmental psychology lend support to the idea that the mind consists of distinct domain-specific modules (e.g., a folk physics, a folk biology, and a folk psychological mind-reading module), rather than a single all-purpose reasoning system. In evolutionary...
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2016
Introduction: Do we really need another discussion of reduction in biology? After all, arguments for reductionism and for anti-reductionism have led to a stalemate, and philosophical investigations have come to focus on the topic of epistemic integration. Fortunately, Marie I. Kaiser takes a step...
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2007
Introduction: Reductionism in the Philosophy of Science develops a novel account of reduction in science and applies it to the relationship between classical and molecular genetics. However, rather than addressing the epistemological issues that have been essential to the reductionism debate in...
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[Review of the book In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences, by C.Fraver, & Larden]
Download2014
Introduction: A characteristic feature of contemporary practice in the life sciences is the study of mechanisms; consequently, mechanisms have become one of the major issues currently discussed by philosophers of biology. Lindley Darden and Carl Craver have been at the forefront of creating this...
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[Review of the book Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, by P.K. Stanford]
Download2007
Introduction: What makes Kyle Stanford’s book on scientific realism so valuable to philosophers of science is that it both presents new philosophical ideas and bases its argument on a detailed study of the history of science. While scientific realism—the idea that our most well‐confirmed theories...
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[Review of the book Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously, by Jobert]
Download2005
Introduction: In the last few decades, the fields of genetics and molecular biology have been of substantial importance for the philosophy of biology. The same does not quite hold for developmental biology, despite some philosophical discussions of development. Jason Robert’s recent book...
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2011
Introduction: The core notion of Godfrey Smith’s account is that of a ‘Darwinian population’, which is “a population—a collection of particular things—that has the capacity to undergo evolution by natural selection” (page 6). A ‘Darwinian individual’ is a member of such an evolving population....
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2003
Introduction: Even though Psillos’s latest book is called Causation and Explanation, it is actually a unified discussion of causation, laws, and explanation. Despite the fact that these three topics are interconnected, it is rare to have detailed treatment of all of them. Psillos does not really...