Philosophy Now-Aug-Sept 2019

20 Philosophy Now ●August/September 2019 Interview

recently involved in organising a very

exciting joint meeting of the Royal Soci-

ety and the British Academy, the leading

UK academies for the natural sciences

and the social sciences and humanities

respectively, on the state of evolutionary

theory in the light of recent research in

areas such as niche construction, epige-

netics, and symbiosis. Among other

things, this drew attention, I hope, to the

value of bringing together narrow and

deep expertise in the sciences with

wider, more synoptic perspectives from

the humanities. Or in a critical vein, I

have argued that evolutionary psycholo-

gists have failed to keep up with devel-

opments in evolutionary theory that

make much of what they say highly

problematic.

I like to think that there’s no sharp border-

line between a theoretical scientific discipline

and the philosophy of that discipline; for

instance philosophy of physics and theoretical

physics. Many ‘paradigm-shifting’ scientific

discoveries involve changing some very basic

ways we see important aspects of the world,

so perhaps these discoveries should be consid-

ered ‘metaphysical’ as well as ‘scientific’.

What is your stance on this?

I certainly agree that the two aspects – if

there are two! – are closely interconnect-

ed; but I’m inclined to think that there

are important divisions of labour and

expertise. Scientists and philosophers

have very different training and usually

very different intellectual experience. I’d

say that that was much of the reason why

it’s so valuable for them to talk to one

another. But certainly I would agree that

major theoretical shifts are often as

much philosophical as empirical.

Would you be prepared to call yourself a the-

oretical biologist?

Well, I’d prefer to have biologists decide

whether to call me one. They have occa-

sionally, and I’m generally quite happy

when they do so. I would say, though,

that most of my work is definitely meant

to be philosophy; and as I mentioned,

although scientists and philosophers are

often interested in the same questions,

there are important differences in the

approaches and skills they are likely to

bring to those questions.

Hello Professor. There have been many dis-

cussions about what the contribution of phi-

losophy of science is to science itself. Some

famous scientists have even claimed that

philosophy has made no contribution to sci-

ence. I am interested in your strategy and

arguments on this matter.

I suppose that the most famous attacks

on philosophy have come from physi-

cists, and I’ll leave the philosophers of

physics to respond to those. As the

philosopher Thomas Kuhn taught us –

rightly, I think – a great many scientists

do relatively routine work in a well-

established paradigm, and have no

strong interest in foundational issues in

general, or philosophy in particular.

Biologists too, I think, are mostly indif-

ferent to philosophy. But a small yet

influential minority have thought that

philosophy of biology was important for

their science. Notable among these, and

very important to the growth of the

field, have been the formidable figures

of Ernst Mayr and Richard Lewontin.

Many of the leading philosophers of

biology in the 70s and 80s (though not

myself) spent time in Lewontin’s labora-

tory. Other prominent biologists who

have been interested in philosophical

issues and in interacting with philoso-

phers include Denis Noble, Scott

Gilbert and Ford Doolittle.

At this stage in my career I find the

importance of biology for philosophy

very obvious. Life generally, and human

life in particular, are surely central top-

ics of philosophical interest that can also

only benefit from attention to the scien-

tific knowledge that has been gained

about them. What philosophers can

contribute to biology is perhaps not so

obvious; perhaps most biologists can do

their work very well without addressing

many philosophical questions.

One answer that resonates with my

own experience is that whereas scientists

are professionally required to look

deeply into very specific questions,

philosophers have the privilege of rang-

ing over a much wider, if shallower, ter-

rain. This sometimes enables them to

see points where distinct scientific pro-

jects need to be brought into closer con-

tact with one another. I see a good deal

of my own work in this way. I was

John

Dupré

isProfessor of

Philosophy of Science at

the University of Exeter

and Director of Egenis,

the Centre for the Study

of Life Sciences. He was

recently elected

President of the

Philosophy of Science

Association.

Edit Talpsepp-Randla

talks to him about the

philosophy of biology.

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