Philosophy of Biology

520 Paul Thompson first-order predicate logic may turn out to be the most appropriate mathematical framework but in the vast maj ...

Formalisations of Evolutionary Biology 521 [Drazin, 1992]P. G. Drazin.Nonlinear SystemsCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19 ...

522 Paul Thompson [Rosenberg, 1985]A. Rosenberg.The Structure of Biological ScienceCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. ...

Formalisations of Evolutionary Biology 523 [Thompson, 1987] P. Thompson. A Defence of the Semantic Conception of Evolutionary Th ...

FUNCTIONS Tim Lewens 1 THE PROBLEM OF BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS The problem of biological functions arises because biologists’ use of ...

526 Tim Lewens Recent philosophical work on functions has come down overwhelmingly in favour of option four ([Matthen, 1997], wh ...

Functions 527 say that attracting mates is their goal: after all, the eyespots are not responsive to the presence of mates — the ...

528 Tim Lewens artefacts, and God was their designer. Richard Dawkins calls one of his books The Blind Watchmaker[Dawkins, 1986] ...

Functions 529 sure, but not because they make compensating internal adjustments. Whales are also self-repairing; if it is injure ...

530 Tim Lewens act as mutual catalysts and reagents, which Kauffman views as primitive living systems: In a collective autocatal ...

Functions 531 of the radiator. In short, function statements explain the presence of functionally characterised artefacts. Funct ...

532 Tim Lewens of the circulatory system to bring nutrients to cells, the heart’s contribution is pumping. The CR account, at le ...

Functions 533 are effects of objects that do not owe themselves to chance, and which are bestowed by some external process — and ...

534 Tim Lewens around the building site, and then cataloguing how various Newtonian forces act on them so that they fall into th ...

Functions 535 as he does) cannot possibly have been competent in the use of the SE concept of function. None of these problems i ...

536 Tim Lewens in vision explains the presence of lenses, it explains the presence of earlobes, too. Why not say, then, that ear ...

Functions 537 anomalies — rare instances that conform to no pattern of theoretical interest — rather than as malfunctioning trai ...

538 Tim Lewens cannot say this, because it equates having a function with being able to perform that function; hence, it rules o ...

Functions 539 repertoire. Hence I am sceptical of whether an account of biological function that seeks to do justice to the prac ...

540 Tim Lewens offers an additional promise not merely of characterising organic development as directed towards a target, but o ...