Philosophy of Biology - An Autonomous Philosophy of Biology

An Autonomous Philosophy of Biology

All processes in organisms obey physical laws, the difference from inanimate processes lying in their organisation and their being subject to control by coded information. This has led some biologists and philosophers (for example, Ernst Mayr and David Hull) to return to the strictly philosophical reflections of Charles Darwin to resolve some of the problems which confronted them when they tried to employ a philosophy of science derived from classical physics. This latter, positivist approach emphasised a strict determinism (as opposed to high probability) and to the discovery of universally applicable laws, testable in the course of experiment. It was difficult for biology, beyond a basic microbiological level, to live up to these structures. Standard philosophy of science seemed to leave out a lot of what characterised living organisms - namely, a historical component in the form of an inherited genotype.

Biologists with philosophic interests responded, emphasising the dual nature of the living organism. On the one hand there was the genetic programme (represented in nucleic acids) - the genotype. On the other there was its extended body or soma - the phenotype. In accommodating the more probabilistic and non-universal nature of biological generalisations, it was a help that standard philosophy of science was in the process of accommodating similar aspects of 20th century physics.

This led to a distinction between proximate causes and explanations - "how" questions dealing with the phenotype; and ultimate causes - "why" questions, including evolutionary causes, focused on the genotype. This clarification was part of the great reconciliation, by Ernst Mayr, among others, in the 1940s, between Darwinian evolution by natural selection and the genetic model of inheritance. A commitment to conceptual clarification has characterised many of these philosophers since. Trivially, this has reminded us of the scientific basis of all biology, while noting its diversity - from microbiology to ecology. A complete philosophy of biology would need to accommodate all these activities. Less trivially, it has unpacked the notion of "teleology". Since 1859, scientists have had no need for a notion of cosmic teleology - a programme or a law that can explain and predict evolution. Darwin provided that. But teleological explanations (relating to purpose or function) have remained stubbornly useful in biology - from the structural configuration of macromolecules to the study of co-operation in social systems. By clarifying and restricting the use of the term to describe and explain systems controlled strictly scientifically by genetic programmes, or other physical systems, teleological questions can be framed and investigated while remaining committed to the physical nature of all underlying organic processes.

Similar attention has been given to the concepts of natural selection (what is the target of natural selection? - the individual? the environment? the genome? the species?); adaptation; diversity and classification; species and speciation; and macroevolution.

Just as biology has developed as an autonomous discipline in full conversation with the other sciences, there is a great deal of work now being carried on by biologists and philosophers to develop a dedicated philosophy of biological science which, while in full conversation with all other philosophic disciplines, attempts to give answers to the real questions raised by scientific investigations in biology.