Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Topics in the Philosophy of Biology

The philosophy of biology, some claim, should move to the centre of philosophy of science - a place it has not been accorded since the time of Mach. Physics was the paradigm of science, and its shadow falls across contemporary philosophy of biology in a variety of contexts: reduction, organization and system, biochemical mechanism, and the models of law and explanation which are derived from the Duhem-Popper-Hempel tradition. In this volume, the editors present essays which probe such historical and methodological questions as reducibility, levels of organization, function and teleology, issues emerging from evolutionary theory, and the species problem. The volume offers ample evidence of how good contemporary work in the philosophical understanding of biology has become. The editors aptly combine a deep philosophical appreciation of conceptual issues in biology with an historical understanding of the radical changes in the science of biology since the 19th century.Grene, Marjorie is the author of 'Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Topics in the Philosophy of Biology', published 1975 under ISBN 9789027705952 and ISBN 902770595X.