| 1. |
- Bergman, Karl, 1985-
(författare)
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Bargaining and descriptive content : prospects for a teleosemantic ethics
- 2021
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Ingår i: Biology & Philosophy. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 36:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teleosemantics is the view that mental content depends on etiological function. Moral adaptationism is the view that human morality is an evolved adaptation. Jointly, these two views offer new venues for naturalist metaethics. Several authors have seen, in the conjunction of these views, the promise of assigning naturalistically respectable descriptive content to moral judgments. One such author is Neil Sinclair, who has offered a blueprint for how to conduct teleosemantic metaethics with the help of moral adaptationism. In this paper, I argue that the prospects for assigning descriptive content to moral judgments on the basis of teleosemantics are bad. I develop my argument in dialogue with Sinclair’s paper and argue that, although Sinclair’s account of the evolution of morality is plausible, the teleosemantic account of the descriptive content of moral judgments which he bases thereon suffers from crucial shortcomings. I argue further that, given some minimal plausible assumptions about the evolution of morality made by Sinclair, no assignment of descriptive content is possible. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, the combination of moral adaptationism and teleosemantics suggests that moral judgments lack descriptive content.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bergstrom, Carl T, et al.
(författare)
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The transmission sense of information
- 2011
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Ingår i: Biology & Philosophy. - : Springer. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 26:2, s. 159-176
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biologists rely heavily on the language of information, coding, and transmission that is commonplace in the field of information theory developed by Claude Shannon, but there is open debate about whether such language is anything more than facile metaphor. Philosophers of biology have argued that when biologists talk about information in genes and in evolution, they are not talking about the sort of information that Shannon’s theory addresses. First, philosophers have suggested that Shannon’s theory is only useful for developing a shallow notion of correlation, the so-called “causal sense” of information. Second, they typically argue that in genetics and evolutionary biology, information language is used in a “semantic sense,” whereas semantics are deliberately omitted from Shannon’s theory. Neither critique is well-founded. Here we propose an alternative to the causal and semantic senses of information: atransmission sense of information, in which an object X conveys information if the function of X is to reduce, by virtue of its sequence properties, uncertainty on the part of an agent who observes X. The transmission sense not only captures much of what biologists intend when they talk about information in genes, but also brings Shannon’s theory back to the fore. By taking the viewpoint of a communications engineer and focusing on the decision problem of how information is to be packaged for transport, this approach resolves several problems that have plagued the information concept in biology, and highlights a number of important features of the way that information is encoded, stored, and transmitted as genetic sequence.
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| 4. |
- Blease, Charlotte, et al.
(författare)
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Overcoming disagreement : a roadmap for placebo studies
- 2019
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Ingår i: Biology & Philosophy. - : Springer Nature. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 34:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the field of placebo studies residual disagreement about the terminology placebo' and placebo effect' still persists. We differentiate between the conceptualization of placebos in clinical trials; and placebo effects understood as a psychobiological phenomenon. With respect to the latter, we argue that a scientific placebo paradigm' has emerged, indicating thatat least among placebo scientiststhere exists relatively stable consensus about how to conceive of placebo effects. We claim that existence of a placebo paradigm does not protect concepts from revision; nonetheless, we argue that scientific progress is dependent on, and guided by relative conceptual stability. Therefore, to mount persuasive arguments for conceptual revision in respect of placebo effects' we argue, critics either need to defend the claim that a placebo paradigm is not underway, or that there are major scientific failings in respect of it. With these considerations in mind we examine three alternative proposals for conceptual reform: Grunbaum/Howick's relativity models of placebo concepts; Moerman/Brody's meaning response; and Nunn/Turner's proposal for conceptual eliminativism. We derive two conclusions from this evaluation. First, we conclude that no convincing arguments have so far been presented for conceptual overhaul of placebo effects.' Notwithstanding this analysis, we conclude that refinement of this concept is likely. Second, we agree with Turner and Nunn that the term placebo' in the context of randomized controlled trials remains a source of confusion for many researchers, risking the design and scientific integrity of clinical findings. Therefore, in these contexts, replacing the term placebo' with control' is justified.
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| 5. |
- Brunnander, Björn
(författare)
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What is natural selection?
- 2007
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Ingår i: Biology & Philosophy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 22:2, s. 231-246
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ‘Natural selection’ is, it seems, an ambiguous term. It is sometimes held to denote a consequence of variation, heredity, and environment, while at other times as denoting a force that creates adaptations. I argue that the latter, the force interpretation, is a redundant notion of natural selection. I will point to difficulties in making sense of this linguistic practice, and argue that it is frequently at odds with standard interpretations of evolutionary theory. I provide examples to show this; one example involving the relation between adaptations and other traits, and a second involving the relation between selection and drift.
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| 6. |
- Grüne-Yanoff, Till
(författare)
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Evolutionary Game Theory, Interpersonal Comparisons and Natural Selection: A Dilemma
- 2011
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Ingår i: Philosophy and Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0169-3867. ; 26:5, s. 637-654
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When social scientists began employing evolutionary game theory (EGT) in their disciplines, the question arose what the appropriate interpretation of the formal EGT framework would be. Social scientists have given different answer, of which I distinguish three basic kinds. I then proceed to uncover the conceptual tension between the formal framework of EGT, its application in the social sciences, and these three interpretations. First, I argue that EGT under the biological interpretation has a limited application in the social sciences, chiefly because strategy replication often cannot be sensibly interpreted as strategy bearer reproduction in this domain. Second, I show that alternative replication mechanisms imply interpersonal comparability of strategy payoffs. Giving a meaningful interpretation to such comparisons is not an easy task for many social situations, and thus limits the applicability of EGT in this domain. Third, I argue that giving a new interpretation both to strategy replication and selection solves the issue of interpersonal comparability, but at the costs of making the new interpretation incompatible with natural selection interpretations of EGT. To the extent that social scientists seek such a natural selection interpretation, they face a dilemma: either face the challenge that interpersonal comparisons pose, or give up on the natural selection interpretation. By identifying these tensions, my analysis pleas for greater awareness of the specific purposes of EGT modelling in the social sciences, and for greater sensitivity to the underlying microstructure on which the evolutionary dynamics and other EGT solution concepts supervene.
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| 7. |
- Gärdenfors, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Technology led to more abstract causal reasoning
- 2020
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Ingår i: Biology and Philosophy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 35:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many animal species use tools, but human technical engagement is more complex. We argue that there is coevolution between technical engagement (the manufacturing and use of tools) and advanced forms of causal cognition in the human (Homo) lineage. As an analytic tool, we present a classification of different forms of causal thinking. Human causal thinking has become detached from space and time, so that instead of just reacting to perceptual input, our minds can simulate actions and forces and their causal consequences. Our main thesis is that, unlike the situation for other primate species, an increasing emphasis on technical engagement made some hominins capable of reasoning about the forces involved in causal processes. This thesis is supported in three ways: (1) We compare the casual thinking about forces of hominins with that of other primates. (2) We analyze the causal thinking required for Stone Age hunting technologies such as throwing spears, bow hunting and the use of poisoned arrows, arguing that they may serve as examples of the expansion of casual cognition about forces. (3) We present neurophysiological results that indicate the facilitation of advanced causal thinking.
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| 8. |
- Härlin, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
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Taxonomy and philosophy of names
- 1998
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Ingår i: Biology & Philosophy. - 0169-3867 .- 1572-8404. ; 13:2, s. 233-244
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although naming biological clades is a major activity in taxonomy, little attention has been paid to what these names actually refer to. In philosophy, definite descriptions have long been considered equivalent to the meaning of names and biological taxonomy is a scientific application of these ideas. One problem with definite descriptions as the meanings of names is that the name will refer to whatever fits the description rather than the intended individual (clade). Recent proposals for explicit phylogenetic definitions of clade names suffer from similar problems and we argue that clade names cannot be defined since they lack intension. Furthermore we stress the importance of "tree-thinking" for phylogenetic reference to work properly.
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