Catalog Search Results
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2019.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (83 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
Immunology is central to contemporary biology and medicine, but it also provides novel philosophical insights. Its most significant contribution to philosophy concerns the understanding of biological individuality: what a biological individual is, what makes it unique, how its boundaries are established and what ensures its identity through time. Immunology also offers answers to some of the most interesting philosophical questions. What is the definition...
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (80 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the 'model organism' in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology, and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing...
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2022.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (79 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
The history of developmental biology is interwoven with debates as to whether mechanistic explanations of development are possible or whether alternative explanatory principles or even vital forces need to be assumed. In particular, the demonstrated ability of embryonic cells to tune their developmental fate precisely to their relative position and the overall size of the embryo was once thought to be inexplicable in mechanistic terms. Taking a causal...
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2023.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (92 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
A guidebook to biological individuality, aiming to take readers through contemporary philosophical territory and to identify possible future destinations.
5) Human nature
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2023.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (56 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
Human nature is frequently evoked to characterize our species and describe how it differs from others. But how should we understand this concept? What is the nature of a species? Some take our nature to be an essence and argue that because humans lack an essence, they also lack a nature. Others argue for non-essentialist ways of understanding human nature, which usually aim to provide criteria for sorting human traits into one of two bins, the one...
6) Hylomorphism
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2023.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (72 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
This Element introduces Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphism, which provides an account of substances in terms of their 'matter' and 'form', adapting and applying it to the interface between physics and biology. It begins by indicating some reasons for the current revival of hylomorphism and by suggesting a way of classifying the confusing array of hylomorphisms that have arisen. It argues that, in order for composite entities to have irreducible...
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2024.
Physical Desc
1 online resource digital, PDF file(s).
Language
English
Description
The intersection of development and evolution has always harbored conceptual issues, but many of these are on display in contemporary evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). These issues include: (1) the precise constitution of evo-devo, with its focus on both the evolution of development and the developmental basis of evolution, and how it fits within evolutionary theory; (2) the nature of evo-devo model systems that comprise the material...
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