Keyword: biology

This new special issue of Synthese challenges the widespread neglect of teleology in analytic philosophy, demonstrating its ongoing relevance across multiple domains. While often dismissed due to its historical associations with Aristotelianism and pre-Darwinian thought, teleological explanations remain indispensable in understanding biological functions, human agency, social institutions, and even aspects of epistemology and ethics. The […]

Published as part of The Routledge Handbook of Causality and Causal Methods and available open access here. Abstract: In order to carry out many scientific practices, say, doing measurements, building explanations, planning interventions, it is necessary to identify which causal systems will be measured, explained or intervened upon. Accordingly, it is important in biological research […]

16/12/2024 — 29 rue d’Ulm, Centre Cavaillès, École Normale Supérieure, Paris. Workshop organization: Maël Montévil, Anton Robert. Abstract What understanding does the closure of constraints bring about a biological system in practices? Without discussing particular cases, one cannot answer this question. The goal of this workshop is to bring together and synthesize individual modeling experiences […]

Cross-posted at The Brains Blog Introduction: The Role of Functions in Biology and Philosophy Biological functions play a critical role in our understanding of living organisms and their traits. Whether we’re talking about the heart, lungs, or brain, their “function” helps an organism survive, grow, reproduce, and sometimes assist others. But can we explain more […]

New Monograph on Bergson’s Contemporary Relevance to Our Understanding of Evolution – Published by PUF. From the publisher’s website: “The eye is made to see,” “only the best adapted survive,” “evolution is progress.” These familiar statements liken nature’s work to that of an engineer, shaping living matter with specific goals in mind: designing a visual […]

New issue of biological theory with a thematic section on biological agency, including paper by Louis Virenque & Matteo Mossio on agency in biological autonomy, Andrew Pickering on agency in Science Studies, Samir Okasha on agency and evolution, and a commentary essay by Lenny Moss. All essays available in open-access here.

Workshop on biological autonomy and the question of organismal agency at the Université Paris I. More information and the link to follow remotely available on the conference website. Program Lundi 18 mars 2024 9h00-9h15 : Ouverture du workshop/opening session : Florian Moullard (Bordeaux-Montaigne, SPH; Paris 1, IHPST) et Louis Virenque (CNRS, IHPST, Paris I),The Problem for Defining Agency. 9h15-10h45 : Anna Ciaunica (Université […]

The event will take place at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition in Klosterneuburg (Austria) on September 9th-12th. The summer school is organized by Leonardo Bich, Lucie Laplane and Matteo Mossio and is is mainly intended for young scholars, including PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers, who are engaged in the study of […]

This new issue of BioSystems is entirely dedicated to explore the contemporary variations on the theme of autopoiesis, how the concept has been received, modified, implemented and operationalized from its original formulation in the early 1980s. Fifty years after the birth of autopoiesis theory, by the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, the rich […]

Published open access on BioSystems Abstract: Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous—maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities—requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively […]