Philosophy of biology
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The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long been interested in biology (e.g., Aristotle, Descartes, and even Kant), philosophy of biology only emerged as an independent field of philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s. Philosophers of science then began paying increasing attention to biology, from the rise of Neodarwinism in the 1930s and 1940s to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 to more recent advances in genetic engineering. Other key ideas such as the reduction of all life processes to biochemical reactions as well as the incorporation of psychology into a broader neuroscience are also addressed.
See also
- Bioethics
- Biosemiotics
- Evolutionary anthropology
- Evolutionary psychology
- Living computers theory
- Mechanism (biology)
- Neuroaesthetics
- Philosophy of chemistry
- Philosophy of mind
- Philosophy of physics
- Philosophy of science
- Physics envy
- Sociobiology
Biologists with an interest in the philosophical aspects of biology
- Francisco J. Ayala
- Patrick Bateson
- Richard Dawkins
- Jared Diamond
- Michael Ghiselin
- Stephen Jay Gould
- Richard Lewontin
- Humberto Maturana
- John Maynard Smith
- Ernst Mayr
- Richard E. Michod
- Brent Mishler
- Joan Roughgarden
- Rolf Sattler
- Edward O. Wilson
Bibliography
- Marjorie Grene & David Depew: The Philosophy of Biology: An Episodic History, Cambridge University Press, 2004
- Mayr, E The Growth of Biological Thought: diversity, evolution and inheritance London Harvard University Press 1982 ISBN 0-674-36445-7
- Mayr, E Towards a new philosophy of biology:observations of an evolutionist London Harvard University Press 1988 ISBN 0-674-89666-1
- Alexander Rosenberg Structure of Biological Science Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1985
- Elliot Sober The Nature of Selection Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press 1984