The structure of the biological sciences - individuality, reduction, mechanism, models
The course presents a selection of contemporary debates in philosophy of biology. The course focuses on issues related to the nature of explanation in the biological sciences.
Requirements
Participating in class. Take home exam.
Syllabus
Full reading list will be posted at a later date. The major themes to be discussed are:
- The notion of a biological individual.
- Reducing high-level entities and theories to low level ones.
- The properties of mechanisms based explanations in biology.
- The use of models in biological sciences.
