We argue for a new conventionalism about many kinds of evolutionary groups, including clades, cohesive units, and populations. This rejects a consensus, which says that given any one of the many legitimate grouping concepts, only objective biological facts determine whether a collection is such a group. Surprisingly, being any one kind of evolutionary group typically depends on which of many incompatible values are taken by suppressed variables. This is a novel pluralism underlying most any one group concept, rather than a (...) familiar pluralism claiming many concepts are legitimate. Consequently, we must help biological facts determine grouphood, even when given a single grouping concept. (shrink)

Phylogenetic trees are meant to represent the genealogical history of life and apparently derive their justification from the existence of the tree of life and the fact that evolutionary processes are treelike. However, there are a number of problems for these assumptions. Here it is argued that once we understand the important role that phylogenetic trees play as models that contain idealizations, we can accept these criticisms and deny the reality of the tree while justifying the continued use of trees (...) in phylogenetic theory and preserving nearly all of what defenders of trees have called the “importance of tree thinking.”. (shrink)

A number of recent papers have criticized what they call the dynamical interpretation of evolutionary theory found in Elliott Sober’s The Nature of Selection. Sober argues that we can think of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces analogous to Newtonian mechanics. These critics argue that there are several important disanalogies between evolutionary and Newtonian forces: Unlike evolutionary forces, Newtonian forces can be considered in isolation, they have source laws, they compose causally in a straightforward way, and they are intermediate (...) causes in causal chains. Here we defend and extend the forces analogy by arguing that each of these criticisms is based on a misunderstanding of Newtonian forces. Our discussion also has the interesting consequence that natural selection turns out to be more similar to forces such as friction and elastic forces rather than the more canonical gravitation. (shrink)

Many phylogenetic systematists have criticized the Biological Species Concept (BSC) because it distorts evolutionary history. While defenses against this particular criticism have been attempted, I argue that these responses are unsuccessful. In addition, I argue that the source of this problem leads to previously unappreciated, and deeper, fatal objections. These objections to the BSC also straightforwardly apply to other species concepts that are not defined by genealogical history. What is missing from many previous discussions is the fact that the Tree (...) of Life, which represents phylogenetic history, is independent of our choice of species concept. Some species concepts are consistent with species having unique positions on the Tree while others, including the BSC, are not. Since representing history is of primary importance in evolutionary biology, these problems lead to the conclusion that the BSC, along with many other species concepts, are unacceptable. If species are to be taxa used in phylogenetic inferences, we need a history-based species concept. (shrink)

A common view is that species occupy a unique position on the Tree of Life. Evaluating this claim requires an understanding of what the Tree of Life represents. The Tree represents history, but there are at least three biological levels that are often said to have genealogies: species, organisms, and genes. Here I focus on defending the plausibility of a gene-based account of the Tree. This leads to an account of species that are determined by gene genealogies. On this view, (...) an exclusive group is a group of organisms that forms a clade for a higher proportion of the genome than any conflicting clade. Taxa occupy a unique position in what can be called the ‘primary concordance tree’. But each gene has its own historical ‘Tree of Life’. I conclude by arguing that both organismal pedigrees with their corresponding Tree as well as gene genealogies and their trees are objectively real and play important, but different, roles in biological practice. (shrink)

A natural starting place for developing a phylogenetic species concept is to examine monophyletic groups of organisms. Proponents of “the” Phylogenetic Species Concept fall into one of two camps. The first camp denies that species even could be monophyletic and groups organisms using character traits. The second groups organisms using common ancestry and requires that species must be monophyletic. I argue that neither view is entirely correct. While monophyletic groups of organisms exist, they should not be equated with species. Instead, (...) species must meet the more restrictive criterion of being genealogically exclusive groups where the members are more closely related to each other than to anything outside the group. I carefully spell out different versions of what this might mean and arrive at a working definition of exclusivity that forms groups that can function within phylogenetic theory. I conclude by arguing that while a phylogenetic species concept must use exclusivity as a grouping criterion, a variety of ranking criteria are consistent with the requirement that species can be placed on phylogenetic trees. (shrink)

Bayesian methods have become among the most popular methods in phylogenetics, but theoretical opposition to this methodology remains. After providing an introduction to Bayesian theory in this context, I attempt to tackle the problem mentioned most often in the literature: the “problem of the priors”—how to assign prior probabilities to tree hypotheses. I first argue that a recent objection—that an appropriate assignment of priors is impossible—is based on a misunderstanding of what ignorance and bias are. I then consider different methods (...) of assigning prior probabilities to trees. I argue that priors need to be derived from an understanding of how distinct taxa have evolved and that the appropriate evolutionary model is captured by the Yule birth–death process. This process leads to a well-known statistical distribution over trees. Though further modifications may be necessary to model more complex aspects of the branching process, they must be modifications to parameters in an underlying Yule model. Ignoring these Yule priors commits a fallacy leading to mistaken inferences both about the trees themselves and about macroevolutionary processes more generally. (shrink)

A phylogeny that allows for lateral gene transfer (LGT) can be thought of as a strictly branching tree (all of whose branches are vertical) to which lateral branches have been added. Given that the goal of phylogenetics is to depict evolutionary history, we should look for the best supported phylogenetic network and not restrict ourselves to considering trees. However, the obvious extensions of popular tree-based methods such as maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood face a serious problem—if we judge networks by (...) fit to data alone, networks that have lateral branches will always fit the data at least as well as any network that restricts itself to vertical branches. This is analogous to the well-studied problem of overfitting data in the curve-fitting problem. Analogous problems often have analogous solutions and we propose to treat network inference as a case of model selection and use the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Strictly tree-like networks are more parsimonious than those that postulate lateral as well as vertical branches. This leads to the conclusion that we should not always infer LGT events whenever it would improve our fit-to-data, but should do so only when the improved fit is larger than the penalty for adding extra lateral branches. (shrink)

Phylogenetics is the study and reconstruction of evolutionary history and is filled with numerous foundational issues of interest to philosophers. This paper briefly introduces some central concepts in the field, describes some of the main methods for inferring phylogenies, and provides some arguments for the superiority of model-based methods such as Likelihood and Bayesian methods over nonparametric methods such as parsimony. It also raises some underdeveloped issues in the field of interest to philosophers.

Common ancestry is a central feature of the theory of evolution, yet it is not clear what “common ancestry” actually means; nor is it clear how it is related to other terms such as “the Tree of Life” and “the last universal common ancestor”. I argue these terms describe three distinct hypotheses ordered in a logical way: that there is a Tree of Life is a claim about the pattern of evolutionary history, that there is a last universal common ancestor (...) is an ontological claim about the existence of an entity of a specific kind, and that there is universal common ancestry is a claim about a causal pattern in the history of life. With these generalizations in mind, I argue that the existence of a Tree of Life entails a last universal common ancestor, which would entail universal common ancestry, but neither of the converse entailments hold. This allows us to make sense of the debates surrounding the Tree, as well as our lack of knowledge about the last universal common ancestor, while still maintaining the uncontroversial truth of universal common ancestry. (shrink)

The project of this paper is to understand what a phylogenetic tree represents and to discuss some of the implications that this has for the practice of systematics. At least the first part of this task, if not both parts, might appear trivial—or perhaps better suited for a single page in a textbook rather than a scholarly research paper. But this would be a mistake. While the task of interpreting phylogenetic trees is often treated in a trivial way, their interpretation (...) is tied to foundational conceptual questions at the heart of systematics—questions whose answers are hotly disputed. I have previously argued that widely shared ideas about the meaning and interpretation of phylogenetic trees are inconsistent with species concepts other than some genealogical version of a phylogenetic species concept (Velasco 2008). Here I rely on a similar approach and concentrate on the implications of the necessary conditions underlying the inferences that we make using phylogenetic trees. I argue that common practices for the interpretation and use of trees are in conflict and that unacceptable principles about species as units of phylogeny must be given up. According to the view that I will develop, all phylogenetic trees depict the history of populations. The branches on trees represent collections of population lineages through time and the splits represent population lineage splits. This is true regardless of whether the tips of the trees are themselves populations, or are species or higher taxa. Although this conclusion might be paired naturally with a view that species must be monophyletic groups, this population-centric view of trees is independent of that view of species. If we still want to have species that are paraphyletic groups of populations, this is permissible as long as we also do not treat species as the units of phylogeny. This population-centric view opposes a species-centric view of phylogeny and might be called a “rank-free” approach since it entails that we do not need to determine which groups are species (which is partly a ranking question) in order to build a tree. This conclusion and the argument for it are meant to be consistent with, but not require, acceptance of the conclusions of Velasco (2008) regarding species. (shrink)

Despite the enormous importance and widespread use of the term, it is unclear exactly what a phylogeny represents. It is important to define phylogeny precisely since other central terms like “clade” and “monophyletic” are often defined relative to phylogenetic trees and on some views in taxonomy, taxa must be clades. Edwards presents the common picture in contemporary systematics as depending on the existence of a “species tree” in which phylogeny “records the branching pattern of evolving lineages through time”. But what, (...) precisely, does this mean? (shrink)

Common ancestry is one of the pillars of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Today, the Tree of Life, which represents how all life is genealogically related, is often thought of as an essential component in the foundations of biological systematics and so therefore of evolutionary theory – and perhaps all of biology itself. It is an iconic representation in biology and even penetrates into popular culture.

In this paper I address the question of whether the probabilities that appear in models of stochastic gene expression are objective or subjective. I argue that while our best models of the phenomena in question are stochastic models, this fact should not lead us to automatically assume that the processes are inherently stochastic. After distinguishing between models and reality, I give a brief introduction to the philosophical problem of the interpretation of probability statements. I argue that the objective vs. subjective (...) distinction is a false dichotomy and is an unhelpful distinction in this case. Instead, the probabilities in our models of gene expression exhibit standard features of both objectivity and subjectivity. (shrink)

Abstract : In this paper, it is argued that Leibniz’s view that necessity is grounded in the availability of a demonstration is incorrect and furthermore, can be shown to be so by using Leibniz’s own examples of infinite analyses. First, I show that modern mathematical logic makes clear that Leibniz’s "infinite analysis" view of contingency is incorrect. It is then argued that Leibniz's own examples of incommensurable lines and convergent series undermine, rather than bolster his view by providing examples of (...) necessary mathematical truths that are not demonstrable. Finally, it is argued that a more modern view on convergent series would, in certain respects, help support some claims he makes about the necessity of mathematical truths, but would still not yield a viable theory of necessity due to remaining problems with other logical, mathematical, and modal claims. (shrink)

The status of constructivism as a metaethical or metanormative theory is unclear partly due to the lack of a clear semantics for central normative terms such as ‘reason’ and ‘ought’. In a series of recent papers, Sharon Street has attempted to clarify the central commitments of constructivism by focusing on the idea of a practical point of view and what follows from it. We improve upon the informal understanding provided by Street and attempt to provide a semantics for ‘ought’. Our (...) semantics respects the core intuition of the constructivist that normative claims are made true because of our practical commitments as agents and also reflects the constructivist’s commitment to the centrality of practical deliberation to normative truth. On our view, a normative claim of the form ⌜S ought to ϕ⌝ is true if ϕ is entailed from S’s set of evaluative attitudes. We argue that a virtue of our definition is that it allows us to see precisely what is distinctive about constructivism as opposed to realism and expressivism. (shrink)

We introduce a family of rules for adjusting one's credences in response to learning the credences of others. These rules have a number of desirable features. 1. They yield the posterior credences that would result from updating by standard Bayesian conditionalization on one's peers' reported credences if one's likelihood function takes a particular simple form. 2. In the simplest form, they are symmetric among the agents in the group. 3. They map neatly onto the familiar Condorcet voting results. 4. They (...) preserve shared agreement about independence in a wide range of cases. 5. They commute with conditionalization and with multiple peer updates. Importantly, these rules have a surprising property that we call synergy - peer testimony of credences can provide mutually supporting evidence raising an individual's credence higher than any peer's initial prior report. At first, this may seem to be a strike against them. We argue, however, that synergy is actually a desirable feature and the failure of other updating rules to yield synergy is a strike against them. (shrink)

Mind Association 2017Elliott Sober’s first book, Simplicity, defends the view that the simplicity of a theory or hypothesis is a measure of its informativeness – roughly, simpler theories require less new information to be added to them to answer relevant questions of interest. While this measure of simplicity is question-relative, it is still what you might call a global view of simplicity – simplicity means the same thing across different scientific problems and it is always an epistemic virtue. Ockham’s Razor (...) is just good scientific reasoning. Sober’s 1988 book Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference argues against this global conception of simplicity and replaces it with a local one. Here, in one context parsimony means one thing while in another context it may mean something different. Similarly, whether the more parsimonious hypothesis is to be preferred is also a local matter; it... (shrink)

While there is a steadily growing literature on epistemic injustice in healthcare, there are few discussions of the role that biomedical technologies play in harming patients in their capacity as knowers. Through an analysis of newborn and pediatric genetic and genomic sequencing technologies (GSTs), I argue that biomedical technologies can lead to epistemic injustice through two primary pathways: epistemic capture and value partitioning. I close by discussing the larger ethical and political context of critical analyses of GSTs and their broader (...) implications for just and equitable healthcare delivery. (shrink)

This chapter introduces and discusses the concepts that are in-depth articulated in the volume. International migration is presented here as a test bench where the normative limits of institutional order, its contradictions and internal tensions are examined. Migrations allows to call into question classical political categories and models. Pointing at walls and fences as tools that reproduce enormous inequalities within the globalized neo-liberal system, this chapter presents the conceptual tensions and contradictions between migration policies and global justice. We challenge the (...) conceptualization of justice as a relationship between citizens of the same country and the State and argue that, in our globalized world, nation-state cannot constitute the basic unit of the theories of justice. We argue that an integral approach that includes the complex and interconnected forms of structural inequalities and transcends the borders of national sovereign states is required. Avoiding the methodological nationalism and the exclusionary biases that inform current migration and border control policies, this chapter finally places attention on the most marginalized subjects of the migration chain: migrant women workers. We point out the importance of addressing transnational structural inequalities and bringing social reproduction to the center of global justice theories. (shrink)

Este libro identifica las tendencias generales de la pol tica internacional en la posguerra fr a, mira la regi n y algunas de las estrategias particulares de la pol tica exterior y econ mica de M xico. De esta forma contribuye a explicar la complejidad de los cambios y las continuidades en la pol tica internacional y en la mexicana.

One of liberalism’s core commitments is to safeguarding individuals’ autonomy. And a central aspect of liberal social justice is the commitment to protecting the vulnerable. Taken together, and combined with an understanding of autonomy as an acquired set of capacities to lead one’s own life, these commitments suggest that liberal societies should be especially concerned to address vulnerabilities of individuals regarding the development and maintenance of their autonomy. In this chapter, we develop an account of what it would mean for (...) a society to take seriously the obligation to reduce individuals’ autonomy-related vulnerabilities to an acceptable minimum. In particular, we argue that standard liberal accounts underestimate the scope of this obligation because they fail to appreciate various threats to autonomy. (shrink)

Willard V. Quine’s 1951 article, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (Two Dogmas) was taken to be revolutionary because it rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction and the thesis that empirical statements are confirmed individually rather than holistically. The present chapter, however, argues that the overcoming of modern philosophy already included the overcoming of these theses by Hegelians, pragmatists and two critics of Hegelianism and pragmatism, Grace and Theodore de Laguna. From this perspective, Two Dogmas offers a Hegelian epistemology that was already superseded in (...) 1910. The perspective is largely based on the de Lagunas’ 1910 book Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy. The de Lagunas’ book also helps to make clear that the real revolution Two Dogmas participated in was the marginalisation of their work and that of other speculative philosophers. Grace de Laguna surely recognised much of this when she stood opposite Quine as he first presented Two Dogmas. (shrink)

La Bioética actual, que colabora en la búsqueda de nuevos horizontes para el desarrollo humano y hunde sus raíces en el progreso científico y en el saber ético, no debería olvidar que existe una gran diversidad de planteamientos. De fondo está la doble alternativa del «deontologismo» y del «teleologismo»... A partir de esos dos planteamientos generales se configuran las orientaciones en el campo de la Bioética actual. El prevalente, sobre todo en el mundo anglosajón, es el llamado «principialismo». LA BIOÉTICA (...) Y EL PRINCIPIO DE SOLIDARIDAD contribuye a consolidar la teoría de los principios bioéticos desde una óptica cristiana. Este trabajo intenta promover una praxis ética basada en argumentos de fe y de razón, que reivindica el derecho y el deber de todo ser humano a tener una vida digna, a partir de los cauces epistemológicos que identifican Bioética y desarrollo solidario. (shrink)

A reassessment of the political and religious aspects of Philip of Spain’s reign in England and of the kingdom’s integration into the Spanish Monarchy.

Affordances are action-possibilities, ways of relating to and acting on our world. A theory of affordances helps us understand how we have bodily access to our world and what it means to enjoy such access. But what happens to bodies when this access is somehow ruptured or impeded? This question is relevant to psychopathology. People with psychiatric disorders often describe feeling as though they’ve lost access to affordances that others take for granted. Focusing on schizophrenia, depression, and autistic spectrum disorder, (...) I argue that thinking about the bodily consequences of losing access to everyday affordances can help us better understand these reports. An affordance-based approach to psychopathology can illuminate some of the causes, as well as the experiential character and content, of affective disorders in psychopathology. It can also draw our attention to some under-explored ethical and political dimensions of these issues needing further consideration. (shrink)

In an attempt to bridge the vast divide between classical Asian thought and contemporary Western philosophy, Joel J. Kupperman finds that the two traditions do not, by and large, supply different answers to the same questions. Rather, each tradition is searching for answers to their own set of questions--mapping out distinct philosophical investigations. In this groundbreaking book, Kupperman argues that the foundational Indian and Chinese texts include lines of thought that can enrich current philosophical practice, and in some cases (...) provide uniquely sophisticated insights. Special attention is given to the ethical issues of formation and fluidity of self, the nature and possibilities of choice, the compartmentalization of life implicit in some ethical systems, the variations of ethical demands from person to person, and the nature of philosophy itself as a communicative activity. This study will provide a wealth of information for philosophers seeking a closer knowledge of Asian philosophy and general readers with an interest in Eastern thought. (shrink)

The book's clear organization structures selections so that readings complement each other guiding you through contrasting positions on key concepts in ...

Moderate rationalism is the view a person's having a rational intuition that p prima facie justifies them in believing that p. It has recently been argued that moderate rationalism requires empirical support and, furthermore, that suitable empirical support would suffice to convince empiricists to abandon their opposition to rationalism. According to one argument, the causal requirement argument, empirical evidence is necessary in order to justify the claim that any actual token belief is based on rational intuition and moderate rationalism requires (...) such a claim for its justification. According to a second argument, the reliability argument, empirical evidence is necessary in order to justify the claim that a putative source of evidence is reliable and moderate rationalism requires such a claim for its justification. According to a third argument, the empirical case argument, certain sorts of empirical evidence would be dialectically sufficient to resolve the traditional dispute between empiricists and rationalists in the rationalists' favor. Against the causal requirement argument, I maintain that the core doctrines of moderate rationalism are not hostage to causal claims and that such causal claims as may be plausibly part of other recognizably rationalist doctrines can be justified on broadly non-empirical grounds. Against the reliability argument, I show that no empirical evidence is required to justify belief in the reliability of rational intuition. Against the empirical case argument, I argue that the envisioned empirical support for moderate rationalism should not convince any traditional empiricist. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the role of intuitions in the justification of philosophical theory. The author begins by demonstrating how contemporary philosophers, whether engaged in case-driven analysis or seeking reflective equilibrium, rely on intuitions as evidence for their theories. The author then provides an account of the nature of philosophical intuitions and distinguishes them from other psychological states. Finally, the author defends the use of intuitions as evidence by demonstrating that arguments for skepticism about their evidential value are either (...) self-defeating or guilty of arbitrary and unjustified partiality towards non-intuitive modes of knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter provides the background to the American women philosophers’ works that are introduced and collected in Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers. We describe the institutional context which made these works possible and their methodological and theoretical background. We also provide biographies for their authors.

This entry addresses the nature and epistemological role of intuition by considering the following questions: (1) What are intuitions?, (2) What roles do they serve in philosophical (and other “armchair”) inquiry?, (3) Ought they serve such roles?, (4) What are the implications of the empirical investigation of intuitions for their proper roles?, and (5) What is the content of intuitions prompted by the consideration of hypothetical cases?

This is a second, revised edition of Kupperman's introduction to Asian philosophy via its canonical texts. Kupperman ranges from the Upanishads to the Bhagavad Gita through Confucius to Zen Buddhism, walking students through the texts, conveying the vitality and appeal of the works, and explaining their philosophical roots. Kupperman has made revisions throughout the text, clarifying where necessary, and added a new chapter on al-Arabi's The Bezels of Wisdom, a classic of Islamic Sufism.

Dutch Book Arguments (DBAs) have been invoked to support various requirements of rationality. Some are plausible: probabilism and conditionalization. Others are less so: credal transparency and reflection. Anna Mahtani has argued for a new understanding of DBAs which, she claims, allow us to keep the DBAs for probabilism (and perhaps conditionalization) and reject the DBAs for credal transparency and reflection. I argue that Mahtani’s new account fails as (a) it does not support highly plausible requirements of rational coherence and (b) (...) it does not, even setting aside the first objection, succeed in undermining the DBAs for credal transparency or reflection. (shrink)

Politicians, preachers, and ordinary people speak often of character; psychologists study `personality', used as a term of art with meanings close to `character'. Most ethical philosophers in the last two hundred years, on the other hand, have not had much to say about character. This book attempts to understand character and to refocus ethical philosophy so that character is central.

The objective of this paper is to reflect on the proper way for Christians to do philosophy, in respect of which I have been inspired by a phrase attributed to Cardinal Newman: “We do not need Christian philosophy. We need Christians making good philosophy.” This sentence can appear controversial, but I believe it is not, if its content is made explicit in an appropriate way. To better develop what I understand Newman to be proposing here, I have added another category (...) to his statement, with the consequence that my own text falls into three sections: 1) on Christian philosophy; 2) on Christian philosophers; 3) on Christians who do philosophy. This is the scheme that we will use to position ourselves as regards the complex issue of the relationship between philosophy and Christianity. (shrink)