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Wimsatt and the robustness family: Review of Wimsatt’s Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings

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Abstract

This review of Wimsatt’s book “Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings” focuses on analysing his use of robustness, a central theme in the book. I outline a family of three distinct conceptions of robustness that appear in the book, and look at the different roles they play. I briefly examine what underwrites robustness, and suggest that further work is needed to clarify both the structure of robustness and the relation between it various conceptions.

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Correspondence to Brett Calcott.

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Calcott, B. Wimsatt and the robustness family: Review of Wimsatt’s Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings. Biol Philos 26, 281–293 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9202-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9202-x

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