Biology and Philosophy 10 (4):435-457 (1995)
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| Abstract |
This article deals with a type of functional explanation, viability explanation, that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of science. Viability explanations relate traits of organisms and their environments in terms of what an individual needs to survive and reproduce. I show that viability explanations are neither causal nor historical and that, therefore, they should be accounted for as a distinct type of explanation.
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| Keywords | functional explanation functional counterfactual proximate / ultimate design explanation explanation in ethology explanation in functional morphology explanation in evolutionary biology viability explanation |
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| DOI | 10.1007/bf00857593 |
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References found in this work BETA
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism.Ruth Garrett Millikan - 1984 - MIT Press.
The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.Elliott Sober - 1984 - University of Chicago Press.
The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - New York, NY, USA: Harcourt, Brace & World.
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance.Ernst Mayr - 1982 - Belknap Press, 1982.
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories.Ruth Garrett Millikan - 1984 - Behaviorism 14 (1):51-56.
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Citations of this work BETA
Marsupial Lions and Methodological Omnivory: Function, Success and Reconstruction in Paleobiology.Adrian Currie - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (2):187-209.
Function, Homology and Character Individuation.Paul E. Griffiths - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (1):1-25.
Four Notions of Biological Function.Arno G. Wouters - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34 (4):633-668.
International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching.Michael R. Matthews (ed.) - 2014 - Springer.
View all 21 citations / Add more citations
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