Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-02T05:04:58.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Selection and the Extent of Explanatory Unification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert A. Skipper Jr.
Robert A. Skipper Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
*
†Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy, 1125A Skinner Building, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD 20742; e-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to Philip Kitcher, scientific unification is achieved via the derivation of numerous scientific statements from economies of argument schemata. I demonstrate that the unification of selection phenomena across domains in which it is claimed to occur—evolutionary biology, immunology and, speculatively, neurobiology—is unattainable on Kitcher's view. I then introduce an alternative method for rendering the desired unification based on the concept of a mechanism schema. I conclude that the gain in unification provided by the alternative account suggests that Kitcher's view is defective.

Type
Philosophy of Biology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S196 - S209
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I am indebted to a number of people for their efforts in helping me make my ideas in this paper clear. I am especially grateful to my mentor and friend Lindley Darden for her encouragement and her valuable insights on the ideas expressed in this paper even, indeed especially, when we disagreed. Thanks also to Carl Craver, Tetsuji Iseda, and Ben Scofield for their valuable comments on an earlier draft. Finally, thanks to Roberta Millstein, Sandra D. Mitchell, Karen Neander, and Günter Wagner for their comments and criticisms at the presentation of this paper at PSA 1998 in Kansas City, MO.

References

Barnes, Eric (1992a), “Explanatory Unification and Scientific Understanding”, in Hull, David L., Forbes, Micky, and Okruhlik, Kathleen (eds.), PSA 1992, vol. 1. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 3–12.Google Scholar
Barnes, Eric (1992b), “Explanatory Unification and the Problem of Asymmetry”, Philosophy of Science 59, 558–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandon, Robert (1980), “A Structural Description of Evolutionary Theory”, in Asquith, Peter D. and Giere, Ronald N. (eds.), PSA 1980, vol. 2. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 427–439.Google Scholar
Burnet, F. M. (1957), The Clonal Selection Theory of Acquired Immunity. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Darden, Lindley and Cain, Joseph A. (1989), “Selection Type Theories”, Philosophy of Science 56: 106–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupré, John (1993), The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Gerald M. (1987), Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael (1974), “Explanation and Scientific Understanding”, Journal of Philosophy 71: 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glennan, Stuart (1996), “Mechanisms and the Nature of Causation”, Erkenntnis 44: 49–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, David L. (1988), Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Paul (1993), “Greater Unification Equals Greater Understanding?” Analysis 53: 183–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Todd (1995a), “How the Unification Theory of Explanation Escapes Asymmetry Problems”, Erkenntnis 43: 229–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Todd. (1995b), “Reductionism and the Unification Theory of Explanation”, Philosophy of Science 62: 21–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Todd. (1997), “Unification, Reduction, and Non-Ideal Explanations”, Synthese 112: 75–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip (1976), “Explanation, Conjunction, and Unification”, Journal of Philosophy 73: 207–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. (1981), “Explanatory Unification”, Philosophy of Science 48: 507–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. (1989), “Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World”, in Kitcher, Philip and Salmon, Wesley C. (eds.), Scientific Explanation. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 13. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 410–505.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. (1993), The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Koertge, Noretta (1990), “Explanation vs. Unification”, in Wiengartner, P. and Schurz, G. (eds.), Berichte des 13: Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposiums. Vienna: Holder-Dichler-Tempsky, 156–159.Google Scholar
Machamer, Peter, Darden, Lindley, and Craver, Carl F. (in progress), “Thinking About Mechanisms”, manuscript. College Park, MD: Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Morrison, Margaret (1992), “A Study in Theory Unification: The Case of Maxwell's Electromagnetic Theory”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 23: 103–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Alexander (1994), Instrumental Biology or the Disunity of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. (1994), “Causality without Counterfactuals”, Philosophy of Science 61: 297–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. (1997), “Causality and Explanation: A Reply to Two Critiques”, Philosophy of Science 64: 461–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. (1998), Causality and Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapere, Dudley (1977), “Scientific Theories and their Domains”, in Suppe, Frederick (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories, 2nd ed. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 518–589.Google Scholar