Philosophy of Biology, Human Nature, Hume, Darwin, Popper

Bibliography

Published Books:

 (2008). Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters. Blackwell Publishing.

(2007). Darwin and the Nature of Species. State University of New York Press.

(2003). The Species Problem: Biological Species, Ontology, and the Metaphysics of Biology. Lex­ington Books.

Published Articles:

(2007). “Popper, Laws, and the Exclusion of Biology from Genuine Science.” Acta Biotheoretica 55, 357–375.

(2005). “Pre-Darwinian Taxonomy and Essentialism—A Reply to Mary Winsor.” Biology & Philosophy 20, 79–96.

(2003). “Book Review of Rebecca Bryant’s Discovery and Decision: Exploring the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Scientific Classification.” Philosophical Psychology 17, 135–139.

(2002). “Species, Languages, and the Horizontal/Vertical Distinction.” Biology & Philosophy 17, 171–198.

(2001). “Quantum Indeterminism and Evolutionary Biology.” Philosophy of Sci­ence 68, 164–184.

(2000). “Robert Haynes, In Memoriam: 1931–1998.” Biology & Philosophy 15, 633–639.

(2000). “Book Review of Stephen G. Alter’s Darwinism and the Linguistic Image: Language, Race, and Natural Theology in the Nineteenth Century.” Annals of Sci­ence 57, 319–321.

(1999). “Darwin’s Species Category Realism.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 21, 137–186.

(1998). “Buffon, Darwin, and the Non-Individuality of Species¾A Reply to Jean Gayon.” Biol­ogy & Philosophy 13, 443–470.

(1997). “The Nature and Relation of the Three Proofs of God’s Existence in Descartes’ Medi­tations.” Auslegung 22, 1–37.

(1997). “A New Theory on Philo’s Reversal.” International Studies in Philosophy 29, 73–94.

(1996). “Popper, Falsifiability, and Evolutionary Biology.” Biology & Philosophy 11, 161–191.

(1996). “Was Darwin Really a Species Nominalist?” Journal of the History of Biology 29, 127–144.

About My Published Books and Some of My Current Research:

Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters

The purpose of this book is not to argue for evolution. That has been done ad nauseum and should really only be of interest to the general public, which on the whole is scientifi­cally illiterate. Rather, this book examines the application of evolutionary explanations beyond biol­ogy as normally circumscribed. The real and truly interesting debate is between what has come to be known as the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) and evolutionary models (sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary epistemology, evolutionary ethics). The debate is not be­tween nature and nurture but nature/nurture and nurture. The SSSM is common in sociology, be­havior­ism, cultural anthropology, Marxism, women’s studies, and gay studies. It views phe­nomena such as homo­sex­uality/hetero­sexu­ality, gender differences, rape, aggression, language, moral­i­ty—these are some of the major examples—as social constructions, as prod­ucts of cultural history. Evo­lutionary models, on the other hand, while recognizing that a full ex­pla­nation requires an appeal to environmental factors, stress that humans are a biological species with an evolutionary history and thus have a suite of instincts, so that a full explanation requires also an appeal to genes and evolution. Written primarily for under­graduates and the general public as a critical introduction, this book pulls no punches and challenges thinkers on all levels. Chapters are on epistemology, consciousness, language, sex (male-female mating strategies, rape, homo­sexuality, incest), feminism, race, ethics, religion, and the meaning of life.

Darwin and the Nature of Species

This book is a major extension of my published work on Darwin. Sifting through the strata of the enormous amount of writings Darwin bequeathed to us (published writings, notebooks, corre­spon­dence, marginalia), I am the first to reconstruct Darwin’s mature species concept, let alone in detail. Prior to my work virtually no one thought that Darwin had a species concept (which is ironic, given the title of Darwin’s most famous book, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection). This is the sub­stance of the first eight chapters, in which I also show that the theories on this topic of certain historians, biologists, and philosophers just don’t fit the evidence. Throughout these chapters I also apply Darwin’s many in­sights to current debates on the species problem (the prob­lem of determining what a species is). In the ninth chapter I apply my work as a case study to the controversy in philosophy of science over the nature of concept change in scientific revolutions, with some surprising results. In the tenth and final chapter I take aim at an unfortunate trend in professional history of science, which is the over-emphasis on the sociology of ideas and the under-emphasis on the history of ideas (including the matter of evi­dence). In short, Darwin was indeed ahead of his time.

The Species Problem: Biological Species, Ontology, and the Metaphysics of Biology

This is a long and comprehensive book, the first on its topic by one author, dealing with an enormous con­ceptual problem in biology and philosophy of biology. Species is a key concept in biology. Or­gan­isms are grouped into species, species occupy niches, species have ranges, species split, species bud off founder populations, species evolve, species become endangered, and species go extinct. And yet what is a species? If we have got to know what we are talking about, then we have got to know what a species is. The problem is that biologists have many different defini­tions and they are far from a consensus, with some even thinking that species are not real. Since the species problem is not just biological but largely philosophical, and with a long history, phi­los­ophers and his­torians have also entered the debate. Indeed it is an example of an interdisci­plinary problem par excellence. Chapters, with subsections, are on species nominalism, species as classes, species as individuals, and species as relations (where I develop my own view).

 Finding Hume’s God: And Why He Won’t Go Away              

       In this book, which is in a very rough early stage, I plan to develop in full a thesis of mine that occurred to me many years ago, viz., that the belief in God for Hume—more generally the belief in what he called “intelligent invisible power”—is not a natural belief, an instinctual belief triggered by observing complexity in nature, especially in the form of means-ends relationships, but instead a natural idea, triggered by the above, but lacking the force and vivacity of a belief.  It is culture, instead—religion and theology in their many forms—that alone is responsible for raising the level of this idea to that of a belief. In the second half of the book I plan to apply Hume’s insights to the modern debate over whether there evolved in humans a religion instinct.

“The Myth of Universal Human Rights”

       In this paper I take history seriously—very seriously—and argue that the widespread modern belief in universal human rights is a mass delusion, a modern myth. My argument is based on the following: (i) The myth stems exclusively from the European Enlightenment (no other previous culture had the concept of universal human rights, the many claims to the contrary notwithstand­ing—claims motivated by presentism and usually ethnocentrism). (ii) The cultural foundation of the myth is the rise of democracy and capitalism combined with Christian crea­tion­ism and a belief in species essentialism. (iii) Modern secu­lar/phi­lo­­sophi­cal attempts at defending the reality of universal human rights come to a full stop once the basic facts of evolutionary history are taken into account, viz., branching gradualism and statistical species natures at any one syn­chronic time slice.

“Should Professors Change Grades Based on Student Needs?”

       I argue no, never, no matter how dire the need. The methodology is to show that most if not all of the standard normative ethics theories in philosophy entail this conclusion, those theories being the deontologies of Kant and Ross, Rawls’s veil of ignorance, act and rule utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, feminist ethics, and ethical egoism.

 Presentations/Talks:

(2003). “Were Pre-Darwinian Taxonomists Essentialists? A Debate.” Debate with Mary Winsor at York University on March 11, 2003, as part of the Brownbag Research Seminar Series.

(2002). “Popper, Laws, and the Exclusion of Biology from Genuine Science.” Talk de­livered at the Karl Popper Centenary Congress, held in Vienna, Austria, July 3–7, 2002.

(2001). “Species, Languages, and the Horizontal/Vertical Distinction.” Talk delivered to the De­part­­ment of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario on February 27, 2001.

(2000). “Darwin’s Species Nominalism/Realism Strategy in His Correspondence.” Talk de­livered to the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities held in Edmonton on May 25, 2000.

(1998). “Reconstructing Darwin’s Species Concept.” Talk delivered at York University on March 3, 1998, as part of the Brown­bag Research Seminar Series.

(1996). “Mind, Supervenience, and Amino Acids.” Read as a commentary to Robert Haynes’ “Is the ‘Prob­lem’ of Red Insoluble?” at the interdisciplinary conference titled “Mind as a Scientific Ob­ject” held at York University onOctober 27, 1996.

(1995). “The Species Problem.” Talk delivered to the Department of Philosophy at York Uni­versity on Octo­ber 30, 1995.  

(1995). “Just What Exactly Are Aristotelian Species?” Talk delivered at the Ontario Philosophical Soci­ety con­ference in Windsor on October 28, 1995.

Courses Taught:

Introduction to Philosophy; Meaning of Life; Plato and Aristotle; the Empiricists; Applied Ethics; Business Ethics; Professional Ethics; Ethical Theory; Modes of Reasoning; Critical Reasoning; Epistemology; Philosophy of Science; Mind and Nature; Human Nature

My Teaching Philosophy:

My teaching philosophy is quite simple: (i) to stress comprehension before argumentation, espe­cially in lower-level courses, (ii) to develop independent and original thinking in my students, not sycophants, and (iii) to promote clear and empirical thinking in answering the “What is x?” questions. The latter to my mind is the true meaning of philosophy, given its origin in the ancient Greeks. To answer a question such as, for example, What is human nature?, you cannot read just philosophers. You have to get interdisciplinary: viz., you have to read philosophers, biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, feminists, Marxists, theologians, and anything else that is relevant to the topic. You have to take in as much as you can and develop from there what you think is the best answer. Nothing less will do. Hence those (alas, all too many) who have a narrow view of philosophy—e.g., that philosophy is merely conceptual analysis—are not real philosophers to my mind. There is no love of wisdom there, no love of truth, no love of knowledge, just a lamentable attempt at academic territoriality, something one would expect from a political party.

Member Associations:

The Philosophy of Science Association

The International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology

The Hume Society

Editorial Services:

I have refereed papers for the following journals: Philosophy of Science, Biology & Philosophy, Acta Biotheoretica, Cladistics, and Philosophy of the Social Sciences. I have also refereed papers for an anthology: Karl Popper 2002 Centenary Congress Essays (ed. Ian Jarvie).