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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

The Mirage Of A Space Between Nature And Nurture By Evelyn Fox Keller (Review), David Depew Feb 2012

The Mirage Of A Space Between Nature And Nurture By Evelyn Fox Keller (Review), David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Adaptation As Process: The Future Of Darwinism And The Legacy Of Theodosius Dobzhansky, David Depew Dec 2010

Adaptation As Process: The Future Of Darwinism And The Legacy Of Theodosius Dobzhansky, David Depew

David J Depew

Conceptions of adaptation have varied in the history of genetic Darwinism depending on whether what is taken to be focal is the process of adaptation, adapted states of populations, or discrete adaptations in individual organisms. I argue that Theodosius Dobzhansky’s view of adaptation as a dynamical process contrasts with so-called “adaptationist” views of natural selection figured as “design-without-a-designer” of relatively discrete, enumerable adaptations. Correlated with these respectively process and product oriented approaches to adaptive natural selection are divergent pictures of organisms themselves as developmental wholes or as “bundles” of adaptations. While even process versions of genetical Darwinism are insufficiently sensitive …


Mariska Leunissen, Explanation And Teleology In Aristotle’S Science Of Nature, David J. Depew Dec 2010

Mariska Leunissen, Explanation And Teleology In Aristotle’S Science Of Nature, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Incidental Causation, Spontaneous Generation, And Homonymous Predication In Aristotle’S Physics Ii And Other Texts, David Depew Dec 2009

Incidental Causation, Spontaneous Generation, And Homonymous Predication In Aristotle’S Physics Ii And Other Texts, David Depew

David J Depew

How did Aristotle, the founder of scientific biology, define life? In this volume, which collects the contributions to a conference held in 2006, philologists, philosophers and biologists approach this question. They study how Aristotle's concept of the soul relates to his perception of life; how he evaluates the different criteria that, according to him, constitute life; how he uses those criteria to define different organic structures; whether there exists a unified definition of life in Aristotle's philosophy; aspects of procreation and ontogenesis; the relationship between individuals and species; the reception of Aristotle's theories. German text.


Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew Dec 2009

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew

David J Depew

This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and …


Is Evolutionary Biology Infected With Invalid Teleological Reasoning? Invited Review Essay Of John Reiss, Retiring Darwin’S Watchmaker., David Depew Dec 2009

Is Evolutionary Biology Infected With Invalid Teleological Reasoning? Invited Review Essay Of John Reiss, Retiring Darwin’S Watchmaker., David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Paul Crook, Darwin’S Coat-Tails. Essays On Social Darwinism., David Depew Dec 2008

Paul Crook, Darwin’S Coat-Tails. Essays On Social Darwinism., David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


The Ethics Of Aristotle’S Politics, David J. Depew Dec 2008

The Ethics Of Aristotle’S Politics, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


David Sedley, Creationism And Its Critics In Antiquity, David Depew Dec 2007

David Sedley, Creationism And Its Critics In Antiquity, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Consequence Etiology And Biological Teleology In Aristotle And Darwin, David Depew Dec 2007

Consequence Etiology And Biological Teleology In Aristotle And Darwin, David Depew

David J Depew

Aristotle’s biological teleology is rooted in an epigenetic account of reproduction. As such, it is best interpreted by consequence etiology. I support this claim by citing the capacity of consequence etiology’s key distinctions to explain Aristotle’s opposition to Empedocles. There are implications for the relation between ancient and modern biology. The analysis reveals that in an important respect Darwin’s account of adaptation is closer to Aristotle’s than to Empedocles’s. They both rely on consequence etiological considerations to evade attributing the purposiveness of organisms to chance. Two implications follow: (l) Darwinian explanations of adaptation are as teleological as Aristotle’s, albeit differently; …


Eugene Garver, Confronting Aristotle’S Ethics (Review), David Depew Dec 2007

Eugene Garver, Confronting Aristotle’S Ethics (Review), David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


John Gibson, Fiction And The Weave Of Life, David J. Depew Dec 2006

John Gibson, Fiction And The Weave Of Life, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Bert Bender, Evolution And The Sex Problem (Review), David Depew Feb 2006

Bert Bender, Evolution And The Sex Problem (Review), David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


From Hymn To Tragedy: Aristotle's Biological Genealogy Of Poetic Kinds, David Depew Dec 2005

From Hymn To Tragedy: Aristotle's Biological Genealogy Of Poetic Kinds, David Depew

David J Depew

This book examines the evidence for the pre-history and origin of drama. The belief that drama developed from religious ritual has been commonplace since the time of Aristotle but here is little agreement on just how this happened. Recently, scholars have even challenged the historical connection between drama and ritual. This volume an examination on the origins of Greek drama to date. It brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields, including classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, theatre history, philosophy, and religion. Though it primarily focuses up on ancient Greece, the volume includes comparative studies of …


Robert Ivie, Democracy And America’S War On Terror (Review), David J. Depew Dec 2005

Robert Ivie, Democracy And America’S War On Terror (Review), David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Darkness In El Dorado: The Textual Construction Of Ethos In An Anthropological Controversy, David Depew Dec 2004

Darkness In El Dorado: The Textual Construction Of Ethos In An Anthropological Controversy, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


R. Hariman, Ed. Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice, David Depew Dec 2003

R. Hariman, Ed. Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


The Inscription Of Isocrates Into Aristotle’S Practical Philosophy, David Depew Dec 2003

The Inscription Of Isocrates Into Aristotle’S Practical Philosophy, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


[James Mark] Baldwin And His Many Effects, David Depew Dec 2002

[James Mark] Baldwin And His Many Effects, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Protecting Evolutionary Theory From Bad Company: J. Strick, Sparks Of Life: Darwinism And The Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generation (Review), David J. Depew Dec 2002

Protecting Evolutionary Theory From Bad Company: J. Strick, Sparks Of Life: Darwinism And The Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generation (Review), David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Aristotle, Naturalist.” Invited Review Essay Of James Lennox, Aristotle’S Philosophy Of Biology, David J. Depew Dec 2001

Aristotle, Naturalist.” Invited Review Essay Of James Lennox, Aristotle’S Philosophy Of Biology, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Communication And Community: The Conceptual Background, David Depew, John Peters Dec 2000

Communication And Community: The Conceptual Background, David Depew, John Peters

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics And The Genealogy Of Natural Selection, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 1994

Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics And The Genealogy Of Natural Selection, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

Darwinism Evolving examines the Darwinian research tradition in evolutionary biology from its inception to its turbulent present, arguing that recent advances in modeling the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems may well catalyze the next major phase of Darwinian evolutionism.While Darwinism has successfully resisted reduction to physics, the authors point out that it has from the outset developed and applied its core explanatory concept, natural selection, by borrowing models from dynamics, a branch of physics. The recent development of complex systems dynamics may afford Darwinism yet another occasion to expand its explanatory power.Darwinism's use of dynamical models has received insufficient attention …


Humans And Other Political Animals In Aristotle's History Of Animals, David J. Depew Dec 1994

Humans And Other Political Animals In Aristotle's History Of Animals, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


The Polis Transfigured: Aristotle's Politics And Marx's Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy Of Right, David Depew Dec 1991

The Polis Transfigured: Aristotle's Politics And Marx's Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy Of Right, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Politics, Music, And Contemplation In Aristotle's Best State, David Depew Dec 1990

Politics, Music, And Contemplation In Aristotle's Best State, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Ideal States, David J. Depew Dec 1988

Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Ideal States, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Evolution In Thermodynamic Perspective: An Ecological Approach, Bruce H. Weber, David J. Depew, C Dyke, Stanley N. Salthe, Eric D. Schneider, Jeffrey S. Wicken, Robert E. Ulanowicz Dec 1988

Evolution In Thermodynamic Perspective: An Ecological Approach, Bruce H. Weber, David J. Depew, C Dyke, Stanley N. Salthe, Eric D. Schneider, Jeffrey S. Wicken, Robert E. Ulanowicz

David J Depew

Recognition that biological systems are stabilized far from equilibrium by self-organizing, informed, autocatalytic cycles and structures that dissipate unusable energy and matter has led to recent attempts to reformulate evolutionary theory. We hold that such insights are consistent with the broad development of the Darwinian Tradition and with the concept of natural selection. Biological systems are selected that re not only more efficient than competitors but also enhance the integrity of the web of energetic relations in which they are embedded. But the expansion of the informational phase space, upon which selection acts, is also guaranteed by the properties of …


Evolution At A Crossroads: The New Biology And The New Philosophy Of Science, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 1984

Evolution At A Crossroads: The New Biology And The New Philosophy Of Science, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Narrativism, Cosmopolitanism, And Historical Epistemology, David J. Depew Dec 1984

Narrativism, Cosmopolitanism, And Historical Epistemology, David J. Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.