Integrative Promise
Explanatory Virtues in Biology
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Beschreibung
This book offers a new approach to the way in which biologists evaluate both the explanations they give of biological phenomena and those they would like to pursue. Departing from current scholarship on explanation, it draws out a cluster of virtues which unifies some biological explanations and, in turn, captures part of what makes the life sciences distinctive: integrative promise. With case studies drawn from a wide variety of historical and empirical domains (such as big data biology, model organisms, and natural history), as well as theoretical connections to a number of other areas in the philosophy of science (including mechanism, science and values, and scientific modeling), this work creates a new lens which helps us understand why contemporary life science takes the structure that it does. It provides insight for readers in philosophy and history of science, as well as biologists interested in the theoretical structure and future of their field.
This book offers a new approach to the way in which biologists evaluate both the explanations they give of biological phenomena and those they would like to pursue. Departing from current scholarship on explanation, it draws out a cluster of virtues which unifies some biological explanations and, in turn, captures part of what makes the life sciences distinctive: integrative promise. With case studies drawn from a wide variety of historical and empirical domains (such as big data biology, model organisms, and natural history), as well as theoretical connections to a number of other areas in the philosophy of science (including mechanism, science and values, and scientific modeling), this work creates a new lens which helps us understand why contemporary life science takes the structure that it does. It provides insight for readers in philosophy and history of science, as well as biologists interested in the theoretical structure and future of their field.
Considers integrative promise – a pattern of explanatory virtues – as a feature of explanations in the life sciences Connects case studies ranging from Darwin to contemporary, data-driven biological science Offers a unified philosophical and historical perspective including an outlook on the future of biology
Autor*in
Charles H. Pence
Themen in »Integrative Promise«
explanatory virtues big data in biology digital humanities from causes to narratives explaining depth theory of breadth history of breadth
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“Any reader will be impressed by the diverse examples covered, most pertaining to recent research. … Charles Pence’s Integrative Promise: Explanatory Virtues in Biology has centred on his account’s core themes of stringency, opportunism, and explanatory integration, the different cases contain various further reflections and points that I am unable to cover here, but that will be of interest to readers.” (Ingo Brigandt, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Vol 48 (1), 2026)
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