Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience A meeting held at Birkbeck College...

Pitt-London Workshop in Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience

A meeting held at Birkbeck College London under the auspices of The London Consortium, a Masters and Doctoral Programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies. Organisers: Colin McCabe, Nancy Condee and Peter Machamer

“What we talk about when we talk about causality”

Jim Bogen (Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) argued that mechanistic explanations depend on descriptions of activities rather than counterfactual regularities, using examples from recent neuroscience.(Chair: Peter Machamer, HPS, Pittsburgh)

One hour discussions followed short presentations of pre-circulated papers

David Papineau (Philosophy, Kings College) and John Dúpre (Philosophy, Exeter)

“Leveling reduction”

Peter Machamer & Jackie Sullivan (HPS, Pittsburgh) presented an analysis of reduction emphasizing the search for mechanisms and drawing on examples in the neurosciences.

“The Causes of Adaptation and the Unity of Biology”

Dennis Walsh (Philosophy, Edinburgh) discussed the role of adaptation and developmental constraint in the explanation of evolutionary novelty and criticized interpretations of evolutionary theory as a theory of interacting forces

Opening night Dinner

“The ‘role’ a Concept plays in Science: the case

of Homology”Ingo Brigandt (HPS, Pittsburgh) used the history and current diversity of homology concepts in biology to argue that causal theories of theories of reference fail to explain the nature of conceptual change in science

Ingo Brigandt and John Hodge (Leeds) in the discussion

Homology in Genomics

Katherine Kendidg (Philosophy, Birkbeck) argued that a strictly phylogenetic homology concept defined at the level of populations of organisms is inadequate for the needs of molecular biology (Alan Love in discussion)

“Extinction concepts put to work in philosophy of biology”

Joe Cain (Philosophy, Birkbeck) led the group through a series of exercises designed to highlight decisions that must be made to arrive at a determinate concept of extinction

“The Evolution of Means-End Cognition: Why Animals ain't

Smart” David Papineau (Philosophy, Kings College) presented a modification of his pre-circulated text, and argued for a critical role for visual imagination in the evolution of distinctively human cognitive abilities

Infra-human cognition

David Papineau’s paper generated lively discussion which was continued the next morning with two papers on this topic

“Anthropomorphism: Cross-species modeling”

Sandra Mitchell (HPS, Pittsburgh) presented an analysis of the conditions under which anthropomorphic reasoning can be used to illuminate animal behavior and cognition

“Putting Anthropomorphism in Context”

Karen Arnold (HPS, Pittsburgh) examined the social and political consequences of using anthropomorphic language to describe animal behavior, using the term ‘rape’ as a case study

John Dupré commented on Mitchell and Arnold’s papers

“Evo-Devo Meets the Mind: Towards a Developmental Evolutionary Psychology”

Paul Griffiths (HPS, Pittsburgh) suggested that evolutionary psychology could benefit from theoretical innovations in evolutionary developmental biology

“Bringing Life to the Mind”

Karola Stotz (Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) spoke on recent work in cognitive science emphasizing bodily experience, situated activity, and the environmental embeddedness of cognition

Peter Machamer requests clarification…

One of the highlights of the conference was the extensive time available for discussion and the emergence of themes among a consistent group of participants over four days

“Non-genetic inheritance and cultural evolution”

Gianmatteo Mameli (Philosophy, Kings College) questioned the validity of standard arguments linking adaptive evolutionary change essentially to change in genetic heredity

“History and Philosophy of Science: A Phylogenetic Approach”

Jim Lennox (HPS and Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh) described how issues in current science can be illuminated by studying the historical emergence of the key concepts involved

“Evolutionary morphology and the integration of evolution and development”

Alan Love (HPS, Pittsburgh) used the ‘phylogenetic’ approach to enrich our understanding of current moves to reintegrate developmental and evolutionary biology

John Hodge (Leeds) commented on the papers by Lennox and Love

In conclusion, Colin McCabe gave his impressions of the conference as a whole

Closing Dinner and speeches