Are natural selection explanatory models a priori?

Verfasser / Beitragende:
[José Díez, Pablo Lorenzano]
Ort, Verlag, Jahr:
2015
Enthalten in:
Biology & Philosophy, 30/6(2015-11-01), 787-809
Format:
Artikel (online)
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024 7 0 |a 10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7  |2 doi 
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245 0 0 |a Are natural selection explanatory models a priori?  |h [Elektronische Daten]  |c [José Díez, Pablo Lorenzano] 
520 3 |a The epistemic status of Natural Selection (NS) has seemed intriguing to biologists and philosophers since the very beginning of the theory to our present times. One prominent contemporary example is Elliott Sober, who claims that NS, and some other theories in biology, and maybe in economics, are peculiar in including explanatory models/conditionals that are a priori in a sense in which explanatory models/conditionals in Classical Mechanics (CM) and most other standard theories are not. Sober's argument focuses on some "would promote” sentences that according to him, play a central role in NS explanations and are both causal and a priori. Lange and Rosenberg criticize Sober arguing that, though there may be some unspecific a priori causal claims, there are not a priori causal claims that specify particular causal factors. Although we basically agree with Lange and Rosenberg's criticism, we think it remains silent about a second important element in Sober's dialectics, namely his claim that, contrary to what happens in mechanics, in NS explanatory conditionals are a priori, and that this is so in quite specific explanatory models. In this paper we criticize this second element of Sober's argument by analyzing what we take to be the four possible interpretations of Sober's claim, and argue that, terminological preferences aside, the possible senses in which explanatory models in NS can qualify, or include elements that can qualify, as a priori, also apply to CM and other standard, highly unified theories. We conclude that this second claim is unsound, or at least that more needs to be said in order to sustain that NS explanatory models are a priori in a sense in which CM models are not. 
540 |a Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015 
690 7 |a Natural selection  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Sober  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a A priori explanatory models  |2 nationallicence 
700 1 |a Díez  |D José  |u LOGOS Research Group, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain  |4 aut 
700 1 |a Lorenzano  |D Pablo  |u National University of Quilmes/CONICET, Bernal, Argentina  |4 aut 
773 0 |t Biology & Philosophy  |d Springer Netherlands  |g 30/6(2015-11-01), 787-809  |x 0169-3867  |q 30:6<787  |1 2015  |2 30  |o 10539 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9498-7  |q text/html  |z Onlinezugriff via DOI 
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900 7 |a Metadata rights reserved  |b Springer special CC-BY-NC licence  |2 nationallicence 
908 |D 1  |a research-article  |2 jats 
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950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Díez  |D José  |u LOGOS Research Group, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Lorenzano  |D Pablo  |u National University of Quilmes/CONICET, Bernal, Argentina  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 773  |E 0-  |t Biology & Philosophy  |d Springer Netherlands  |g 30/6(2015-11-01), 787-809  |x 0169-3867  |q 30:6<787  |1 2015  |2 30  |o 10539