caa a22 4500 605448434 CHVBK 20210128100136.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10539-015-9496-9 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10539-015-9496-9 Green Sara Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 15260, Pittsburgh, PA, USA aut Revisiting generality in biology: systems biology and the quest for design principles [Elektronische Daten] [Sara Green] Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles. I revisit this question in light of the quest for design principles in systems biology and show that different views can be reconciled if we distinguish between different types of generality. The philosophical literature has primarily focused on (the lack of) generality of specific models or explanations, or on the heuristic role of abstraction. This paper takes a different approach in emphasizing a theory-constituting role of general principles. Design principles signify general dependency-relations between structures and functions, given a set of formally defined constraints. I contend that design principles increase our understanding of living systems by relating specific models to general types. The categorization of types is based on a delineation of the scope of biological possibilities, which serves to identify and define the generic features of classes of systems. To characterize the basis for general principles through generic abstraction and reasoning about possibility spaces, I coin the term constraint-based generality. I show that constraint-based generality is distinct from other types of generality in biology, and argue that general principles play a unifying role that does not entail theory reduction. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015 Design principles nationallicence Systems biology nationallicence Unification nationallicence Biological laws nationallicence Constraints nationallicence Generic abstraction nationallicence Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/5(2015-09-01), 629-652 0169-3867 30:5<629 2015 30 10539 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9496-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9496-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Green Sara Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 15260, Pittsburgh, PA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/5(2015-09-01), 629-652 0169-3867 30:5<629 2015 30 10539