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This book provides novel perspectives, grounded in scientific practices, on individuality and individuation, subjects traditionally treated by metaphysicians. It connects the concepts of the individual and individuation with analyses of scientific experimentation, and merges philosophy with scientific study in biology, physics, and chemistry.
List of contents
- Chapter 1. Individuation, Process, and Scientific Practices Otávio Bueno, Ruey-Lin Chen and Melinda B. Fagan
- Part I: Aspects of Individuation: Metaphysical and Processual
- Chapter 2. Processes, Organisms, Kinds and the Inevitability of Pluralism John Dupré
- Chapter 3. Individuating Processes John Pemberton
- Chapter 4. Individuating Part-Whole Relations in the Biological World Marie I. Kaiser
- Part II: Experimental Practices of Individuation
- Chapter 5. Ask Not "What Is an Individual?" C. Kenneth Waters
- Chapter 6. Individuality, Organisms, and Cell Differentiation Melinda Bonnie Fagan
- Chapter 7. Individuation of Developing Systems: A Reproducer Perspective James Griesemer
- Chapter 8. Individuation, Individuality, and Experimental Practice in Developmental Biology Alan C. Love
- Chapter 9. Experimental Individuation: Creation and Presentation Ruey-Lin Chen
- Chapter 10. Emergent Quasiparticles, Or, How to Get a Rich Physics from a Sober Metaphysics Alexandre Guay and Olivier Sartenaer
- Part III: Individuation in Philosophical Approaches to Science: Realism, Anti-Realism, Environmentalism
- Chapter 11. Can Quantum Objects Be Tracked? Otávio Bueno
- Chapter 12. Retail Realism, the Individuation of Theoretical Entities, and the Case of the Muriatic Radical Jonathon Hricko
- Chapter 13. Is Aldo Leopold's "Biotic Community" an Individual? Roberta L. Millstein
About the author
Otávio Bueno is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Miami. He works in the philosophies of science, of mathematics and of logic, epistemology, and philosophy of art. He is the author of Applying Mathematics: Immersion, Inference, Interpretation (with Steven French, Oxford University Press), and over 180 research articles. He is editor-in-chief of Synthese.
Ruey-Lin Chen is Professor of Philosophy at National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. His current research interest is in the philosophy of science across physical, biological, and experimental cases. He is the author of four books and more than forty articles in history and philosophy of science in Chinese. He also published a number of journal articles and book chapters in English.
Melinda Bonnie Fagan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah, where she holds the Sterling M. McMurrin Chair. Her research focuses on experimental practice in biology
(particularly stem cell and developmental biology), explanation, and modeling. She is the author of Philosophy of Stem Cell Biology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and more than forty articles and book chapters on topics in philosophy of science and biology.
Summary
This book provides novel perspectives, grounded in scientific practices, on individuality and individuation, subjects traditionally treated by metaphysicians. It connects the concepts of the individual and individuation with analyses of scientific experimentation, and merges philosophy with scientific study in biology, physics, and chemistry.
Additional text
The breadth and depth with which this volume addresses questions of individuality is truly impressive. Each chapter makes a fascinating contribution to ongoing debates in the philosophical literature ... The volume entices one to read from cover to cover and is likely to serve as a cornerstone reference for future work on individuation in the philosophy and history of science.
