It has been claimed that following the decline of Marxism and Freudianism, Darwinism has become the dominant intellectual paradigm of our day. In the mass media there are many bitter disputes between today's new Darwinians and their opponents, often over religion. But the 'neo-Darwinian paradigm' is not as simple or as seamless as either its advocates or its opponents would sometimes have us believe. Biology is in a state of development which defies the standard stereotypes. The papers in this volume, written by some of the leading philosophers in the field, bring out many of the fascinating and complex issues which arise in current attempts to account for life and its development.
Preface; Notes on contributors; 1. Transcending the emergence/reduction distinction: the case of biology Rom Harre; 2. Other histories, other biologies Gregory Radick; 3. The ontogenesis of human identity Giovanni Boniolo; 4. Souls, minds, bodies and planets Mary Midgley; 5. Evo-devo: a new evolutionary paradigm Michael Ruse; 6. Is drift a serious alternative to natural selection as an explanation of complex adaptive traits? Elliot Sober; 7. Evolution and aesthetics Anthony O'Hear; 8. The problems of biological design Tim Lewens; 9. Are there genes? John Dupre; 10. Folk psychology and the biological basis of intersubjectivity Matthew Ratcliffe; 11. The loss of rational design Friedel Weinert; 12. Under Darwin's cosh? Neo-Aristotelian thinking in environmental ethics Michael Wheeler; 13. The cultural origins of cognitive adaptations David Papineau; Name index.
