PHIL2600
Module Reading List

W1. Introduction

Optional readings

• Jay Odenbaugh & Paul Griffiths (2020) ‘Philosophy of Biology’. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biology-philosophy/
• Peter Gildenhuys (2019) ‘Natural Selection’. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-selection/, sections 1-2
• Daniel Dennett (1995) ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’. The Sciences, 35(3), 34-40
  • http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Dennett-Darwin'sDangerousIdea.pdf

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W2. Adaptation and adaptationism

Required readings

• Stephen J. Gould & Richard Lewontin (1979) 'The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme' Proceedings of the Royal Society of LondonB 205: 581-98.
  • https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.1979.0086
• Peter Godfrey-Smith (2001) ‘Three kinds of adaptationism’. In Adaptationism and optimality. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 11.
  • https://petergodfreysmith.com/PGS-Adapt3.pdf

Optional readings

• Elliott Sober (1998) ‘Six Sayings about Adaptationism’. In The Philosophy of Biology.
  • https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/Sober96-SixSayings.pdf

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W3. Functions and teleology

Required readings

• Karen Neander (1991) ‘The teleological notion of “function”.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 69, 454–468
  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048409112344881
• Robert Cummins (2002) ‘Neo-teleology’. In Functions: New essays in the philosophy of psychology and biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 157-172.
  • http://biophilosophy.ca/Teaching/6740papers/Cummins2002neoteleology.pdf

Optional readings

• Tim Lewens (2007) 'Functions’. In The Handbook of Philosophy of Biology. Elsevier.
  • Available at library: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44LEE_INST/13rlbcs/alma991015624949705181
• Ruth Garrett Millikan (1989) ‘In Defense of Proper Functions’. Philosophy of Science 56(2).
  • https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/289488

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W4. Individuals and species

Required readings

• Marc Ereshefsky (1998) ‘Species Pluralism and Anti-Realism’. Philosophy of Science, 65(1), 103-120
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/188177
• Subrena E. Smith (2017) ‘Organisms as Persisters’. Philosophy, Theory and Practice in Biology, 9, 14-30.
  • http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14545/1/organisms-as-persisters.pdf

Optional readings

• Ellen Clarke (2013) ‘The Multiple Realisability of Biological Individuals’. Journal of Philosophy 110(8), 413-435
  • https://ellenclarke.net/download/Papers/THE%20MULTIPLE%20REALIZABILITY%20OF%20BIOLOGICAL%20INDIVIDUALS%20-%20Clarke.pdf
• David Hull (1997) 'The Ideal Species Concept – And Why We Can't Get It.' In Species: The Units of Biodiversity, New York: Chapman and Hall
  • Library: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44LEE_INST/13rlbcs/alma991013008839705181
• Kathrin Koslicki (2008) ‘Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms’. Philosophy Compass.
  • https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00157.x or https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56f5c75c2eeb813966086409/t/574c8740b654f95fce4b0959/1464633152696/NaturalKindsandNaturalKindTerms.pdf

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W5. Levels of selection

Required readings

• Elizabeth Lloyd (2008) ‘Units and Levels of Selection’. In Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Biology.
  • https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-philosophy-of-biology/units-and-levels-of-selection/76D987599F6386B86794E59402A26DC4
• Samir Okasha (2006) ‘The Levels of Selection Debate: Philosophical Issues’. Philosophy Compass 1(1), 74-85.
  • https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00001.x

Optional readings

• Samir Okasha (2005) ‘Multilevel selection and the major transitions in evolution’. Philosophy of Science 72(5), 1013-1025.
  • https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/508102

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W6. Genes and information

Required readings

• John Dupre (2005) ‘Are there genes?’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 56, 16-17
  • https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-institute-of-philosophy-supplements/article/are-there-genes/A824FFBB6E0FB8EC475C92BD63523FFB
• Paul Griffiths (2001) 'Genetic Information: A Metaphor in Search of a Theory' Philosophy of Science68: 394-412
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3080926.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A767e0d64e8cac5f19694d1dfbd489a57

Optional readings

• John Maynard Smith (2000) 'The Concept of Information in Biology' Philosophy of Science67: 177-194
  • http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/~bill/teaching/philbio/readings/maynardsmith.information.2000.pdf
• Paul Griffiths and Caroloa Stotz (2008) ‘Gene’. In Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Biology
  • https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-philosophy-of-biology/gene/A2D05FA6BFF71330340CC5B781FC87C7
• Peter Godfrey-Smith (2001) 'On the Theoretical Role of "Genetic Coding"' Philosophy of Science67: 26-44
  • https://www.petergodfreysmith.com/PGS-GeneticCodePOS.pdf

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W7. Determinism and innateness

Required readings

• Paul Griffiths (2002) What is Innateness? Monist, 85, 70-85
  • https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/griffiths%2002%20-%20what%20is%20innateness.pdf
• Matteo Mameli and Patrick Bateson (2006) 'Innateness and the Sciences', Biology and Philosophy, 21: 155-188
  • https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/mamelibateson06-innateness.pdf

Optional readings

• Andre Ariew (1999) 'Innateness is Canalization', in V. Hardcastle (ed.) Where Biology Meets Psychology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/188507
• Matteo Mameli and Patrick Bateson (2011). ‘An evaluation of the concept of innateness’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
  • https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2010.0174

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W8. Cultural evolution

Required readings

• Elliott Sober (1992) ‘Models of Cultural Evolution.’  In P. Griffiths (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 17-38
  • https://tinyurl.com/bioreadleeds

Optional readings

• Kim Sterelny (2006) ‘Memes Revisited’. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/3541656
• Tim Lewens (2017) ‘Human Nature, Human Culture: the case of cultural evolution’. Interface Focus
  • https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsfs.2017.0018
• Peter J. Richardson & Robert Boyd (2005) Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
  • Available at library: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44LEE_INST/13rlbcs/alma991015746919705181

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W9. Evolutionary psychology

Required readings

• Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (1997). Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer.
  • http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.615.8167&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Optional readings

• Willem E. Frankenhuis & Annemie Ploeger (2007). ‘Evolutionary Psychology Versus Fodor: Arguments for and against the massive modularity hypothesis’, Philosophical Psychology
  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09515080701665904

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W10. Evolution of morality

Required readings

• Michael Ruse & Edward O. Wilson (1986) ‘Moral Philosophy as Applied Science’. Philosophy 61, 173-192
  • https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/167win10/ruse%20and%20wilson%2086%20-%20moral%20philosophy%20as%20applied%20science.pdf
• Jonathan Haidt & Craig Joseph (2004) ‘Intuitive ethics: How innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues.’ Daedalus Fall 133, 55–66
  • https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/133/4/55/27470/Intuitive-ethics-how-innately-prepared-intuitions

Optional readings

• Jessica Flack & Frans de Waal (2000) `Any Animal Whatever: Darwinian Building Blocks of Morality in Monkeys and Apes’. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7, 1-29
  • https://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/OurInnerApe/pdfs/Flack_deWaal_moral.pdf
• Edouard Machery & Ron Mallon (2010) ‘Evolution of Morality’. In The Moral Psychology Handbook
  • https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.174.4509&rep=rep1&type=pdf
• Johnathan Haidt (2001) ‘The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment’. Psychological Review, 108, 814-34
  • http://www.rudygarns.com/class/neuroethics/lib/exe/fetch.php/a/haidt.2001.emotional_dog_rational_tail.pdf

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W11. Evolution, ethics, and epistemology

Required readings

• Richard Joyce (2012) ‘The evolutionary debunking of morality’. In Reason and Responsibility
  • http://personal.victoria.ac.nz/richard_joyce/acrobat/joyce_2013_evolutionary.debunking.pdf
• John S. Wilkins & Paul Griffiths (2012) ‘Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Three Domains’. In A New Science of Religion.
  • http://paulgriffiths.representinggenes.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/publications/B1_33.pdf

Optional readings

• Dan Korman (2019) ‘Debunking Arguments’. Philosophy Compass 14. 1-17.
  • https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12638
• Sharon Street (2006) ‘A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value.’ Philosophical Studies 127: 109-166
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/4321684
• Vavova, K. (2014). Debunking Evolutionary Debunking. In Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Vol. 9 (76-101). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198709299.001.0001/acprof-9780198709299-chapter-4

This list was last updated on 22/02/2022