I really don't have time to post now, but I'm going to anyway. Van Fraassen writes: "I claim that the success of current scientific theories is no miracle. It is not even surprising to the scientific (Darwinian) mind. For any scientific theory is born into a life of fierce competition, a jungle red in tooth and claw. Only the successful theories survive--the ones which in fact latched on to actual regularities in nature." (Scientific Image, p.40)
James Robert Brown, in "Explaining the Success of Science" (Ratio, 1985) agrees that this Darwinian explanation can account for the first two aspects of success, but not the third:
(1) The sciences "are able to organize and unift a great variety of known phenomena.
(2) This ability to systematize the empirical data is more extensive now than it was for previous theories.
(3) A statistically significant number of novel predictions pan out; that is, our theories get more predictions right than mere guessing would allow." Brown says of (3): "Here the Darwinian analogy breaks down since most species could not survive a radical change of environment, the analogue of a novel prediction."
First a small point: I don't think a novel prediction needs to be analogized to a radical change in environment -- perhaps some should be, but it's not necessary. If an organism can handle living and reproducing in any new environment, i.e., one for which its various features were not historically adapted, then that seems a decent enough analogy to a novel prediction (which makes a prediction different from the cases the thoery was originally designed to handle). A 'radical' change in environment might precipitate a scientific revolution -- i.e., the science (like the organism) might not survive.
Now, a more substantive point, and one which perhaps pushes the analogy farther than is fair. The paleobiologist David Jablonski has shown that genera that are more geographically widespread are more likely to survive mass extinction events (such as the meteor that killed off lots of the dinosaurs). The analogy would be, I suppose, to groups of related theories that 'organize and unify' a greater variety of phenomena -- which are precisely the groups of theories that we (including van Fraassen) count as most successful. So it appears that a van Fraassenite Darwinian has a nice answer to J.R. Brown: viz., the more successful groups of theories will be more likely to deliver novel predictions.
But unfortunately for the van Fraassenite, the biological story doesn't end there. What is strange about Jablonski's results is that a species' being geographically widespread has no statistical correlation with its probability of surviving a mass extinction event. The correlation only appears at the level of genera. (Side note: For the philosophers and biologists who think about group selection, this looks like an instance of it.) So, the analogy would go, the more unifying particular theories do not enjoy any advantage in novel prediction over the less unifying, but the more unifying groups of theories would. Hopefully you can see why I suggested that this may be pushing the analogy too far: I'm not sure there's anything in the domain of science that would correspond nicely to the concepts of genus and species in the evolutionary domain. Although (and now I'm really stretching), if one could be made out, perhaps the structural realists could cash out their notion of structure at the level of the genus, and thereby capture why particular theories come and go, but the structure tends to survive through revolutions.
p.s. -- Can anyone recommend a good article completely devoted to arguing for or against this Darwinian explanation of science's success? I've seen several parts of book chapters or parts of papers dealing with it, but I can't recall seeing a fine-tooth-comb analysis of it.
10/07/2006
Aristotle's natural motion and modern inertial motion
Last week, in my history of science class, we finished the unit on ancient science and medicine. At the end of the unit, I asked my students the (ill-posed) question: so is any of this stuff we've been reading science or not? (We read Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's Physics II and On the Heavens, Ptolemy's Almagest, and bits of Epicurus as well as Hippocratic writers.)
One sentiment that came to the fore was that the ancients were (on average) more willing to countenance teleological explanations in natural sciences than we are. I think this is definitely right on the whole. But I did want to ask a question about an example sometimes forwarded in defense of this claim. Aristotle says that part of what makes the element earth earth is its tendency to move towards the center of the universe (since Aristotle thought the planet Earth was at rest in the center of the universe). Air and fire move away from the center of the universe, and the celestial matter moves in a circle around the center. These 'natural motions' are taken to appeal to final causes in a way that modern science does not: water and earth have a 'goal' or 'end' (Greek telos), viz., the center of the universe. And (so the story goes) matter from the Early Modern period onwards, starting with Descartes at the latest, is not like that at all.
I, unfortunately, cannot make out a substantive difference here -- we can describe Aristotle and the moderns in the same terms: we can make Aristotle sound more modern, or make Newton et al. sound more teleological. In the modern dynamical picture, we have inertial motion: a body in motion will maintain that motion (speed and direction), unless acted upon by an outside force. If the telos of an Aristotelian hunk of earth is the center of the universe, the telos of a modern bit of matter is (something like) self-preservation. Its goal is resistance to change (of direction and speed).
Alternatively, we can characterize Aristotle as more modern: Aristotle is describing what happens to a bit of fire or water if it's just "left alone," i.e., what does a body do when it is free of any interference? Aristotle clearly disagrees with the moderns about what a body does when "left alone"... but Einstein disagreed with Newtonians over the same issue. In other words, we can think of the difference (on this topic) between Aristotle and the moderns as a disagreement over which trajectories are the ones bodies will follow when no external forces act upon them. Teleology doesn't appear here at all.
Of course, I could be overlooking something obvious in the Aristotelian text. Hopefully any real Aristotle scholars out there reading this will tell me if I have. If you want to check the text of On the Heavens for yourself, it’s online here.
One sentiment that came to the fore was that the ancients were (on average) more willing to countenance teleological explanations in natural sciences than we are. I think this is definitely right on the whole. But I did want to ask a question about an example sometimes forwarded in defense of this claim. Aristotle says that part of what makes the element earth earth is its tendency to move towards the center of the universe (since Aristotle thought the planet Earth was at rest in the center of the universe). Air and fire move away from the center of the universe, and the celestial matter moves in a circle around the center. These 'natural motions' are taken to appeal to final causes in a way that modern science does not: water and earth have a 'goal' or 'end' (Greek telos), viz., the center of the universe. And (so the story goes) matter from the Early Modern period onwards, starting with Descartes at the latest, is not like that at all.
I, unfortunately, cannot make out a substantive difference here -- we can describe Aristotle and the moderns in the same terms: we can make Aristotle sound more modern, or make Newton et al. sound more teleological. In the modern dynamical picture, we have inertial motion: a body in motion will maintain that motion (speed and direction), unless acted upon by an outside force. If the telos of an Aristotelian hunk of earth is the center of the universe, the telos of a modern bit of matter is (something like) self-preservation. Its goal is resistance to change (of direction and speed).
Alternatively, we can characterize Aristotle as more modern: Aristotle is describing what happens to a bit of fire or water if it's just "left alone," i.e., what does a body do when it is free of any interference? Aristotle clearly disagrees with the moderns about what a body does when "left alone"... but Einstein disagreed with Newtonians over the same issue. In other words, we can think of the difference (on this topic) between Aristotle and the moderns as a disagreement over which trajectories are the ones bodies will follow when no external forces act upon them. Teleology doesn't appear here at all.
Of course, I could be overlooking something obvious in the Aristotelian text. Hopefully any real Aristotle scholars out there reading this will tell me if I have. If you want to check the text of On the Heavens for yourself, it’s online here.
9/29/2006
You might be living in barn facade county if...
Something happened to me last week that was weird enought that I felt like I was living out a philosopher's thought-experiment. I can't figure out what philosophical thesis this supports, so I figured I'd throw it out to the blogosphere, and let sharper people appropriate it if possible. Here goes...
Before I was married, my name was Greg Frost. I did many things while my last name was Frost, including buying a car. The title of the car was in the name of Greg Frost, and I've been too lazy and cheap to get it switched in the interim. But since we just moved out to Las Vegas, I wanted to get the title switched from a Pennsylvania title to a Nevada one. Now, when you switch titles, what you have to do is sell your car to yourself (for free) -- don't ask me why, I don't know. But at the Nevada DMV, I ran into a problem: I had to be Greg Frost as the seller, and Greg Frost-Arnold as the buyer. But Greg Frost hasn't existed for the last 2.5 years... yet he had to be "brought back" for this transaction. [This is sloppy and metaphorical, but you get the idea.]
There has to be a new theory of reference somewhere in here...
Before I was married, my name was Greg Frost. I did many things while my last name was Frost, including buying a car. The title of the car was in the name of Greg Frost, and I've been too lazy and cheap to get it switched in the interim. But since we just moved out to Las Vegas, I wanted to get the title switched from a Pennsylvania title to a Nevada one. Now, when you switch titles, what you have to do is sell your car to yourself (for free) -- don't ask me why, I don't know. But at the Nevada DMV, I ran into a problem: I had to be Greg Frost as the seller, and Greg Frost-Arnold as the buyer. But Greg Frost hasn't existed for the last 2.5 years... yet he had to be "brought back" for this transaction. [This is sloppy and metaphorical, but you get the idea.]
There has to be a new theory of reference somewhere in here...
9/20/2006
Two improvements to the internets
For those of you not on the HOPOS distribution list: the Royal Scociety is making every single one of the journals its ever published freely available online for 2 months -- all the way back to the first issue of The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665. These are some of my favorite documents in the history of science to look through, because (like many texts in the history of science) it seems so foreign, yet traces of current practices are nonetheless there.
Also, the fearless leader of my department, Todd Jones, has just started a new blog, Anthrophilosophy. He has formal training in philosophy, anthropology, and cognitive science, so he brings a new perspective on many issues, different from the way most philosophers look at them. His first post is an interesting anthropological explanantion of recent election results -- if that's the sort of thing that floats your boat, please check out his blog and leave a comment, if you are so inclined.
Hopefully there will be a real post soon, but I haven't had any good blog-sized thoughts lately...
Also, the fearless leader of my department, Todd Jones, has just started a new blog, Anthrophilosophy. He has formal training in philosophy, anthropology, and cognitive science, so he brings a new perspective on many issues, different from the way most philosophers look at them. His first post is an interesting anthropological explanantion of recent election results -- if that's the sort of thing that floats your boat, please check out his blog and leave a comment, if you are so inclined.
Hopefully there will be a real post soon, but I haven't had any good blog-sized thoughts lately...
9/13/2006
Doctrine of double effect & the Knobe effect
On Monday, Carl Ficarrotta gave a colloquium talk here on the Principle (or Doctrine) of double effect (PDE), focusing especially on applications of that principle in military targeting. The principle is (quoting from the Stanford Online Encyclopedia, which quotes from Joseph Mangan (1949)):
I'm interested in something else about the PDE; specifically, it seems like the Knobe effect shows that (2) is untenable. Roughly, the Knobe effect is: people judge bad side-effects to be intentionally caused, though people do not judge good side-effects to be intentional. The problem for (2) is obvious: if there's an evil side-effect of an action, then that side-effect will be judged to be intended. (Ficarrotta's own formulation of (2) perhaps makes the problem even more perspicuous: "Evil consequences are foreseen, but not intended." If the folk's attributions of intentionality are accepted, then there won't be any foreseen evil consequences that are not intentional.)
The New Catholic Encyclopedia version of (2) (again, this is in the Stanford Online Encyclopedia entry) actually reflects the Knobe idea: such actions are called 'indirectly voluntary', i.e., intentional, but somehow in a second-class sort of way.
And finally, a google search reveals that the PDE and the Knobe effect are briefly dealt with in a footnote to this paper by Jen Wright and John Bergson, which was recently posted to, and discussed on, the Experimental Philosophy blog. They make the good point that there is a further experimental question to ask the folk: do ascriptions of intentionality track blameworthiness or responsibility? Someone in a PDE situation appears to be responsible for the evil side-effect, even though she is not to be considered blameworthy on that account (at least, if the PDE is right).
"A person may licitly perform an action that he foresees will produce a good effect and a bad effect provided that four conditions are verified at one and the same time:Ficarrotta suggested that the justification or grounds for (3) -- something in the neighborhood of Kantian respect for a might make the majority of cases of 'collateral damage' morally impermissible -- even though the PDE is often invoked to justify such military actions.
(1) that the action in itself from its very object be good or at least indifferent;
(2) that the good effect and not the evil effect be intended;
(3) that the good effect be not produced by means of the evil effect;
(4) that there be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect” (1949, p. 43).
I'm interested in something else about the PDE; specifically, it seems like the Knobe effect shows that (2) is untenable. Roughly, the Knobe effect is: people judge bad side-effects to be intentionally caused, though people do not judge good side-effects to be intentional. The problem for (2) is obvious: if there's an evil side-effect of an action, then that side-effect will be judged to be intended. (Ficarrotta's own formulation of (2) perhaps makes the problem even more perspicuous: "Evil consequences are foreseen, but not intended." If the folk's attributions of intentionality are accepted, then there won't be any foreseen evil consequences that are not intentional.)
The New Catholic Encyclopedia version of (2) (again, this is in the Stanford Online Encyclopedia entry) actually reflects the Knobe idea: such actions are called 'indirectly voluntary', i.e., intentional, but somehow in a second-class sort of way.
And finally, a google search reveals that the PDE and the Knobe effect are briefly dealt with in a footnote to this paper by Jen Wright and John Bergson, which was recently posted to, and discussed on, the Experimental Philosophy blog. They make the good point that there is a further experimental question to ask the folk: do ascriptions of intentionality track blameworthiness or responsibility? Someone in a PDE situation appears to be responsible for the evil side-effect, even though she is not to be considered blameworthy on that account (at least, if the PDE is right).
9/08/2006
Bioethicists take note
One of the bigger areas in bioethics is the cluster of questions involving the end of life, such as, Is euthanasia morally permissible? Some folks are attracted to the idea that, if a person is in a vegetative state, then they may lack conscious awareness, and as a result, euthanasia may be permitted for certain vegetative patients.
A new article in Science looks like it provides evidence that undermines one of the above premises, namely, that patients in vegetative states are not conscious. Here's the abstract:
UPDATE: I now see that Brains not only beat me to this story, but Pete Mandik has much more insightful commentary on it too. Oh well.
A new article in Science looks like it provides evidence that undermines one of the above premises, namely, that patients in vegetative states are not conscious. Here's the abstract:
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate preserved conscious awareness in a patient fulfilling the criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state. When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving around her home, the patient activated predicted cortical areas in a manner indistinguishable from that of healthy volunteers.The authors of course do not claim that every (or even many) vegetative patients maintain this level of consciousness. Furthermore, they recognize that some people may not consider even this amount of brain activity to amount to conscious thought. But their next step is an encouraging one: developing a battery of fMRI tests to determine whether a particular patient has this degree of consciousness or not -- so we no longer have to guess at whether someone who's been unresponsive for 5 months (as their test subject had) is conscious or not.
UPDATE: I now see that Brains not only beat me to this story, but Pete Mandik has much more insightful commentary on it too. Oh well.
9/07/2006
Two bits of good news
First, the current issue of Nature contains an article providing evidence that the new pope is about to demur endorsing intelligent design, just as John Paul did before him. Since it's hidden behind a subscription wall, I'll reproduce the first 1.5 sentences:
Second, the program for the Philosophy of Science Association 2006 meeting is up, and it looks very interesting. I'm especially glad to see that the program committee selected Rick Creath's paper on the historical trajectory of Quine's use of the concept of simplicity in various arguments ("The Career of Simplicity in Quine's Philosophy of Science"). Rick has been a leader in the revival of Carnap (and logical empiricism more generally) as a legitimate object of study for philosophers of science (his "Was Carnap a Complete Verificationist in the Aufbau?" was part of the PSA all the way back in 1982). For my own sake, I'm glad to see that Quine is now on the radar as a figure who needs to be understood historically, instead of merely as an interlocutor or colleague.
Religion is religion, science is science, and good fences make good neighbours. That seems likely to be the thrust of an expected clarification by the Roman Catholic Church of its position on biological evolution.
Second, the program for the Philosophy of Science Association 2006 meeting is up, and it looks very interesting. I'm especially glad to see that the program committee selected Rick Creath's paper on the historical trajectory of Quine's use of the concept of simplicity in various arguments ("The Career of Simplicity in Quine's Philosophy of Science"). Rick has been a leader in the revival of Carnap (and logical empiricism more generally) as a legitimate object of study for philosophers of science (his "Was Carnap a Complete Verificationist in the Aufbau?" was part of the PSA all the way back in 1982). For my own sake, I'm glad to see that Quine is now on the radar as a figure who needs to be understood historically, instead of merely as an interlocutor or colleague.
8/30/2006
Helpful site: Philosophy Conferences in Europe
A new member of my department, Marion Ledwig, alerted me to this very nice list of conferences in Europe for 2006-07. Speaking of which, I am very sorry to be missing GAP.6 [Gesellschaft fur Analytische Philosophie] two weeks from now, and especially their Carnap workshop organized by my man Steve Awodey.
In other news, I now feel a bit less guilty/ fraudluent about claiming philosophical logic as one of my Areas of Specialization on my CV: I just heard back from the Journal of Philosophical Logic that they'll be publishing a paper of mine. (The paper is the same one I presented at the 2005 Eastern APA, on formal semantics for languages containing confused/ ambiguous terms; if you want to look at it and help me improve it before the final submission, it's on my webpage.)
In other news, I now feel a bit less guilty/ fraudluent about claiming philosophical logic as one of my Areas of Specialization on my CV: I just heard back from the Journal of Philosophical Logic that they'll be publishing a paper of mine. (The paper is the same one I presented at the 2005 Eastern APA, on formal semantics for languages containing confused/ ambiguous terms; if you want to look at it and help me improve it before the final submission, it's on my webpage.)
8/22/2006
Israel, Lebanon, and the Knobe Effect
Despite the title, this post is not about politics. The Knobe Effect is roughly the following: people consider foreseen side effects to be (more) intentional (or on purpose) if those side effects are bad than if they are good. That is, if you do something that has a beneficial foreseen side-effect, you won't be seen as bringing about that side-effect on purpose, but you would if the side effect was harmful or bad. This result has been shown to be experimentally robust in several groups of subjects.
Disputes concerning the Knobe effect arise in the interpretation of this experimental finding. Knobe himself takes these results to show that our concept of intentional action is essentially tied by our moral sensibilities -- somewhat surprising, since we don't usually think of intention and morality as closely linked. Other philosophers have suggested more 'deflationary' readings of the experimental results; for example, we want to blame someone for bringing about a foreseen, bad side effect of their actions -- and as a general rule of thumb, we only legitimately blame people for things they do on purpose. So on this interpretation, the Knobe effect is seen as a sort of confabulation or rationalization for our practices of praising and blaming -- not as bearing on the very concept of intention itself. Several papers by Knobe and co-authors are available on Knobe's webpage, along with papers responding to his work. If you prefer your philosophy in blog form, there has been a great deal of discussion of this work over at Experimental Philosophy.
Recent events in Lebanon provide an example of the type of situation in which the Knobe Effect appears. Israel intends to destroy Hezbollah's military capabilities, and used various forms of military force as a means to that end. Since much of the Hezbollah forces are located in places with high civilian population density, one foreseen side effect of Israel's use of force to disarm Hezbollah is a tragically high number of civilian casualities.
On NPR, I heard a high-ranking Israeli military official justify his country's military action by saying, in effect: We Israelis are not aiming to hurt any civilians -- our goal is only to stop Hezbollah from launching strikes into Israeli territory. There's two things I wanted to say about this:
(1) If only this high-ranking Israeli offical had read the work of Knobe et al., he would have known that this excuse would not carry much water, if any at all -- we are blamed for foreseen bad side-effects, even if they are unintentional.
(2) My reaction/ intuition in this case is against Knobe's stronger interpretation of the experimental results, and with the deflationists': I think the defense official has a perfectly good grasp of the concept of purpose or intentional action, even when he says "We're not harming Lebanese civilians on purpose." This doesn't sound like "John is a married bachelor" or "This is a square circle" to me.
Disputes concerning the Knobe effect arise in the interpretation of this experimental finding. Knobe himself takes these results to show that our concept of intentional action is essentially tied by our moral sensibilities -- somewhat surprising, since we don't usually think of intention and morality as closely linked. Other philosophers have suggested more 'deflationary' readings of the experimental results; for example, we want to blame someone for bringing about a foreseen, bad side effect of their actions -- and as a general rule of thumb, we only legitimately blame people for things they do on purpose. So on this interpretation, the Knobe effect is seen as a sort of confabulation or rationalization for our practices of praising and blaming -- not as bearing on the very concept of intention itself. Several papers by Knobe and co-authors are available on Knobe's webpage, along with papers responding to his work. If you prefer your philosophy in blog form, there has been a great deal of discussion of this work over at Experimental Philosophy.
Recent events in Lebanon provide an example of the type of situation in which the Knobe Effect appears. Israel intends to destroy Hezbollah's military capabilities, and used various forms of military force as a means to that end. Since much of the Hezbollah forces are located in places with high civilian population density, one foreseen side effect of Israel's use of force to disarm Hezbollah is a tragically high number of civilian casualities.
On NPR, I heard a high-ranking Israeli military official justify his country's military action by saying, in effect: We Israelis are not aiming to hurt any civilians -- our goal is only to stop Hezbollah from launching strikes into Israeli territory. There's two things I wanted to say about this:
(1) If only this high-ranking Israeli offical had read the work of Knobe et al., he would have known that this excuse would not carry much water, if any at all -- we are blamed for foreseen bad side-effects, even if they are unintentional.
(2) My reaction/ intuition in this case is against Knobe's stronger interpretation of the experimental results, and with the deflationists': I think the defense official has a perfectly good grasp of the concept of purpose or intentional action, even when he says "We're not harming Lebanese civilians on purpose." This doesn't sound like "John is a married bachelor" or "This is a square circle" to me.
8/13/2006
Now broadcasting from the desert
I have not posted in a long time -- I've been busy with my move from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas, and with all the craziness that attends moving cross-country and starting your life over. But we are starting to settle in, so blogging may pick up again soon.
Several months ago, Doug Patterson asked me if I could contribute something to a volume he's editing for OUP called Alfred Tarski: Philosophical Background, Development, and Influence. I was honored, since many of the other contributors breathe rarified logico-philosophical air, so I cobbled an article together out of various bits of my dissertation. I now have a draft of the paper, boringly entitled "Tarski's Nominalism," and I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback from interested readers. To help you determine whether you are an 'interested reader,' I've cut-and-pasted a bit of the intro:
"This essay aims to answer three related questions about Tarski's self-described 'nominalism with a materialistic taint' through an examination of Carnap’s 1941 dictation notes. First, what is Tarski’s view? Second, what are the rationales for his view? Finally, how does Tarski attempt to reconcile his nominalist philosophical scruples with mathematics, since mathematics deals with paradigmatically abstract objects, such as numbers and sets, whose rejection is a standard sine qua non of modern nominalism?"
As a brand-new Pitt HPS alumnus, I wanted to sing the praises of a couple members of the incoming class. First, Jonah Schupbach, of Berkeley, Bacon, & Bird blog-fame, just had a paper published in Philosophy of Science on one of my favorite topics, the evidential and explanatory role of unification in science. And Jason Byron (nee Baker) has written an article, forthcoming in BJPS, that argues for a point that I became convinced of while doing work for my dissertation. Just to get a sense for what the logical empiricists were thinking about in 1940, I flipped through a few journals from the 1930s that they were reading and publishing in, especially Erkenntnis and Synthese. I was very surprised to find that there were lots of articles on philosophical details related to biology -- some of them dealing rather closely with the science. This was surprising because the usual story among current philosophers of biology is that philosophy of science completely (or almost completely) ignored biology until the late 60s. Jason has now done the detailed spade-work needed to substantiate that impression I had.
Several months ago, Doug Patterson asked me if I could contribute something to a volume he's editing for OUP called Alfred Tarski: Philosophical Background, Development, and Influence. I was honored, since many of the other contributors breathe rarified logico-philosophical air, so I cobbled an article together out of various bits of my dissertation. I now have a draft of the paper, boringly entitled "Tarski's Nominalism," and I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback from interested readers. To help you determine whether you are an 'interested reader,' I've cut-and-pasted a bit of the intro:
"This essay aims to answer three related questions about Tarski's self-described 'nominalism with a materialistic taint' through an examination of Carnap’s 1941 dictation notes. First, what is Tarski’s view? Second, what are the rationales for his view? Finally, how does Tarski attempt to reconcile his nominalist philosophical scruples with mathematics, since mathematics deals with paradigmatically abstract objects, such as numbers and sets, whose rejection is a standard sine qua non of modern nominalism?"
As a brand-new Pitt HPS alumnus, I wanted to sing the praises of a couple members of the incoming class. First, Jonah Schupbach, of Berkeley, Bacon, & Bird blog-fame, just had a paper published in Philosophy of Science on one of my favorite topics, the evidential and explanatory role of unification in science. And Jason Byron (nee Baker) has written an article, forthcoming in BJPS, that argues for a point that I became convinced of while doing work for my dissertation. Just to get a sense for what the logical empiricists were thinking about in 1940, I flipped through a few journals from the 1930s that they were reading and publishing in, especially Erkenntnis and Synthese. I was very surprised to find that there were lots of articles on philosophical details related to biology -- some of them dealing rather closely with the science. This was surprising because the usual story among current philosophers of biology is that philosophy of science completely (or almost completely) ignored biology until the late 60s. Jason has now done the detailed spade-work needed to substantiate that impression I had.
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