Here are their suggestions for biologists who want to contribute to philosophy of biology.
- Understand that debate over definitions is often not quibbling over “mere” semantics. After all, semantics concerns meaning, and meaning connects concepts to inferential roles in reasoning, including prediction.
- Understand that concepts having an uncertain connection with facts may still be useful. For example, the notion of a species as an ensemble of potentially interbreeding individuals has underwritten many important empirical insights into evolution, even though it can be hard to measure the potential for interbreeding over time and space. Similarly, the notion of an organ as a well-defined ensemble of cells has underwritten many important empirical insights in anatomy, pathology, and physiology even though the criteria that define organs remain in dispute.
- Understand that there can be useful theory in biology even if it is not expressible in compact mathematical form.
- Understand that theory can be important apart from its immediate empirical usefulness. However, theory that is informed by data and that informs data is most useful.
- Understand that explanations of phenomena do not have to be molecular in order to be causal and mechanistic. The limits of explanations based upon molecular mechanisms do not necessitate switching to a different mode of explanation (e.g., one based on agency; see below).
- Take guidance from philosophy when making philosophical claims. Debates by philosophers over issues such as falsifiability as a defining criterion of science; the uses of abduction, deduction, and induction; essentialism in classification; and the nature of scientific laws can improve scientific practice.
DiFrisco, J. and Orzack, S.H. (2026) Biology Needs Philosophy, But What Philosophy? BioScience:biag016. [doi: 10.1093/biosci/biag016]
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