Philosophy of Biology

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 "Tracing the history of the great debates and ideas that punctuated this specialty, Peter Godfrey-Smith offers a clear and accessible introduction, which extends to the review of its current key issues. This book will interest course philosophers and biologists, but also sociologists and psychologists, as the issues come from classic biology and philosophy."--Romaric Jannel, Liens Socio "Peter Godfrey-Smith's Philosophy of Biology ... [is] a great way to get up to speed on all the issues that working biologists love to debate amongst themselves... [N]on-specialists should not be put off. Godfrey-Smith's style is engaging, almost conversational."--John Farrell, Forbes.com "Here, Godfrey-Smith, a prominent and prolific scholar working in the field, delivers an elegant and stimulating analysis of key areas in the life sciences where conceptual questions arise regularly... Godfrey-Smith provides an exemplar of expositional clarity and philosophical insight for those who would imitate his approach in these domains."--Choice "[O]ne of the very best textbooks in its field."--Brian Garvey, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "[A]lthough it is too brief to be the only text for any course, it would be a perfect addition to or foundation for the reading list for many. And no practicing biologist who reads it is likely to think her time was wasted."--W. Ford Doolittle, Current Biology "Philosophy of Biology can be recommended mainly as an excellent resource for teachers. They will find an up to date overview of important topics and can rely on the further reading sections to supplement this volume with additional material."--Christina Behme, Metapsychology "Philosophy of Biology is a valuable addition to the introductions already out there, and one that stands out in many ways."--Joeri Witteveen, History and Philosophy of Life Sciences

Peter Godfrey-Smith is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection.

Preface ix CHAPTER ONE Philosophy and Biology 1 CHAPTER TWO Laws, Mechanisms, and Models 11 CHAPTER THREE Evolution and Natural Selection 28 CHAPTER FOUR Adaptation, Construction, Function 50 CHAPTER FIVE Individuals 66 CHAPTER SIX Genes 81 CHAPTER SEVEN Species and the Tree of Life 100 CHAPTER EIGHT Evolution and Social Behavior 120 CHAPTER NINE Information 144 References 159 Index 179