Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda – författare

A historical and philosophical exploration of the organism-environment relationship and its role in shaping biological thought.In this first systematic book-length examination of the organism-environment relationship in the life sciences, Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda addresses a crucial gap in our understanding of a foundational building block of modern biology. Taking an integrated history and philosophy of science (&HPS) approach, he asks questions such as: Are organisms and environments symmetrically related, or do fundamental asymmetries underlie this relationship? Can we draw clear boundaries between organism and environment, or are they inseparable? What precisely constitutes an organismal environment? These issues have gained urgency in light of postgenomic research revealing complex environmental influences on development and organism-environment interactions.Fábregas-Tejeda examines early twentieth-century theoretical biology and contemporary debates across evolutionary biology, ecology, developmental biology, and philosophy of biology. Contrasting the two periods, he illuminates the epistemic and ontological nature of the organism-environment relationship and its explanatory and heuristic roles in biology. The Organism-Environment Pairing shows how new insights from evolutionary developmental biology, ecology, niche construction theory, and phenotypic plasticity research have further complicated our understanding of this relationship.

The Riddle of Organismal Agency brings together historians, philosophers, and scientists for an interdisciplinary re-assessment of one of the long-standing problems in the scientific understanding of life.Marshalling insights from diverse sciences including physiology, comparative psychology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology, the book provides an up-to-date survey of approaches to non-human organisms as agents, capable of performing activities serving their own goals such as surviving or reproducing, and whose doings in the world are thus to be explained teleologically. From an Integrated History and Philosophy of Science perspective, the book contributes to a better conceptual and theoretical understanding of organismal agency, advancing some suggestions on how to study it empirically and how to frame it in relation to wider scientific and philosophical traditions. It also provides new historical entry points for examining the deployment, trajectories, and challenges of agential views of organisms in the history of biology and philosophy.This book will be of interest to philosophers of biology; historians of science; biologists interested in analysing the active roles of organisms in development, ecological interactions, and evolution; philosophers and practitioners of the cognitive sciences; and philosophers and historians of philosophy working on purposiveness and teleology.

The Riddle of Organismal Agency brings together historians, philosophers, and scientists for an interdisciplinary re-assessment of one of the long-standing problems in the scientific understanding of life.Marshalling insights from diverse sciences including physiology, comparative psychology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology, the book provides an up-to-date survey of approaches to non-human organisms as agents, capable of performing activities serving their own goals such as surviving or reproducing, and whose doings in the world are thus to be explained teleologically. From an Integrated History and Philosophy of Science perspective, the book contributes to a better conceptual and theoretical understanding of organismal agency, advancing some suggestions on how to study it empirically and how to frame it in relation to wider scientific and philosophical traditions. It also provides new historical entry points for examining the deployment, trajectories, and challenges of agential views of organisms in the history of biology and philosophy.This book will be of interest to philosophers of biology; historians of science; biologists interested in analysing the active roles of organisms in development, ecological interactions, and evolution; philosophers and practitioners of the cognitive sciences; and philosophers and historians of philosophy working on purposiveness and teleology.