Illinois Wesleyan University (BS)Indiana University (PhD)
Philosophical work
Notable ideas
Philosophy of Biology, Species-As-Individuals, Evolutionary Interactors
David Lee Hull (June 15, 1935 – August 11, 2010)[1] was an American philosopher who was most notable for founding the fieldphilosophy of biology.[2] Hull is recognized within evolutionary culture studies as contributing heavily in early discussions of the conceptualization ofmemetics.[3][4] In addition to his academic prominence, he was well known as agay man who fought for the rights of other gay and lesbian philosophers.[5] Hull was partnered with Richard "Dick" Wellman, a Chicago school teacher, until Wellman's passing during the drafting ofScience as Process.[6]
He is considered to have founded and systematically developed the area of philosophy of biology as it is understood in contemporary philosophy. Hull proposed an elaborate discussion of science as an evolutionary process in his 1988 book, which also offered a historical account of the "taxonomy wars" of the 1960s and 1970s between three competing schools of taxonomy:phenetics,evolutionary systematics, andcladistics. In Hull's view, science evolves like organisms and populations do, with a demic population structure, subject to selection for ideas based on "conceptual inclusive credit." Either novelty or citation of work gives credit, and the professional careers of scientists share in credit by using successful research. This is a "hidden hand" account of scientific progress.
Additionally, Hull regularly contributed to a variety of studies of evolutionary culture. He contributed to philosophical and empirical accounts of the evolution of science and evolutionary epistemology. While most of his work is in metaphysics and epistemology of evolution and biology, some of his work is closely related to what has since been calledBibliometrics,Scientometrics, orScience of Science. He forwarded citation analysis to develop an account of the evolutionary survival of scientific ideas[7] which has a direct relationship to what has been calledKnowledge Memes orScience Memes.[8]
He also contributed to evolutionary culture theory more broadly by contributing to initial discussions surrounding the generalization of Richard Dawkins' evolutionary vehicles in memetics research. In relation to Richard Dawkins' theory ofreplicators, Hull introduced the notion ofinteractors.[9][10]
Hull, D. L. (1974)Philosophy of Biological Science. Englewood Cliffs:Prentice-Hall,ISBN9780136636090; translated into Portuguese (1975), Japanese (1994).
Hull, D. L. (1976) Are species really individuals?Systematic Zoology 25: pages 174–191.
Hull, D. L. (1978) A matter of individuality.Philosophy of Science. 45: pages 335–360.
Hull, D. L. (1978) The principles of biological classification: the use and abuse of philosophy. Volume 2, pages 130–153.Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association.
Hull, D. L. (1979) The limits of cladism.Systematic Zoology 28: pages 416–440.
Hull, D. L. (1980) Individuality and selection.Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 11: pages 311–332.
Hull, D. L. (1981) Kitts and Kitts and Caplan on species.Philosophy of Science 48: pages 141–152.
Hull, D. L. (1983) Karl Popper and Plato's metaphor. pages 177–189 in N. I. Platnick, and V. A. Funk, eds.Advances in Cladistics, Volume 2Columbia University Press, New York.
Hull, D. L. (1983) Thirty-one years of Systematic Zoology.Systematic Zoology 32: pages 315–342.
Hull, D. L. (1984) Cladistic theory: hypotheses that blur and grow. pages 5–23 in T. Duncan, and T. F. Stuessy, eds.Cladistics: perspectives on the reconstruction of evolutionary history. Columbia University Press, New York.
Hull, D. L. (1984) Can Kripke alone save essentialism? A reply to Kitts.Systematic Zoology 33: pages 110–112.
Hull, D. L. (1988)Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science Chicago: University of Chicago Press,ISBN9780226360515.
Hull, D. L. (1997) The ideal species concept—and why we can't get it. pages 357–380 in M. F. Claridge, H. A. Dawah, and M. R. Wilson, eds.Species: the units of biodiversity. Chapman & Hall, London.
Hull, D. L. (1999) The use and abuse of Sir Karl Popper.Biology & Philosophy 14: pages 481–504.
^L., Hull, David (1989).The metaphysics of evolution. State University of New York Press.ISBN0-7914-0211-8.OCLC19554701.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^L., Hull, David (2001).Science and selection: essays on biological evolution and the philosophy of science. Cambridge University Press.ISBN0-521-64339-2.OCLC876723188.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
