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Myślą Ludwika Gumplowicza polscy uczeni zainteresowali się stosunkowo późno. Jej pierwsze opracowania autorstwa JanaKarola Kochanowskiego, Stanisława Posnera, Mieczysława Szerera, Jana Stanisława Bystronia, Aleksandra Kraushara przypadają na lata 1910–1917, a więc na okres zwany Młodą Polską, który wpisuje się w ogólnoeuropejski modernizm. Nowa generacja uczonych, pisarzy i artystów, działająca w okresie młodopolskim znacząco różniła się w przyjmowanych założeniach filozoficzno-ideowych od pokolenia pozytywistów i realistów krytycznych. Niemniej ukształtowane w pozytywizmie nawyki myślenia nie zanikły po roku 1890 całkowicie – pozostały one (...) indywidualnym a zarazem wspólnym dorobkiem intelektualnym generacji szkół i uczonych wykształconych w dobie pozytywizmu. Postawy światopoglądowe pozytywizmu i modernizmu przenikały się, zaś zasadniczym łączącym je elementem, pomimo programowego buntu modernizmu wobec haseł pozytywistycznych, było zadłużenie wobec naturalizmu. Jednak że schyłkowe lata XIX wieku przynoszą antyscjentystyczne niepokoje, w tym krytykę pozytywistycznego modelu nauki, teorii ewolucjonizmu i jemu właściwego rozumienia postępu, protest przeciwko utylitaryzmowi i odrodzenie metafizyki. […] W polskich pracach z lat 1910–30 poświeconych socjologii L. Gumplowicza interesujące są trzy wątki, wskazujące na kierunek i postać, jaki przybrała recepcja dzieła socjologa z Grazu: zespół wspólne podzielanych przekonań odnośnie genezy systemu Gumplowicza oraz dwie warstwy wartościowania jego dorobku: pozytywna i negatywna. Zatem nasze ujęcie opinii, sądów i ocen sformułowanych przez St. Posnera, M. Szerera, J. St. Bystronia, A. Kraushara oraz F. Mirka pod adresem teorii Gumplowicza będzie miało charakter syntetyzującego przeglądu, uwzględniającego specyfikę stanowisk w kwestiach, które znacząco się od siebie różnią. Ta uwaga odnosi się przede wszystkim do bardzo zindywidualizowanej krytyki spuścizny Gumplowicza. Jako odrębne w tym przeglądzie wyróżnione zostanie stanowisko J. K. Kochanowskiego z uwagi na jego odmienność: oryginalne i twórcze nawiązanie polskiego historyka i socjologa do myśliciela z Grazu. (shrink)

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Svrha i cilj ovog članka sastoji se u pokušaju ukazati na važan doprinosKarola Wojtyle razvoju dijaloga između klasične filozofije i moderne misli, te klasične filozofije i znanosti, posebice na području etike.Pritom se analize oslanjaju poglavito na dio »Lublinskih predavanja« naslovljenih 'Čin i doživljaj' koja je Wojtyla kao mladi docent držao tijekom 1954/55. godine na Filozofskom fakultetu Katoličkog sveučilišta u Lublinu. Ta su predavanja paradigmatična za Wojtylin dijalog sa suvremenom mišlju i znanošću. U njima se Wojtyla bavi razlikom između (...) psihologijskih i etičkih analiza volje kako bi razjasnio strukturu etičkog čina. Temeljem usporedne analize pozicije modernog pravca eksperimentalne psihologije volje i shvaćanja koja susrećemo u Tome Akvinskog, Wojtyli je uspjelo ukazati ne samo na moguće konvergentne točke između tih analiza, nego i na razlike koje su neizbježne. Njegov dijalog sa koncepcijom modernog pravca psihologije volje bio je plodan za osvjetljavanje značenja metafizičke koncepcije volje Tome Akvinskog kao i za razmatranje problema razdvajanja doživljaja i čina u etičkim teorijama I. Kanta i M. Schelera.Ziel und Zweck dieses Artikels liegen in dem Versuch, auf den wichtigen Beitrag Karol Wojtylas zur Entwicklung des Dialogs zwischen der klassischen Philosophie und des modernen Denkens, sowie zwischen der klassischen Philosophie und der Wissenschaft, besonders auf dem Gebiet der Ethik, hinzuweisen.Die Analysen stützen sich vor allem auf den Teil der Lubliner Vorlesungen mit dem Titel Akt und Erlebnis, die er als junger Dozent an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Katholischen Universität Lublin hielt. Diese Vorlesungen sind paradigmatisch für Wojtylas Dialog mit dem modernen Denken und der Wissenschaft. In diesen Vorlesungen befasst sich Wojtyla mit den Unterschieden zwischen den psychologischen und philosophischen Analysen des Willens, um die Struktur des ethischen Aktes zu erklären. Aufgrund der komparativen Analyse der Position der modernen Richtung der eksperimentellen Willenspsychologie und der Auffassungen, denen wir bei Thomas von Aquin begegnen, gelang es Wojtyla nicht nur auf mögliche konvergente Punkte zwischen diesen Analysen hinzuweisen, sondern auch auf die Unterschiede, die unausweichlich sind. Wojtylas Dialog mit der Konzeption der modernen Richtung der Willenspsychologie war fruchtbar sowohl für die Erhellung der Bedeutung der metaphysischen Konzeption des Willens von Thomas von Aquin, als auch für die Erörterung des Problems der Trennung von Erlebnis und Akt in den ethischen Theorien von I. Kant und M. Scheler. (shrink)

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In the past century, nearly all of the biological sciences have been directly affected by discoveries and developments in genetics, a fast-evolving subject with important theoretical dimensions. In this rich and accessible book, Paul Griffiths andKarola Stotz show how the concept of the gene has evolved and diversified across the many fields that make up modern biology. By examining the molecular biology of the 'environment', they situate genetics in the developmental biology of whole organisms, and reveal how the (...) molecular biosciences have undermined the nature/nurture distinction. Their discussion gives full weight to the revolutionary impacts of molecular biology, while rejecting 'genocentrism' and 'reductionism', and brings the topic right up to date with the philosophical implications of the most recent developments in genetics. Their book will be invaluable for those studying the philosophy of biology, genetics and other life sciences. (shrink)

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Not too long ago, neurotechnology was the purview of the clinic and research. In 2011, researchers at Brown University succeeded for the first time in using an implanted sensor in the brain of a pa...

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Recent theories in cognitive science have begun to focus on the active role of organisms in shaping their own environment, and the role of these environmental resources for cognition. Approaches such as situated, embedded, ecological, distributed and particularly extended cognition look beyond ‘what is inside your head’ to the old Gibsonian question of ‘what your head is inside of’ and with which it forms a wider whole—its internal and external cognitive niche. Since these views have been treated as a radical (...) departure from the received view of cognition, their proponents have looked for support to similar extended views within (the philosophy of) biology, most notably the theory of niche construction. This paper argues that there is an even closer and more fruitful parallel with developmental systems theory and developmental niche construction. These ask not ‘what is inside the genes you inherited’, but ‘what the inherited genes are inside of’ and with which they form a wider whole—their internal and external ontogenetic niche, understood as the set of epigenetic, social, ecological, epistemic and symbolic legacies inherited by the organism as necessary developmental resources. To the cognizing agent, the epistemic niche presents itself not just as a partially self-engineered selective niche, as the niche construction paradigm will have it, but even more so as a partially self-engineered ontogenetic niche, a problem-solving resource and scaffold for individual development and learning. This move should be beneficial for coming to grips with our own (including cognitive) nature: what is most distinctive about humans is their developmentally plastic brains immersed into a well-engineered, cumulatively constructed cognitive–developmental niche. (shrink)

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Mobile Health (m-health) technologies, such as wearables, apps, and smartwatches, are increasingly viewed as tools for improving health and well-being. In particular, such technologies are conceptualized as means for laypersons to master their own health, by becoming “engaged” and “empowered” “managers” of their bodies and minds. One notion that is especially prevalent in the discussions around m-health technology is that of empowerment. In this paper, I analyze the notion of empowerment at play in the m-health arena, identifying five elements that (...) are required for empowerment. These are (1) knowledge, (2) control, (3) responsibility, (4) the availability of good choices, and (5) healthy desires. I argue that at least sometimes, these features are not present in the use of these technologies. I then argue that instead of empowerment, it is plausible that m-health technology merely facilitates a feeling of empowerment. I suggest this may be problematic, as it risks placing the burden of health and behavior change solely on the shoulders of individuals who may not be in a position to affect such change. (shrink)

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In her target article, “The End of Personhood,” Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby argues that bioethics as a field should abandon the concept of “person.” She states that for many (inside and outside of bi...

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The linear sequence specification of a gene product is not provided by the target DNA sequence alone but by the mechanisms of gene expressions. The main actors of these mechanisms, proteins and functional RNAs, relay environmental information to the genome with important consequences to sequence selection and processing. This `postgenomic' reality has implications for our understandings of development not as predetermined by genes but as an epigenetic process. Critics of genetic determinism have long argued that the activity of `genes' and (...) hence their contribution to the phenotype depends on intra- and extraorganismal `environmental' elements. As will be shown here, even the mere physical existence of a `gene' is dependent on its phenotypic context. (shrink)

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The paper argues against the central dogma and its interpretation by C. Kenneth Waters and Alex Rosenberg. I argue that certain phenomena in the regulation of gene expression provide a break with the central dogma, according to which sequence specificity for a gene product must be template derived. My thesis of 'molecular epigenesis' with its three classes of phenomena, sequence 'activation', 'selection', and 'creation', is exemplified by processes such as transcriptional activation, alternative cis- and trans-splicing, and RNA editing. It argues (...) that other molecular resources share the causal role of genes; the sequence specificity for the linear sequence of any gene product is distributed between the coding sequence, cis-acting sequences, trans-acting factors, environmental signals, and the contingent history of the cell (thesis of distributed causal specificity). I conclude that the central dogma has unnecessarily restricted genetic research to the sequencing of protein-coding genes, unilinear pathway analyses, and the focus on exclusive specificity. (shrink)

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Transplant surgeons in the USA have begun performing a novel organ procurement protocol in the setting of circulatory death. Unlike traditional donation after circulatory death (DCD) protocols,in situnormothermic perfusion DCD involves reperfusing organs, including the heart, while still contained in the donor body. Some commentators, including the American College of Physicians, have claimed thatin situreperfusion after circulatory death violates the widely accepted Dead Donor Rule (DDR) and conclude thatin situreperfusion is ethically impermissible. In this paper I argue that, in terms (...) of respecting the DDR,in situreperfusion cardiac transplantation does not differ from traditional DCD cardiac transplantation. I do this by introducing and defending a refined conception of circulatory death, namelyvegetative state function permanentism. I also argue against the controversial brain occlusion feature of thein situreperfusion DCD protocol, on the basis that it is ethically unnecessary and generates the problematic appearance of ethical dubiousness. (shrink)

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In their target article, Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) exhort us to stop “focus[ing] on the validity of the criteria for determination of [circulatory] death” and “instead [look at] DCD protoco...

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The paper investigates the effects of a humanoid robot’s online feedback during a tutoring situation in which a human demonstrates how to make a frog jump across a table. Motivated by micro-analytic studies of adult-child-interaction, we investigated whether tutors react to a robot’s gaze strategies while they are presenting an action. And if so, how they would adapt to them. Analysis reveals that tutors adjust typical “motionese” parameters. We argue that a robot – when using adequate online feedback strategies – (...) has at its disposal an important resource with which it could proactively shape the tutor’s presentation and help generate the input from which it would benefit most. These results advance our understanding of robotic “Social Learning” in that they suggest a paradigm shift towards considering human and robot as one interational learning system. Keywords: human-robot-interaction; feedback; adaptation; multimodality; gaze; conversation analysis; social learning; pro-active robot conduct. (shrink)

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The possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids is sometimes viewed as determinative in terms of the moral status such entities possess, and, in turn, in terms of the research protections such entities are due. This commonsense view aligns with a prominent stance in neurology and neuroscience that consciousness admits of degrees. My paper outlines these views and provides an argument for why this picture of correlating degrees of consciousness with moral status and research protections is mistaken. I then provide (...) an alternative account of the correlation between moral status and consciousness, and consider the epistemic ramifications for research protections of this account. (shrink)

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Philosophers and historians of biology have argued that genes are conceptualized differently in different fields of biology and that these differences influence both the conduct of research and the interpretation of research by audiences outside the field in which the research was conducted. In this paper we report the results of a questionnaire study of how genes are conceptualized by biological scientists at the University of Sydney, Australia. The results provide tentative support for some hypotheses about conceptual differences between different (...) fields of biological research. (shrink)

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This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue on “Reconciling Nature and Nurture in Behavior and Cognition Research” and sets its agenda to resolve the 'interactionist' dichotomy of nature as the genetic, and stable, factors of development, and nurture as the environmental, and plastic influences. In contrast to this received view it promotes the idea that all traits, no matter how developmentally fixed or universal they seem, contingently develop out of a single-cell state through the interaction of a (...) multitude of developmental resources that defies any easy, dichotomous separation. It goes on to analyze the necessary ingredients for such a radical, epigenetic account of development, heredity and evolution: 1. A detailed understanding of the epigenetic nature of the regulatory mechanisms of gene expression; 2. The systematical questioning of preconceptions of 'explanatory' categories of behavior, such as 'innate' or 'programmed'; 3. Especially in psychological research the integration of the concepts of 'development' and 'learning', and a richer classification of the concept of 'environment' in the production of behavior; 4. A fuller understanding of the nature of inheritance that transcends the restriction to the genetic material as the sole hereditary unit, and the study of the process of developmental niche construction; and last 5. Taking serious the role of ecology in development and evolution. I hope that an accomplishment of the above task will then lead to a 'postgenomic' synthesis of nature and nurture that conceptualizes 'nature' as the natural phenotypic outcome 'nurtured' by the natural developmental process leading to it. (shrink)

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To contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of climate-friendly organizational behavior, we study the potential of behavioral policy interventions and social norms to foster individual contributions to organizational decarbonization initiatives. We investigate the effects of different types of behavioral policy interventions (default nudges vs. short-term boosts) in isolation and when they are combined with normative appeals to adopt climate-friendly behaviors in an organizational context. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, we find that default nudges generally induced higher (...) individual contributions to organizational carbon compensation programs than short-term boosts. Moreover, injunctive social norm information decreased the effectiveness of both types of behavioral interventions but affected the effectiveness of short-term boosts to a stronger extent than the effectiveness of default nudges. Contributing to the nascent literature on motivating climate change mitigating behaviors in organizational contexts, we additionally explore whether factors such as personality traits, pro-social and pro-environmental beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and the degree of organizational identification exert an influence on the effectiveness of the interventions and provide qualitative insights into participants’ reasoning for their decisions. (shrink)

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Recent years have seen the development of an approach both to general philosophy and philosophy of science often referred to as ‘experimental philosophy’ or just ‘X-Phi’. Philosophers often make or presuppose empirical claims about how people would react to hypothetical cases, but their evidence for claims about what ‘we’ would say is usually very limited indeed. Philosophers of science have largely relied on their more or less intimate knowledge of their field of study to draw hypothetical conclusions about the state (...) of scientific concepts and the nature of conceptual change in science. What they are lacking is some more objective quantitative data supporting their hypotheses. A growing number of philosophers , along with a few psychologists and anthropologists, have tried to remedy this situation by designing experiments aimed at systematically exploring people’s reactions to philosophically important thought experiments or scientists’ use of their scientific concepts. Many of the results have been surprising and some of the conclusions drawn from them have been more than a bit provocative. This symposium attempts to provide a window into this new field of philosophical inquiry and to show how experimental philosophy provides crucial tools for the philosopher and encourages two-way interactions between scientists and philosophers.Keywords: Experimental philosophy; Naturalism; Continuity thesis; Philosophy of science; Quantitative data. (shrink)

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I use a recent ‘experimental philosophy’ study of the concept of the gene conducted by myself and collaborators to discuss the broader epistemological framework within which that research was conducted, and to reflect on the relationship between science, history and philosophy of science, and society.Keywords: Experimental philosophy; Biohumanities; Representing Genes Project; Gene concept; Science criticism; Conceptual ecology.

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Current knowledge about the variety and complexity of the processes that allow regulated gene expression in living organisms calls for a new understanding of genes. A ‘postgenomic’ understanding of genes as entities constituted during genome expression is outlined and illustrated with specific examples that formed part of a survey research instrument developed by two of the authors for an ongoing empirical study of conceptual change in contemporary biology.

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The Narrow Evolutionary Psychology Movement represents itself as a major reorientation of the social/behavioral sciences, a group of sciences previously dominated by something called the ‘Standard Social Science Model’. Narrow Evolutionary Psychology alleges that the SSSM treated the mind, and particularly those aspects of the mind that exhibit cultural variation, as devoid of any marks of its evolutionary history. Adherents of Narrow Evolutionary Psychology often suggest that the SSSM owed more to ideology than to evidence. It was the child of (...) the 1960s, representing a politically motivated insistence on the possibility of changing social arrangements such as gender roles: " ‘Not so long ago jealousy was considered a pointless, archaic institution in need of reform. But like other denials of human nature from the 1960s, this bromide has not aged well.’ ) " This view of history does not ring true to those, like the authors, who have worked in traditions of evolutionary theorizing about the mind that have a continuous history through the 1960s and beyond: traditions such as evolutionary epistemology and psychoevolutionary research into emotion (Griffiths. (shrink)

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This paper understands reductionism as a relation between explanations, not theories. It argues that knowledge of the micro-level behavior of the components of systems is necessary, but only combined with a full specification of the contingent context sufficient for a full explanation of systems phenomena. The paper takes seriously fundamental principles independent and transcendent of the laws of quantum mechanics that govern most of real-world phenomena. It will conclude in showing how the recent postgenomic revolution, taking seriously the physical principle (...) of organization and collective behavior, can be understood as attempting to complement a reductionist investigative strategy with an antireductionist explanatory strategy. (shrink)

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In the last decade it has become en vogue for cognitive comparative psychologists to study animal behavior in an ‘integrated’ fashion to account for both the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’. We will argue that these studies, instead of really integrating the concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, rather cement this old dichotomy. They combine empty nativist interpretation of behavior systems with blatantly environmentalist explanations of learning. We identify the main culprit as the failure to take development seriously. While in some areas (...) of biology interest in the relationship between behavior and development has surged through topics such as extragenetic inheritance, niche construction, and phenotypic plasticity, this has gone almost completely unnoticed in the study of animal behavior in comparative psychology, and is frequently ignored in ethology too. The main aims of this paper are to clarify the relationship between the concepts of learning, experience, and development, and to investigate whether and how all three concepts can be usefully deployed in the study of animal behavior. This will require the full integration of the psychological study of behavior into biology, and of the idea of learning into a wider concept of experience. We lay out how, in a systems view of development, learning may just appear as one among many processes in which experience influences behavior. This new synthesis should help to overcome the age-old dualism between innate and acquired. It thereby opens up the possibility of developing scientifically more fruitful distinctions. (shrink)

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We argue that philosophical and historical research can constitute a ‘Biohumanities’ which deepens our understanding of biology itself; engages in constructive 'science criticism'; helps formulate new 'visions of biology'; and facilitates 'critical science communication'. We illustrate these ideas with two recent 'experimental philosophy' studies of the concept of the gene and of the concept of innateness conducted by ourselves and collaborators.

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According to the mainstream conception of research involving human participants, researchers have been trained scientists acting within institutions and have been the individuals doing the studying, while participants, who are nonscientist members of the public, have been the individuals being studied. The relationship between the public and scientists is evolving, however, giving rise to several new concepts, including crowdsourcing and citizen science. In addition, the practice of gamification has been applied to research protocols. The role of gamified, crowdsourced citizen scientist (...) is new in the domain of scientific research and does not fit into the existing taxonomy of researchers and participants. We delineate and explicate this role and show that, while traditional roles are governed by well‐established norms and regulations, individuals engaged in gamified, crowdsourced citizen science—gamers—fall through the cracks of research protections and regulations. We consider the issues this raises, including exploitation and the absence of responsibility and accountability. Finally, we offer suggestions for how the current lack of appropriate norms may be rectified. (shrink)

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Everyone has heard of ‘epigenetics’, but the term means different things to different researchers. Four important contemporary meanings are outlined in this paper. Epigenetics in its various senses has implications for development, heredity, and evolution, and also for medicine. Concerning development, it cements the vision of a reactive genome strongly coupled to its environment. Concerning heredity, both narrowly epigenetic and broader ‘exogenetic’ systems of inheritance play important roles in the construction of phenotypes. A thoroughly epigenetic model of development and evolution (...) was Waddington’s aim when he introduced the term ‘epigenetics’ in the 1940s, but it has taken the modern development of molecular epigenetics to realize this aim. In the final sections of the paper we briefly outline some further implications of epigenetics for medicine and for the nature/nurture debate. (shrink)

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What kind mechanisms one deems central for the evolutionary process deeply influences one's understanding of the nature of organisms, including cognition. Reversely, adopting a certain approach to the nature of life and cognition and the relationship between them or between the organism and its environment should affect one's view of evolutionary theory. This paper explores this reciprocal relationship in more detail. In particular it argues that the view of living and cognitive systems, especially humans, as deeply integrated beings embedded in (...) and transformed by their genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, ecological, socio-cultural and cognitive-symbolic legacies calls for an extended evolutionary synthesis that goes beyond either a theory of genes juxtaposed against a theory of cultural evolution and or even more sophisticated theories of gene-culture coevolution and niche construction. Environments, particularly in the form of developmental environments, do not just select for variation, they also create new variation by influencing development through the reliable transmission of non-genetic but heritable information. This paper stresses particularly views of embodied, embedded, enacted and extended cognition, and their relationship to those aspects of extended inheritance that lie between genetic and cultural inheritance, the still gray area of epigenetic and behavioral inheritance systems that play a role in parental effect. These are the processes that can be regarded as transgenerational developmental plasticity and that I think can most fruitfully contribute to, and be investigated by, developmental psychology. (shrink)

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In their considered reviews both Thomas Pradeu and Lindell Bromham introduce important topics not sufficiently covered in our book. Pradeu asks us to enlarge on the epigenetic and ecological context of genes, particularly in the form of symbioses. We use the relationship between eukaryotes and their symbiotic organisms as a welcome opportunity to clarify our concept of the developmental niche, and its relationship to the developmental system. Bromham’s comments reveal that she is primarily interested in identifying macroevolutionary patterns. From her (...) vantage point eco-evo-devo, the study of phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic and exogenetic inheritance, have not yet demonstrated the need for any revolutionary change in evolutionary thought. For us they highlight the extent to which proximate developmental mechanisms can inform ultimate biology. (shrink)

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Keller explains the persistence of the nature/nurture debate by a chronic ambiguity in language derived from classical and behavioral genetics. She suggests that the more precise vocabulary of modern molecular genetics may be used to rephrase the underlying questions and hence provide a way out of this controversy. I show that her proposal fits into a long tradition in which other authors have wrestled with the same problem and come to similar conclusions. - Review of 'The mirage of a space (...) between nature and nurture' by Evelyn Fox Keller, Duke University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780822347316. (shrink)

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It is now widely accepted that a scientifically credible conception of human nature must reject the folkbiological idea of a fixed, inner essence that makes us human. We argue here that to understand human nature is to understand the plastic process of human development and the diversity it produces. Drawing on the framework of developmental systems theory and the idea of developmental niche construction we argue that human nature is not embodied in only one input to development, such as the (...) genome, and that it should not be confined to universal or typical human characteristics. Both similarities and certain classes of differences are explained by a human developmental system that reaches well out into the 'environment'. We point to a significant overlap between our account and the ‘Life History Trait Cluster’ account of Grant Ramsey, and defend the developmental systems account against the accusation that trying to encompass developmental plasticity and human diversity leads to an unmanageably complex account of human nature. (shrink)

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We describe an approach to measuring biological information where ‘information’ is understood in the sense found in Francis Crick’s foundational contributions to molecular biology. Genes contain information in this sense, but so do epigenetic factors, as many biologists have recognized. The term ‘epigenetic’ is ambiguous, and we introduce a distinction between epigenetic and exogenetic inheritance to clarify one aspect of this ambiguity. These three heredity systems play complementary roles in supplying information for development. -/- We then consider the evolutionary significance (...) of the three inheritance systems. Whilst the genetic inheritance system was the key innovation in the evolution of heredity, in modern organisms the three systems each play important and complementary roles in heredity and evolution. -/- Our focus in the earlier part of the paper is on ‘proximate biology’, where information is a substantial causal factor that causes organisms to develop and causes offspring to resemble their parents. But much philosophical work has focused on information in ‘ultimate biology’. Ultimate information is a way of talking about the evolutionary design of the mechanisms of development and inheritance. We conclude by clarifying the relationship between the two. Ultimate information is not a causal factor that acts in development or heredity, but it can help to explain the evolution of proximate information, which is. (shrink)

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