Case Studies for a General Account of Biological Kinds

不同类型的生物学家通过丰富的类别和分组，在各自领域的解释和预测中团结起来。熊猫是一种动物，这就解释了为什么它吃竹子，而它们特殊的饮食偏好有助于预测它们将随着竹林的破坏而减少。另一个例子是哺乳动物的通气肺通过动物模型的研究来解释人类的生理学。哲学家们把这种具有解释性和预测性的丰富范畴称为“自然类”。这个概念是最近哲学辩论的焦点。在物理科学中，自然种类经常通过被分类的对象的潜在结构来接近。例如，某样东西之所以是金，是因为它具有特定的原子结构。相比之下，来自生物科学的类别在很大程度上抵制这种结构化处理。似乎并没有一个所有熊猫都共有的“底层结构”。在生物学哲学中，大部分的注意力都集中在像物种这样的魅力类别上，以及如何解释它们的客观性。该项目的目的是研究三个范围的案例研究：细胞/组织类型，器官类型和微生物生态。这些情况在很大程度上没有引起哲学的注意。关注它们的目的是为了构建一个更普遍和灵活的生物种类解释。我们希望通过对更广泛的生物学实践的仔细考察，能够更好地理解生物学分类及其对我们重要的不同解释和预测项目的贡献。PI将聘请两名来自生物学和哲学的本科生研究助理，他们将协助收集案例研究的材料，并根据他们的需求进行平行的研究项目。具体的才能和兴趣，从而获得宝贵的研究学习经验。

Biologists of various stripes are united in approaching explanation and prediction in their respective fields via a rich stock of categories and groupings. That some animal is a panda explains why it eats bamboo, and their particular dietary preferences serves to facilitate the prediction that they will decline as bamboo forests are destroyed. Another example is the way in which mammals' ventilation lungs of serves to explain human physiology through the study of animal models. Philosophers have called such explanatorily and predictively rich categories "natural kinds". That concept is the locus of recent philosophical debates.Within the physical sciences, natural kinds are often approached via the underlying structure of the objects categorized. Something is gold, for example, in virtue of having a particular atomic structure. By contrast, categories from the biological sciences have largely resisted this kind of structural treatment. There simply does not seem to be an "underlying structure" common to all pandas. Within the philosophy of biology, the lion's share of attention has gone to charismatic categories like species and how to account for their objectivity. The aim of this project will be to examine three ranges of case studies: cell/tissue types, organ types, and microbial ecologies. These cases have largely escaped philosophical attention. The aim of focusing on them is to construct a more general and flexible account of biological kinds. It is expected that a close inspection of a wider range of biological practice will lead to a better understanding of biological classification and its contribution to the different explanatory and predictive projects that are important to us.The PI will employ two undergraduate student research assistants from biology and philosophy who will assist with gathering material for the case studies and who will pursue parallel research projects according to their specific talents and interests and thereby gain a valuable research learning experience.