John Dupré
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 322329 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | John Dupré |
| NOMBRES | John |
| APELLIDO | Dupré |
| FIRMA | DUPRÉ J |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7451-2127 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 64 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 115 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 63 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1970 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
The gendered “stathetic” body
Everyone Flows
This book explains why we should understand the world in general and life in particular not, as is still commonly supposed, as composed of things made of smaller things, the latter arranged into mechanisms, but as a hierarchy of processes. As such, life is constantly dynamic and active. The book illustrates this view with a detailed consideration of two especially important kinds of living process, the organism, the individual living entity, and …
Disorder
This paper begins with some brief intellectual autobiography, recalling my first engagement with philosophy of biology. The substantive part of the paper then focuses on the plurality of possible classifications central to the theses of scientific disunity and metaphysical disorder developed in my early career. After discussing this in terms of biological classification, and introducing the reasons for thinking of classifications as typically val…
Process
In this paper I discuss the process ontology that has been the central focus of my research for almost 20 years. I explain what this is, and illustrate how it applies to biology through the example of the organism. I also aim to show how naturally process ontology fits with the disordered world I described in the preceding article. Finally, I show how process philosophy illuminates a number of topics relating to the human condition, including per…
Everyone Flows
Humans and Their Fellow Travellers
This chapter outlines some recent insights into the omnipresence in life of symbiosis. The human, in particular, is not composed entirely or even mostly of ‘human’ cells, but is host to trillions of microbial passengers. How should we think of these? Are they transitory passengers, or are they integral parts of us? If the latter, what does this say about how we determine the boundaries of the individual? Might even some viruses be parts of the hu…
Afterword
The Disunity of Science and the Unity of the World Presidential Address, PSA 2022
This paper recapitulates earlier work in which I argued for the disunity of science, the plurality of partly incommensurable ways in which the world can be conceptualised for scientific purposes. It then aims to show how this plurality is intelligible, even to be expected, from the perspective of a process philosophy that sees the world as largely disorganised, but as allowing the emergence of pockets of stability, most notably the stability prov…
Causally powerful processes
Processes produce changes: rivers erode their banks and thunderstorms cause floods. If I am right that organisms are a kind of process, then the causally efficacious behaviours of organisms are also examples of processes producing change. In this paper I shall try to articulate a view of how we should think of causation within a broadly processual ontology of the living world. Specifically, I shall argue that causation, at least in a central clas…
Everything Flows
This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not ontologically made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organized as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are…
Genomics
Genomics is science concerned with the sequencing and analysis of the genome, the full genetic contents of a cell. It has a number of important applications, ranging from phylogenetics to forensics, based on the possibility of comparing genome sequences. It is also a central component of efforts in “systems biology” to understand the complexities of cellular function. More broadly, it is sometimes seen as superseding a reductionist conception of …
Managing the transition to open access publishing
To manage the transition to the open access (OA) model of scholarly publishing, we need to understand better what enables, encourages and inhibits the adoption of OA publishing among scientists, and to appreciate individual differences within disciplines. The study adopts a psychological perspective to elucidate motivations, capabilities and opportunities for OA publishing among bioscientists in the UK. To identify differences within the discipli…
How Do Scientists Define Openness? Exploring the Relationship Between Open Science Policies and Research Practice
This article documents how biomedical researchers in the United Kingdom understand and enact the idea of “openness.” This is of particular interest to researchers and science policy worldwide in view of the recent adoption of pioneering policies on Open Science and Open Access by the U.K. government—policies whose impact on and implications for research practice are in need of urgent evaluation, so as to decide on their eventual implementation el…
Regional differences in milk and complementary feeding patterns in infants participating in an international nutritional type 1 diabetes prevention trial
Differences in breastfeeding, other milk feeding and complementary feeding patterns were evaluated in infants at increased genetic risk with and without maternal type 1 diabetes (T1D). The Trial to Reduce IDDM in the Genetically at Risk is an international nutritional primary prevention double-blinded randomized trial to test whether weaning to extensively hydrolyzed vs. intact cow's milk protein formula will decrease the development of T1D-assoc…
Viruses as living processes
Understanding viruses
Social Science
This article argues, in opposition to a common interpretation of Wittgenstein deriving from Winch, that there is nothing especially problematic about the social sciences. Familiar Wittgensteinian theses about language, notably on the open-endedness of linguistic rules and on the importance of family resemblance concepts, have great relevance not only to the social sciences but also to much of the natural sciences. The differences between scientif…
Use of vitamin D supplements during infancy in an international feeding trial
Objective To examine the use of vitamin D supplements during infancy among the participants in an international infant feeding trial. Design Longitudinal study. Setting Information about vitamin D supplementation was collected through a validated FFQ at the age of 2 weeks and monthly between the ages of 1 month and 6 months. Subjects Infants ( n 2159) with a biological family member affected by type 1 diabetes and with increased human leucocyte a…
Elliott Sober Did Darwin Write The Origin Backwards? Philosophical Essays on Darwin’s Theory
Processes of LifeEssays in the Philosophy of Biology
John Dupre explores recent revolutionary developments in biology and considers their relevance for our understanding of human nature and society. He reveals how the advance of genetic science is changing our view of the constituents of life.
The Polygenomic Organism
Research supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Across the Boundaries
Book Review| January 01 2010 Across the Boundaries: Extrapolation in Biology and Social Science Daniel P. Steel, Across the Boundaries: Extrapolation in Biology and Social Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 256 pp. John Dupré John Dupré Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2010) 119 (1): 123–126. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2009-034 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitte…
The Human Genome, Human Evolution, and Gender
Human nature without essentialism
A fine book, but who’s it for
Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa
No description available
Scientific Classification
It is often supposed that one of the goods delivered by successful science is the right way of classifying the things in the world.Surely there is something right about this: any body of scientific knowledge will include ways of classifying, and will not serve its intended aims unless the classifications it embodies reflect real differences and similarities in the world.The standard paradigm for such a successful scientific classification is the …
In defence of classification
Viruses as living processes
Causally powerful processes
Processes produce changes: rivers erode their banks and thunderstorms cause floods. If I am right that organisms are a kind of process, then the causally efficacious behaviours of organisms are also examples of processes producing change. In this paper I shall try to articulate a view of how we should think of causation within a broadly processual ontology of the living world. Specifically, I shall argue that causation, at least in a central clas…
From molecules to systems
On Human Nature
There is another record in ORE for this article: http://hdl.handle.net/10036/47826
On work and idleness
In this essay we review a number of important historical and everyday conceptions of work, which reveal both the diversity of such conceptions, and also deep tensions, especially between positive (self-fulfilling, sociable) aspects of work and negative (laborious, exploitative) aspects. Due attention to these complexities suggests great caution in deciding how domestic work, including caring work, should be seen in relation to other kinds of work…
Sex, Gender, and Essence
Understanding viruses
The Human Genome, Human Evolution, and Gender
The Lure of the Simplistic
This paper attacks the perennial philosophical and scientific quest for a simple and unified vision of the world. Without denying the attraction of this vision, I argue that such a goal often seriously distorts our understanding of complex phenomena. The argument is illustrated with reference to simplistic attempts to provide extremely general views of biology, and especially of human nature, through the theory of evolution. Although that theory …
Promiscuous Realism
This paper presents a brief response to Robert A. Wilson's critical discussion of Promiscuous Realism [1996]. I argue that, although convergence on a unique conception of species cannot be ruled out, the evidence against such an outcome is stronger than Wilson allows. In addition, given the failure of biological science to come up with a unique and privileged set of biological kinds, the relevance of the various overlapping kinds of ordinary lang…
Social Science
This article argues, in opposition to a common interpretation of Wittgenstein deriving from Winch, that there is nothing especially problematic about the social sciences. Familiar Wittgensteinian theses about language, notably on the open-endedness of linguistic rules and on the importance of family resemblance concepts, have great relevance not only to the social sciences but also to much of the natural sciences. The differences between scientif…
Introducing Nature after the Genome
Towards a philosophy of microbiology
Human Kinds and Biological Kinds
This paper compares human diversity with biological diversity generally. Drawing on the pluralistic perspective on biological species defended in earlier work (2002, chs. 3 and 4), I argue that there are useful parallels to be drawn between human and animal kinds, as there are between their respective sources in cultural evolution and evolution generally. This view is developed in opposition to the insistence by sociobiologists and their successo…
Evolution and Gender
Dupre ́ considers recent attempts to explain gendered difference in human behaviour by an appeal to evolutionary theory, particularly in the context of the recent programme of 'evolutionary psychology'. It argues that the fundamental assumptions of this programme are unsupported and implausible, and the attempt it offers of providing a universal account of human behaviour does little or nothing to counter the prima facie diversity of gender diffe…
How the Mind Works . Steven Pinker
A Note From the President
Hommage Du President
Federalism and Policy Development
In 1966 the Canadian government announced the abrupt termination of a longstanding conditional grant relationship with the provinces in the domain of technical and vocational education. It sought to substitute a radically new arrangement whereby it would purchase occupational training for adults as an integral part of an over-all manpower policy. This book examines what ensued with particular reference to the province of Ontario and offers unique…
Federalism and Policy Development
Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa
No description available
Sex, Gender, and Essence
Evolution as Entropy
Optimization in Question
Probabilistic Causality. Ellery Eells
The philosophical basis of biological classification
The Disorder of Things
On work and idleness
In this essay we review a number of important historical and everyday conceptions of work, which reveal both the diversity of such conceptions, and also deep tensions, especially between positive (self-fulfilling, sociable) aspects of work and negative (laborious, exploitative) aspects. Due attention to these complexities suggests great caution in deciding how domestic work, including caring work, should be seen in relation to other kinds of work…
The Advancement of Science
Philip Kitcher resurrects notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of the growth of knowledge and overreactions to philosophical idealizations
Promiscuous Realism
This paper presents a brief response to Robert A. Wilson's critical discussion of Promiscuous Realism [1996]. I argue that, although convergence on a unique conception of species cannot be ruled out, the evidence against such an outcome is stronger than Wilson allows. In addition, given the failure of biological science to come up with a unique and privileged set of biological kinds, the relevance of the various overlapping kinds of ordinary lang…
How the Mind Works . Steven Pinker
What the theory of evolution can’t tell us
The Social Construction of What
The Social Construction of What
Often lost in the debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what is being constructed. Particularly troublesome in this area is the status of the natural sciences, where there is conflict between biological and social approaches to mental illness, and in other areas. Ian Hacking looks at the issue of child abuse, and examines the ways in which advanced research on new weapons influences not the content but the form of sci…
"Comments on Terry Eagleton's "Base and Superstructure Revisited
Copyright © 2000 New Literary History, University of Virginia. This article first appeared in New Literary History, Volume 31, Issue 2, Spring, 2000, pages 241-245. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press
In Defence of the Baldwin Effect
Human Nature and the Limits of Science
This book applies to the study of human nature the generally pluralistic metaphysics and methodology developed in the author's earlier work. It begins with detailed criticism of two popular projects for understanding human nature, evolutionary psychology, and rational‐choice theory. The argument shows how the flaws in these projects reflect deep misconceptions about the nature and the legitimate ambitions of science. Such scientific theories nece…
In defence of classification
Evolution and Gender
Dupre ́ considers recent attempts to explain gendered difference in human behaviour by an appeal to evolutionary theory, particularly in the context of the recent programme of 'evolutionary psychology'. It argues that the fundamental assumptions of this programme are unsupported and implausible, and the attempt it offers of providing a universal account of human behaviour does little or nothing to counter the prima facie diversity of gender diffe…
Is 'Natural Kind' a Natural Kind Term?
Is 'Natural Kind' a Natural Kind Term? Get access John Dupré John Dupré University of Exeter Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar The Monist, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 January 2002, Pages 29–49, https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/85.1.29 Published: 16 December 2014
Humans and Other Animals
John Dupré explores the ways in which we categorize animals, including humans, and comes to refreshingly radical conclusions. He opposes the idea that there is only one legitimate way of classifying things in the natural world, the 'scientific' way. The lesson we should learn from Darwin is to reject the idea that each organism has an essence that determines its necessary place in the unique hierarchy of things. Nature is not like that: it is not…
Philosophy (36 obras) · Epistemology (35 obras) · Computer Science (27 obras) · Sociology (20 obras) · Biology (19 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (17 obras) · Political science (13 obras) · Philosophy (11 obras) · Evolution and Science Education (9 obras) · Law (9 obras)