Thomas A C Reydon
Biographic Data
| ID | 1043343 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas A C Reydon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas A C |
| FAMILY NAME | Reydon |
| SIGNATURE | REYDON T A C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leibniz University Hannover |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1804-0532 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Scope of Evolutionary Thinking
Evolutionary theory has found its way into a staggeringly large diversity of fields outside the biological sciences. This Element examines how crossovers of evolutionary theory from biology into other fields occur, and in what ways such fields can be meaningfully considered evolutionary fields of research. Cases of crossover of evolutionary theory have so far not been examined systematically by philosophers of science, and this Element aims to st…
Book Symposium
Synchronic species aren’t diachronic species
The debate on the temporal persistence of entities is characterized by the opposition of two principal positions, three-dimensionalism (endurantism) and four-dimensionalism (perdurantism). Some authors have suggested that this opposition is misguided, because three-dimensionalism and four-dimensionalism are metaphysically equivalent accounts of persistence (3D/4D metaphysical equivalence). Recently, the case of biological species has been used as…
Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines
The proper role of history in evolutionary explanations
Evolutionary explanations are not only common in the biological sciences, but also widespread outside biology. But an account of how evolutionary explanations perform their explanatory work is still lacking. This paper develops such an account. I argue that available accounts of explanations in evolutionary science miss important parts of the role of history in evolutionary explanations. I argue that the historical part of evolutionary science sh…
On radical solutions in the philosophy of biology
Grete Henry-Hermann (1901–1984)
How can science be well-ordered in times of crisis? Learning from the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic constituted a crisis situation in which science was very far from Kitcher's ideal of well-ordered science. I suggest that this could and should have been different. Kitcher's ideal should play a role in assessing the allocation of research resources in future crisis situations, as it provides a way to balance highly divergent interests and incorporate the common good into decision-making processes on research
Taxa hold little information about organisms
Searching for Darwinism in Generalized Darwinism
While evolutionary thinking is increasingly becoming popular in fields of investigation outside the biological sciences, it remains unclear how helpful it is there and whether it actually yields good explanations of the phenomena under study. Here we examine the ontology of a recent approach to applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, the generalized Darwinism (GD) approach proposed by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. We examine the…
Artefact Kinds
Darwinism and Organizational Ecology
Recently, Dollimore criticized our claim that Organizational Ecology is not a Darwinian research program. She argued that Organizational Ecology is merely an incomplete Darwinian program and provided a suggestion as to how this incompleteness could be remedied. Here, we argue that Dollimore’s suggestion fails to remedy the principal problem that Organizational Ecology faces and that there are good reasons to think of the program as deeply incompa…
The ICE-theory of technical functions
How-possibly explanations as genuine explanations and helpful heuristics
Organizational Ecology
In a recent article we argued that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program. John Lemos criticized our argumentation on various counts. Here we reply to some of Lemos’s criticisms
Why Organizational Ecology Is Not a Darwinian Research Program
Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed becau…
How to Fix Kind Membership
Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recogniz…
Gene Names as Proper Names of Individuals
According to a recent suggestion, the names of gene taxa should be conceived of as referring to individuals with concrete genes as their parts, just as the names of biological species are often understood as denoting individuals with organisms as their parts. Although prima facie this suggestion might advance the debate on gene concepts in a similar way as the species-are-individuals thesis advanced the debate on species concepts, I argue that th…
Species in three and four dimensions
Generalizations and kinds in natural science
Bridging the Gap Between History and Philosophy of Biology
On the nature of the species problem and the four meanings of ‘species’
Philosophy of Science in Seven Easy Lessons
Why Organizational Ecology Is Not a Darwinian Research Program
Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed becau…
How to Fix Kind Membership
Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recogniz…
On the nature of the species problem and the four meanings of ‘species’
Species in three and four dimensions
Generalizations and kinds in natural science
On radical solutions in the philosophy of biology
Searching for Darwinism in Generalized Darwinism
While evolutionary thinking is increasingly becoming popular in fields of investigation outside the biological sciences, it remains unclear how helpful it is there and whether it actually yields good explanations of the phenomena under study. Here we examine the ontology of a recent approach to applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, the generalized Darwinism (GD) approach proposed by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. We examine the…
How can science be well-ordered in times of crisis? Learning from the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic constituted a crisis situation in which science was very far from Kitcher's ideal of well-ordered science. I suggest that this could and should have been different. Kitcher's ideal should play a role in assessing the allocation of research resources in future crisis situations, as it provides a way to balance highly divergent interests and incorporate the common good into decision-making processes on research
Organizational Ecology
In a recent article we argued that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program. John Lemos criticized our argumentation on various counts. Here we reply to some of Lemos’s criticisms
Taxa hold little information about organisms
Darwinism and Organizational Ecology
Recently, Dollimore criticized our claim that Organizational Ecology is not a Darwinian research program. She argued that Organizational Ecology is merely an incomplete Darwinian program and provided a suggestion as to how this incompleteness could be remedied. Here, we argue that Dollimore’s suggestion fails to remedy the principal problem that Organizational Ecology faces and that there are good reasons to think of the program as deeply incompa…
Gene Names as Proper Names of Individuals
According to a recent suggestion, the names of gene taxa should be conceived of as referring to individuals with concrete genes as their parts, just as the names of biological species are often understood as denoting individuals with organisms as their parts. Although prima facie this suggestion might advance the debate on gene concepts in a similar way as the species-are-individuals thesis advanced the debate on species concepts, I argue that th…
Philosophy of Science in Seven Easy Lessons
Bridging the Gap Between History and Philosophy of Biology
On the nature of the species problem and the four meanings of ‘species’
Generalizations and kinds in natural science
Species in three and four dimensions
Why Organizational Ecology Is Not a Darwinian Research Program
Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed becau…
How to Fix Kind Membership
Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recogniz…
Gene Names as Proper Names of Individuals
According to a recent suggestion, the names of gene taxa should be conceived of as referring to individuals with concrete genes as their parts, just as the names of biological species are often understood as denoting individuals with organisms as their parts. Although prima facie this suggestion might advance the debate on gene concepts in a similar way as the species-are-individuals thesis advanced the debate on species concepts, I argue that th…
Organizational Ecology
In a recent article we argued that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program. John Lemos criticized our argumentation on various counts. Here we reply to some of Lemos’s criticisms
How-possibly explanations as genuine explanations and helpful heuristics
The ICE-theory of technical functions
Artefact Kinds
Darwinism and Organizational Ecology
Recently, Dollimore criticized our claim that Organizational Ecology is not a Darwinian research program. She argued that Organizational Ecology is merely an incomplete Darwinian program and provided a suggestion as to how this incompleteness could be remedied. Here, we argue that Dollimore’s suggestion fails to remedy the principal problem that Organizational Ecology faces and that there are good reasons to think of the program as deeply incompa…
Searching for Darwinism in Generalized Darwinism
While evolutionary thinking is increasingly becoming popular in fields of investigation outside the biological sciences, it remains unclear how helpful it is there and whether it actually yields good explanations of the phenomena under study. Here we examine the ontology of a recent approach to applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, the generalized Darwinism (GD) approach proposed by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. We examine the…
Taxa hold little information about organisms
Grete Henry-Hermann (1901–1984)
How can science be well-ordered in times of crisis? Learning from the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic constituted a crisis situation in which science was very far from Kitcher's ideal of well-ordered science. I suggest that this could and should have been different. Kitcher's ideal should play a role in assessing the allocation of research resources in future crisis situations, as it provides a way to balance highly divergent interests and incorporate the common good into decision-making processes on research
On radical solutions in the philosophy of biology
Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines
The proper role of history in evolutionary explanations
Evolutionary explanations are not only common in the biological sciences, but also widespread outside biology. But an account of how evolutionary explanations perform their explanatory work is still lacking. This paper develops such an account. I argue that available accounts of explanations in evolutionary science miss important parts of the role of history in evolutionary explanations. I argue that the historical part of evolutionary science sh…
The Scope of Evolutionary Thinking
Evolutionary theory has found its way into a staggeringly large diversity of fields outside the biological sciences. This Element examines how crossovers of evolutionary theory from biology into other fields occur, and in what ways such fields can be meaningfully considered evolutionary fields of research. Cases of crossover of evolutionary theory have so far not been examined systematically by philosophers of science, and this Element aims to st…
Book Symposium
Synchronic species aren’t diachronic species
The debate on the temporal persistence of entities is characterized by the opposition of two principal positions, three-dimensionalism (endurantism) and four-dimensionalism (perdurantism). Some authors have suggested that this opposition is misguided, because three-dimensionalism and four-dimensionalism are metaphysically equivalent accounts of persistence (3D/4D metaphysical equivalence). Recently, the case of biological species has been used as…
Epistemology (21 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (15 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Biology (9 works) · Ecology (8 works) · Philosophy of science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (6 works)