Ulrich E Stegmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 1051748 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ulrich E Stegmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ulrich E |
| FAMILY NAME | Stegmann |
| SIGNATURE | STEGMANN U E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Aberdeen |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
From lay to scientific cognition
Continuity views of the relation between lay and scientific cognition hold that the basic cognitive abilities of scientists are not much different from those of laypeople. Recent psychological studies revealed strong candidate examples of continuity, involving lay visual cognition and pre-evolutionary homologies. Here we investigate the possibility that historical naturalists discovered homologies due to their own lay abilities. We will argue tha…
Medical toolkit organisms and Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified interest in animals with superior antiviral defences. I argue that the role of such animals in biomedical research contrasts with the role of disease models
Scientific modelling with diagrams
Diagrams can serve as representational models in scientific research, yet important questions remain about how they do so. I address some of these questions with a historical case study, in which diagrams were modified extensively in order to elaborate an early hypothesis of protein synthesis. The diagrams’ modelling role relied mainly on two features: diagrams were modified according to syntactic rules, which temporarily replaced physico-chemica…
Physical models and embodied cognition
Philosophers have recently paid more attention to the physical aspects of scientific models. The attention is motivated by the prospect that a model’s physical features strongly affect its use and that this suggests re-thinking modelling in terms of extended or distributed cognition. This paper investigates two ways in which physical features of scientific models affect their use and it asks whether modelling is an instance of extended cognition.…
Genetic Coding’ Reconsidered
This article reconsiders the theoretical role of the genetic code. By drawing on published and unpublished sources from the 1950s, I analyse how the code metaphor was actually employed by the scientists who first promoted its use. The analysis shows that the term ‘code’ picked out mechanism sketches, consisting of more or less detailed descriptions of ordinary molecular components, processes, and structural properties of the mechanism of protein …
What can natural selection explain
BRIAN Garvey Philosophy of Biology
A Consumer-Based Teleosemantics for Animal Signals
Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan's teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal-producing and signal-consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny's proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes y…
DNA, Inference, and Information
This paper assesses Sarkar's ([2003]) deflationary account of genetic information. On Sarkar's account, genes carry information about proteins because protein synthesis exemplifies what Sarkar calls a ‘formal information system’. Furthermore, genes are informationally privileged over non-genetic factors of development because only genes enter into arbitrary relations to their products (in virtue of the alleged arbitrariness of the genetic code). …
Genetic Information as Instructional Content
The concept of genetic information is controversial because it attributes semantic properties to what seem to be ordinary biochemical entities. I argue that nucleic acids contain information in a semantic sense, but only about a limited range of effects. In contrast to other recent proposals, however, I analyze genetic information not in terms of a naturalized account of biological functions, but instead in terms of the way in which molecules det…
Genetic Information as Instructional Content
The concept of genetic information is controversial because it attributes semantic properties to what seem to be ordinary biochemical entities. I argue that nucleic acids contain information in a semantic sense, but only about a limited range of effects. In contrast to other recent proposals, however, I analyze genetic information not in terms of a naturalized account of biological functions, but instead in terms of the way in which molecules det…
A Consumer-Based Teleosemantics for Animal Signals
Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan's teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal-producing and signal-consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny's proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes y…
Physical models and embodied cognition
Philosophers have recently paid more attention to the physical aspects of scientific models. The attention is motivated by the prospect that a model’s physical features strongly affect its use and that this suggests re-thinking modelling in terms of extended or distributed cognition. This paper investigates two ways in which physical features of scientific models affect their use and it asks whether modelling is an instance of extended cognition.…
What can natural selection explain
Genetic Coding’ Reconsidered
This article reconsiders the theoretical role of the genetic code. By drawing on published and unpublished sources from the 1950s, I analyse how the code metaphor was actually employed by the scientists who first promoted its use. The analysis shows that the term ‘code’ picked out mechanism sketches, consisting of more or less detailed descriptions of ordinary molecular components, processes, and structural properties of the mechanism of protein …
DNA, Inference, and Information
This paper assesses Sarkar's ([2003]) deflationary account of genetic information. On Sarkar's account, genes carry information about proteins because protein synthesis exemplifies what Sarkar calls a ‘formal information system’. Furthermore, genes are informationally privileged over non-genetic factors of development because only genes enter into arbitrary relations to their products (in virtue of the alleged arbitrariness of the genetic code). …
Genetic Information as Instructional Content
The concept of genetic information is controversial because it attributes semantic properties to what seem to be ordinary biochemical entities. I argue that nucleic acids contain information in a semantic sense, but only about a limited range of effects. In contrast to other recent proposals, however, I analyze genetic information not in terms of a naturalized account of biological functions, but instead in terms of the way in which molecules det…
A Consumer-Based Teleosemantics for Animal Signals
Ethological theory standardly attributes representational content to animal signals. In this article I first assess whether Ruth Millikan's teleosemantic theory accounts for the content of animal signals. I conclude that it does not, because many signals do not exhibit the required sort of cooperation between signal-producing and signal-consuming devices. It is then argued that Kim Sterelny's proposal, while not requiring cooperation, sometimes y…
DNA, Inference, and Information
This paper assesses Sarkar's ([2003]) deflationary account of genetic information. On Sarkar's account, genes carry information about proteins because protein synthesis exemplifies what Sarkar calls a ‘formal information system’. Furthermore, genes are informationally privileged over non-genetic factors of development because only genes enter into arbitrary relations to their products (in virtue of the alleged arbitrariness of the genetic code). …
What can natural selection explain
BRIAN Garvey Philosophy of Biology
Genetic Coding’ Reconsidered
This article reconsiders the theoretical role of the genetic code. By drawing on published and unpublished sources from the 1950s, I analyse how the code metaphor was actually employed by the scientists who first promoted its use. The analysis shows that the term ‘code’ picked out mechanism sketches, consisting of more or less detailed descriptions of ordinary molecular components, processes, and structural properties of the mechanism of protein …
Physical models and embodied cognition
Philosophers have recently paid more attention to the physical aspects of scientific models. The attention is motivated by the prospect that a model’s physical features strongly affect its use and that this suggests re-thinking modelling in terms of extended or distributed cognition. This paper investigates two ways in which physical features of scientific models affect their use and it asks whether modelling is an instance of extended cognition.…
Medical toolkit organisms and Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified interest in animals with superior antiviral defences. I argue that the role of such animals in biomedical research contrasts with the role of disease models
Scientific modelling with diagrams
Diagrams can serve as representational models in scientific research, yet important questions remain about how they do so. I address some of these questions with a historical case study, in which diagrams were modified extensively in order to elaborate an early hypothesis of protein synthesis. The diagrams’ modelling role relied mainly on two features: diagrams were modified according to syntactic rules, which temporarily replaced physico-chemica…
From lay to scientific cognition
Continuity views of the relation between lay and scientific cognition hold that the basic cognitive abilities of scientists are not much different from those of laypeople. Recent psychological studies revealed strong candidate examples of continuity, involving lay visual cognition and pre-evolutionary homologies. Here we investigate the possibility that historical naturalists discovered homologies due to their own lay abilities. We will argue tha…
Computer Science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Philosophy of science (4 works) · Biology (3 works) · Cognitive science (3 works)