International Conference and Workshop on Philosophy of Biology and Philosophy of Economics

The philosophy of biology and the philosophy of economics are the two fast-growing sub-disciplines of philosophy of science. This is because not only biology and economics are two recognized and respected fields in science which deal with human beings and life on earth, but also both philosophies of biology and economics reveal different aspects from the traditional philosophy of science.

Philosophy of science had not been systematically developed until the early twentieth century. Through the entire twentieth century, the study of interest is the science of matter or the physical sciences, which includes the fields such as physics, astronomy, geology, and chemistry. As a result, the majority of philosophers of science studied the theories and histories of various physical sciences. From physical sciences they derived rules and solutions of philosophical issues and regarded them as universal. Science, thus, were reduced to as a united science.  

Recently, however, philosophers of science started to cast doubt on the received view proposed by the traditional philosophy of science. They ask: Is it possible that the same methodology, structure, mode and pattern detected in physics exist in biology and economics? If not, does it mean that biology and economics are autonomous, and each has its own rules and methodology?  

In biology, these epistemological questions presuppose an ontological one: Is life a unique category that bears an essential difference from the category of matter? After a long period of study, biologists once and again feel and recognize that living beings appear in structure and behavior to be essentially different from matter, although the constitution of living beings cannot but depend on matter. Living organisms and their parts always appear some certain kind of functional characteristics or goal-directed behaviors -- is it just the essential difference of life from matter? Is it impossible for biology to avoid the teleological features? All those questions are the central problems of both the philosophy of biology in particular and the philosophy of science in general. As Alexander Rosenberg precisely states: 

That physics should have been the chief source of inspiration for theories of the nature of science is natural and obvious. That biology should provide the next target of philosophical scrutiny is equally natural if less obvious. Once having in hand a philosophy of physics, an account of its logic and methodology, its epistemological foundations and metaphysical implications, it is natural to apply this account to another scientific discipline, in particular to one that appears to bear important from physics. If biology fails to measure up to the structure and standards of scientific adequacy that this philosophy has claimed to detect in physics, then there may be something seriously wrong with the philosophy of science in question. If, on the other hand, biology satisfies the strictures on scientific respectability that this philosophy propounds, then its adequacy as an account of all natural science, physical and biological, is vindicated. (Rosenberg (1985), The Structure of Biological Science, pp. 13-14) 

Rosenberg's statement indicates a necessity for us to reconsider the concept of evolution in science. Darwinian theory of evolution, after its development for one hundred and fifty years, has been received as a basic theory for biology, and its explanatory power has been extended to other branches of science and social science—economics is included. What is more important is that it also provides a special structure of theory and a powerful mode of explanation for anything evolving or changing, based on its integration of the concepts of evolution, speciation and selection. The evolution and development of the evolutionary theory itself is also a case of which any meta-theory of theory change should give an account. Can those topics about evolution and the theory of evolution be adequately accounted by the theories stemmed from the traditional philosophy of science? Can the explanatory mode of the theory of evolution be reflexively applied to the evolution and development of theory per se? What is the scope of the application of the theory, as its being a powerful mode of explanation? Can it be extended to the evolution of human behaviors, societies, cultures, intellectual minds, knowledge and theories? Can it be applied to the evolution of economical theories, and the evolution of economical and social systems?  

The issue of the evolution of scientific theories leads to the structure of scientific theories in terms of scientific models. A current trend in the philosophy of science is to save models from the traditional view in which theories play the dominant role. It is argued that models are mediators which are dependent to neither theories nor data. In Mary S. Morgan and Margaret Morrison's (1999) edited volume Models as Mediators, they point out four perspectives for understanding the autonomy of models by inquiring into scientific practices: first, constructing: models are sometimes built independent of theory or data; second, functioning: models function as instruments independent of what they operate on; third, representing: when models function as instruments, they sometimes operate as instruments that represent theories or the world; and, finally, learning: we can learn from practicing the task of modeling. We revisit these issues of modeling in the context biology and economics, and attempt to further explore the role of models on the evolution of scientific theories.  

The model-based view has challenged the traditional 「theory-biased approach in philosophy of science」, in C. Kenneth Waters' term. He points out: 

Philosophers typically assume scientific knowledge is ultimately structured by explanatory reasoning and that research programs in well-established sciences organized around efforts to fill out a central theory and extend its explanatory range. (Waters (2004), 「What was classical genetics?」 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35: 783.)

Waters proposes to consider the investigative reasoning and strategies, which, in his view, has been overlooked in historical and philosophical accounts in classical genetics. Do models play a role in investigative reasoning and strategies? This is a topic interesting us, too.

The conference and workshop aim at informing the participants about the recent development in the theories of models and evolution in the philosophy of science. It will provide balanced views on contemporary issues that will interest both philosophers and scientists alike.