Philosophers of becoming

Inevitably, the study of evolution will take a modeling approach, and discussions such as those above, on strange bedfellows , parasitism and tissues, will point to and illuminate the types of relationships and evolutionary mechanisms that should (and must) contribute to the broader study of evolution. Of course, I am not alone among biologists in advocating such an approach, but my most important allies in the struggle to study the complexity of evolution are philosophers, particularly the biophilosophers and the philosophers of becoming who sometimes wear the same hat . 

Finally, Ansell Pearson, virtually a biologist in philosopher s clothing, finds the critique of the philosophers of becoming congenial to his own point of view on mechanism and causal determinism. He tells his reader ... 

James Watt Esqr of Birmingham, inventor of the new Steam engine, and author of a valuable paper in the last volume of the Philosophical Transactions, being desirous of becoming a fellow of the Royal Society, we whose names are hereunto subscribed do, from our personal knowledge, recommend him, as likely to be an useful member...5... 

With greater sophistication of methods of data acquisition, intuition can play a less important role, and a bayesian philosophical approach becomes more important. In contrast to the classical approach to statistics, which is concerned with the distribution of possible measured values about a unique true value, the bayesian approach is concerned with the distribution of possible true values about the measured value at hand—a concept often greeted with hostility by traditional statisticians. 

Since the demise of Logical Positivism the purely normative approach to philosophy of science has been increasingly challenged. Many philosophers of science now consider themselves as naturalists and it becomes a matter of which particular variety they are willing to support. As is well known, one of the central issues in the debate over naturalism concerns whether philosophy offers a privileged standpoint from which to study the nature of science, or whether science is best studied by studying science itself.1... 

Through the engagement with the philosophers of difference, I have become more secure about the role of uncertainty in the process of transformation, and more comfortable with what the poet Keats (1917) calls negative capabihty ... 

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