Despite the remarkable successes of molecular biology over the past three quarters of a century, there is growing recognition that organisms must be understood as integrated systems if we are to fully grasp their most distinctive features. Yet considerable uncertainty remains (and, in some quarters, outright skepticism) about how ‘systems thinking’ can actually deepen our understanding of organisms—beyond simply reminding us of such familiar maxims as ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’. In this paper, I draw on the largely forgotten organicist ideas of the experimental and theoretical biologist Paul Weiss (1898–1989) to outline a workable, intuitive, and non-formal systems-oriented conception of the organism, and proceed to illustrate its value and effectiveness across a range of explanatory contexts. Specifically, I argue that a proper understanding of the organism as a system—lucidly anticipated by Weiss more than half a century ago—provides the necessary conceptual resources to diagnose and overcome the problems with four prominent doctrines that remain deeply entrenched in contemporary biology: reductionism, genocentrism, determinism, and mechanicism.
While projects in philosophy of science often focus on similar sorts of topics, there are often massive differences in how philosophers approach them. One approach that has enjoyed significant success—and that is modeled in the work of Wimsatt and others—involves taking a conceptual engineering perspective in analyzing these topics. In this paper, we outline main features of this conceptual engineering approach and use it to advance three emerging claims regarding causal explanation in biology and neuroscience. We suggest that causal explanation in these domains is non-reductive in contrast to always requiring (or improving with) lower-level details, that it is guided by precise explanatory targets in contrast to complete or multidimensional explanatory targets, and that it is pluralist in involving importantly distinct types of causal systems.
This article examines neoteny and regressive evolution in two emblematic amphibian species: Ambystoma mexicanum (axolotl) and Proteus anguinus (olm). Rather than framing larval persistence and trait loss as evolutionary shortcomings, the paper proposes an alternative interpretation in which developmental arrest functions as a viable population-level outcome of selection under specific ecological constraints, rather than as a developmental shortcoming. Drawing on evo–devo literature, endocrine regulation of metamorphosis, and comparative life-history analysis, the study argues that both species exemplify non-teleological evolutionary pathways. By foregrounding strategy over deficiency, the article contributes to broader debates on normativity, progress, and directionality in evolutionary biology.
The metaphor of "scaffolding" originates from developmental psychology, and has become a central theoretical concept that plays explanatory roles in psychology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology. In developmental psychology, the scaffolding process is typically characterized as a child's temporary reliance on external structure in training activities, which leads to long-term transformation of the child's capacities. In recent attempts to clarify this concept for wider usage (e.g., Caporael, Griesemer, and Wimsatt 2014a, b; Neto et al. 2023), the temporariness of dependence on scaffolds is still seen as a typical, if not defining, feature of scaffolding explanations. In this paper, we follow Bill Wimsatt's footsteps (Wimsatt 2014a, 2019; Wimsatt and Griesemer 2007) in examining the development of skills that require complex developmental trajectories. Our cases are jazz improvisation and scientific expertise, both of which are distinctively social and improvisational. We argue that the social scaffolds required to reach the maturity of such expertise are continually required thereafter for maintenance and further development. This is because improvisational training is somewhat indistinguishable from improvisational performance, and performance in social expertise aims at interactions, communications, and rapport between interlocutors.
