John Dupré

John Dupré ( born 1952 ) is Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy of Science at the University of Exeter. He is Director of the " Centre for Genomics in Society". Dupré's main area of ​​work is in the philosophy of science of biology. Dupré is allocated along with Nancy Cartwright, Ian Hacking and Patrick Suppes, Stanford school in the philosophy of science. This one of the critical approach to the reductionist ideal of unified science.

Pluralistic metaphysics

Dupré is the reductionism of classical science theory against a pluralist position. This reductionism is dominated by the idea of ​​a unified science. So is the psychology in principle to the (neuro - ) biology, biology to chemistry and the chemistry can be reduced to physics. Since reduction relations are regarded as transitive, should ultimately everything can be due to the physics.

This conception is opposed Dupré pluralism, which states that the special sciences are not allowed to reduce each other, which does not lie in the lack of knowledge, but on the irreducible by Dupré pluralistic structure of the world.

Determinism

A classic argument for reductionism refers to the notion of causality. For each event, there is then a sufficient physical cause. If now is not attributable to psychological or biological conditions on the physical conditions and the physical conditions have already done all the causal work, the psychological or biological conditions appear to be causally ineffective. In the philosophy of mind, this problem is discussed under the name of "mental causation ".

Dupré tries to escape this problem by rejecting determinism. He rejects the premise that there is a sufficient physical cause for each event. The determinism is contrary to the conception of Dupré indeterministic, probabilistic causality. These ideas are heavily influenced by Nancy Cartwright; similar positions represents the philosopher Karl Popper.

Philosophy of Biology

Dupré is also an important critic " biologistic " research programs in the life sciences. The criticism relates particularly to attempt to detect human action, thought and feeling by evolutionary theories, as it is attempted as in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Dupré said that such projects must necessarily remain highly speculative and therefore often more likely to reflect the prejudices of the researchers as subjects in the world.

Another criticism concerns Dupré's handling of biological taxonomy. After Dupré biological classifications are only man-made and are not found in the world. They thus are open to criticism and modification. This is particularly true for the classifications of people - such as race or gender.

Works

• Darwin's legacy. The importance of evolution for the presence of humans ( " Darwin's Legacy "). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-518-58432-4.
• The Disorder of Things. Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts ) 1993, ISBN 0-674-21260-6. Google Books Preview
• Human Nature and the Limits of Science. Clarendon Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-924806-0.
• Humans and Other Animals. Clarendon Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-924709-9.