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Ingo Brigandt
Department of Philosophy
2-40 Assiniboia Hall
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E7
Canada
E-mail: brigandt@ualberta.ca
Office:
3-49 Assiniboia Hall
Phone: (780) 492-0623
My work combines the history and philosophy of biology with epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language by attempting to understand scientific practice and concept use (including its historical change) from an epistemological and semantic point of view.
I am particularly interested in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and its 19th and 20th century antecedents.
My recent research includes theories of concepts, the rationality of semantic change, how the context-sensitive use of scientific terms supports successful practice, integrating different approaches and explanations in evolutionary and developmental biology, and non-reduction in biology.
See the CV below for my publications and funded research projects. You can also download my dissertation A Theory of Conceptual Advance.
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Academic Appointments
Education
| 2000 – 2006 |
Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
(Co-Advisors:
Paul Griffiths, Anil Gupta)
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M.A. in Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh (awarded 2005) |
| 1995 – 1999 |
M.Sc. equivalent in Mathematics, University of Konstanz (Germany) |
Recent Teaching
| Fall 2009 |
PHIL 265 Philosophy of Science
[syllabus] |
| Winter 2009 |
PHIL 412/510 Overview of Primary Literature in Philosophy of Science
[syllabus] |
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PHIL 217 Biology, Society, and Values
[syllabus] |
| Fall 2008 |
PHIL 386 Philosophy and Health Care
[syllabus] |
| Winter 2008 |
PHIL 415/510 Overview of Primary Literature in Philosophy of Biology
[syllabus] |
| Winter 2007 |
PHIL 317 Philosophy of Biology
[syllabus] |
Journal Articles
Brigandt, I. “Scientific reasoning is material inference: combining confirmation, discovery, and explanation.”
Forthcoming in International Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
[penultimate draft]
Brigandt, I. “The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation.”
Forthcoming in Synthese. [penultimate draft,
published article]
Brigandt, I. “Beyond reduction and pluralism: toward an epistemology of explanatory integration in biology.”
Forthcoming in Erkenntnis. [penultimate draft]
Wilson, R. A., M. J. Barker and I. Brigandt “When traditional essentialism fails:
biological natural kinds.” Forthcoming in Philosophical Topics 35(1&2).
[preprint]
Brigandt, I. (2009) “Natural kinds in evolution and systematics:
metaphysical and epistemological considerations.”
Acta Biotheoretica 57: 77–97.
[penultimate draft,
published article]
Assis, L. C. S. and I. Brigandt (2009) “Homology: homeostatic property cluster kinds in systematics and evolution.”
Evolutionary Biology 36: 248–255.
[penultimate draft,
published article]
Brigandt, I. and A. C. Love (2008) “Reductionism in biology.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology
[discussion thread on the article]
Brigandt, I. (2007) “Typology now: homology and developmental constraints
explain evolvability.” Biology and Philosophy 22: 709–725.
[preprint,
published article,
discussion of article by Jamniczky 2008]
Brigandt, I. (2006) “Homology and heterochrony: the evolutionary embryologist
Gavin Rylands de Beer (1899-1972).” Journal of Experimental Zoology
(Molecular and Developmental Evolution) 306B: 317–328.
[preprint,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2005) “The instinct concept of the early Konrad Lorenz.”
Journal of the History of Biology 38: 571–608.
[penultimate draft,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2003) “Species pluralism does not imply species eliminativism.”
Philosophy of Science 70: 1305–1316.
[preprint,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2003) “Homology in comparative, molecular, and evolutionary developmental biology: the radiation of a concept.”
Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution) 299B: 9–17.
[preprint,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2003) “Gestalt experiments and inductive observations: Konrad Lorenz's
early epistemological writings and the methods of classical ethology.”
Evolution and Cognition 9: 157–170.
[preprint]
Brigandt, I. (2002) “Homology and the origin of correspondence.”
Biology and Philosophy 17: 389–407.
[penultimate draft,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2001) “The homeopathy of kin selection: an evaluation of van den Berghe's sociobiological approach
to ethnicity.” Politics and the Life Sciences 20: 203–215.
[published article]
Brigandt, I. (2001) “Quantifier elimination in tame infinite p-adic fields.”
The Journal of Symbolic Logic 66: 1493–1503.
[preprint,
published article]
Essays in Edited Volumes
Brigandt, I. “Philosophy of biology” [9,300 words].
Forthcoming in: The Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science. S. French and J. Saatsi (eds),
Continuum Press, London.
Brigandt, I. “Jenseits des Neo-Darwinismus? Neuere Entwicklungen in der Evolutionsbiologie” [6,500 words],
“Instinkt und Intellekt” [1,100 words] and “Homologie” [1,100 words].
Forthcoming in: Handbuch Evolution. P. Sarasin, M. Sommer and T. P. Weber (eds),
J. B. Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart.
Brigandt, I. “Kreationismus und Intelligent Design.” Forthcoming in: Handbuch Evolution.
P. Sarasin, M. Sommer and T. P. Weber (eds), J. B. Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart.
[penultimate draft]
Brigandt, I. and P. E. Griffiths (2007) “The importance of homology for biology and philosophy”
(Editors' introduction to the special issue). Biology and Philosophy 22: 633–641.
[preprint,
published article]
Brigandt, I. (2005) “La prima fase dello sviluppo teorico di Konrad Lorenz e
i fattori motivanti del suo concetto di istinto” [The early theoretical
development of Konrad Lorenz and the motivating factors behind his instinct concept].
In: Konrad Lorenz cent'anni dopo: L'eredità scientifica del padre dell'etologia.
M. Celentano and M. Stanzione (eds), Rubbettino Editore, Soveria Mannelli, pp. 47–69.
[English version draft]
Brigandt, I. (2004) “Holism, concept individuation, and conceptual change.”
In: Proceedings of the 4th Congress of the Spanish Society
for Analytic Philosophy, M. Hernandez Iglesias (ed),
Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, pp. 30–34.
[preprint]
Brigandt, I. (2004) “Biological kinds and the causal theory of reference.”
In: Experience and Analysis: Papers of the 27th
International Wittgenstein Symposium, J. C. Marek and
M. E. Reicher (eds), Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society,
Kirchberg am Wechsel, pp. 58–60.
[preprint]
Volumes Edited
Brigandt, I. and P. E. Griffiths (eds) (2007) The Importance of Homology for Biology and Philosophy.
Special issue of the journal Biology and Philosophy (Volume 22, Number 5).
[preprints,
published articles,
discussion thread on the special issue]
Review Essays and Symposia
Brigandt, I. “Accounting for vertebrate limbs: from Owen's homology to novelty in evo-devo.” Review essay of
Richard Owen's On the Nature of Limbs: A Discourse edited by Ron Amundson, University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Forthcoming in Philosophy & Theory in Biology.
Love, A. C., I. Brigandt, K. Stotz, D. Schweitzer and A. Rosenberg (2008) “More worry and less love?”
Review symposium of Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology
by Alex Rosenberg, University of Chicago Press, 2006. Metascience 17: 1–26.
[published symposium]
Brigandt, I. (2006) “Philosophical issues in experimental biology.” Review essay of
The Philosophy of Experimental Biology by Marcel Weber, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Biology and Philosophy 21: 423–435.
[penultimate draft,
published article]
Book Reviews
Brigandt, I. (2008) Review of The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility
of Thought by Peter Carruthers, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Philosophy in Review / Comptes rendus philosophiques 28: 246–248.
Brigandt, I. (2007) Review of From Embryology to Evo-Devo: A History of Developmental Evolution edited by
Manfred Laubichler and Jane Maienschein, MIT Press, 2007. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29: 529–531.
Brigandt, I. (2007) Review of Reductionism in the Philosophy of Science by Christian Sachse, Ontos, 2007.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007.09.01.
Brigandt, I. (2007) Review of Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived
Alternatives by P. Kyle Stanford, Oxford University Press, 2006. Isis 98: 435–436.
Brigandt, I. (2005) Review of Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution:
Taking Development Seriously by Jason Robert, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Philosophy of Science 72: 650–653.
Brigandt, I. (2005) Review of The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary
Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo by Ron Amundson, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
American Journal of Human Biology 17: 670–672.
Brigandt, I. (2003) Review of Causation and Explanation by Stathis Psillos, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.
Philosophy of Science 70: 844–846.
Brigandt, I. (2003) Review of The Mind's Arrows: Bayes Nets and
Graphical Causal Models in Psychology by Clark Glymour, MIT Press, 2001.
Erkenntnis 59: 136–140.
Brigandt, I. (2002) “The Linnean tradition under attack.”
Review of The Poverty of the Linnean Hierarchy: A Philosophical
Study of Biological Taxonomy by Marc Ereshefsky, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Metascience 11: 355–358.
Brigandt, I. (2002) Review of What Functions Explain: Functional Explanation
and Self-Reproducing Systems by Peter McLaughlin, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Erkenntnis 57: 123–126.
Brigandt, I. (2002) “A fierce debate about our picture of evolution.”
Review of Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest by Kim Sterelny, Icon Books, 2001.
Metascience 11: 246–248.
Recent Talks (Selection)
Keynote address: “Homologues as units of evolvability: the role of structure and function.”
Form, Function and Homology (Duke's 8th Annual Conference in Philosophy & Biology and the
Annual Consortium for the History and Philosophy of Biology). Duke University, USA. May 2009.
“Natural kinds and concepts: a broadly pragmatist account.”
Pragmatism, Science and Naturalism. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. May 2009.
“Scientific reasoning is material inference: combining confirmation, discovery, and explanation.”
PSA 2008 (biannual meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association). Pittsburgh, USA. November 2008.
[manuscript]
Keynote address: “Reductive naturalism and the use of intuitions: two lessons from biology.”
Kazimierz Naturalism Workshop 2008. Kazimierz Dolny, Poland. September 2008.
“Continuity in scientific concept use: homology in the 19th century before and after Darwin.”
CSHPS 2008 (meeting of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science).
University of British Columbia, Canada. June 2008.
“Beyond reduction and pluralism: an epistemology of explanatory integration in biology.”
Reduction and the Special Sciences. Tilburg University, The Netherlands. April 2008.
[manuscript]
“Natural kinds in evolution and systematics: from metaphysics to epistemology.”
Nature and its Classification: A Metaphysics of Science Conference.
Birmingham, UK. October 2007. [manuscript]
“Typology now: homology and developmental constraints explain evolvability.”
ISHPSSB 2007 (biannual meeting of the International Society
for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology).
University of Exeter, UK. July 2007.
[manuscript]
“The epistemic goal pursued by a scientific term's use as an aspect of meaning.”
Non-Truth Conditional Aspects of Meaning
(5th Barcelona Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Reference).
Barcelona, Spain. June 2007.
“A concept's epistemic goal: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation.”
Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada. March 2007.
“How historically informed philosophers can contribute to challenges within biology.”
Sci-Phi 2007: Science and Philosophy at Stony Brook.
State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA. March 2007.
“Non-reductionism: explanation and methodology in developmental biology.”
Idealization, Mechanism and Reduction: New Directions in the Philosophy of
Proximal Biology (3rd Queensland Biohumanities Conference).
University of Queensland, Australia. December 2006.
“Holism, concept individuation, and conceptual change.”
WCPA 2006 (43rd conference of the Western Canadian Philosophical Association).
Simon Fraser University, Canada. October 2006.
[manuscript]
“Scientific practice, conceptual change, and the nature of concepts.”
Concepts and Objectivity: Knowledge, Science, and Values.
University of Pittsburgh, USA. September 2006.
[manuscript]
“Evolutionary developmental biology: morphology or developmental genetics?"
Program in Science, Technology and Society, University of Alberta, Canada.
March 2006.
“A concept's epistemic goal and the rationality of conceptual change.”
School of Philosophy, University of Leeds, UK. February 2006.
“What is a concept that it makes successful practice possible and can
rationally change?" Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, Canada.
January 2006.
“An alternative to Kitcher's theory of conceptual progress
and his account of the change of the gene concept.”
5th European Congress for Analytic Philosophy.
University of Lisbon, Portugal. August 2005.
[manuscript]
“Explanation and scientific reasoning: bringing concepts back in.”
Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Understanding.
Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. August 2005.
“Reference determination and conceptual change.”
Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway. May 2005.
[manuscript]
“Holism, concept individuation, and conceptual change.”
4th Congress of the Spanish Society for Analytic Philosophy.
University of Murcia, Spain. December 2004.
[manuscript]
“Biological kinds and the causal theory of reference.”
Experience and Analysis (27th International Wittgenstein Symposium of the
Austrian Wittgenstein Society). Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. August 2004.
[manuscript]
“Conceptual role semantics, the theory theory, and conceptual change.”
First Joint Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology
and the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
Barcelona, Spain. July 2004.
[manuscript]
Awards and Fellowships
Standard Research Grant,
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2008–2011
($66,652 incl. teaching release stipend, rank 3 out of 92 philosophy applications nationwide)
Dorothy J. Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow Prize, University of Alberta, 2006
Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2005–2006
KLI Junior Fellowship, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, 2002
Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2000–2001
M.Sc. equivalent in Mathematics (Minor: Philosophy) with distinction (“outstanding”), University of Konstanz, 1999
Graduate and Honors Student Supervision
Graduate Thesis Supervisory Committee Member
Ernest Howe, Project: How does authority accrue to public knowledge? Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies, in progress
Andrei Buleandra, Project: The normativity of belief. Ph.D. in Philosophy, in progress
Aristotle Hadjiantoniou, Many-Sorted Free Logic. M.A. in Philosophy, January 2009
Ph.D. Comprehensive Examinination Committee Member
Graham Sullivan, philosophy of language, June 2009
Andrei Buleandra, epistemology, December 2008
Octavian Ion, philosophy of mind, March 2007
Independent Studies Supervisor
René Malenfant, BIOL 490 (overview of primary literature in philosophy of biology), Fall 2009
Taylor Murphy, PHIL 486 (integrating different theoretical approaches in biology), Summer 2009
Catherine Clune-Taylor, PHIL 597 (overview of primary literature in philosophy of biology), Summer 2009
Cheryl Mack, PHIL 596 (overview of primary literature in philosophy of science), Winter 2009
Graduate Student Mentoring
Interim advisor of Jordan Glass, 2009–
Supervision of Joel Buenting teaching PHIL 125 (practical logic), Summer 2009
Practice job interviews with Chris Lepock, December 2007 and March 2007
Professional Service
Referee:
Acta Biotheoretica (2x),
Biology and Philosophy (4x),
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (4x),
Erkenntnis,
Evolutionary Biology (3x),
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution) (4x),
Philosophers' Imprint,
Philosophy of Science (2x),
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences,
Synthese,
Broadview Press,
MIT Press,
annual congress of the Canadian Philosophical Association (5x),
annual University of Pittsburgh / Carnegie Mellon University Graduate Student Philosophy Conference (2x)
Program Officer, 45th conference of the
Western Canadian Philosophical Association, 2008
Advisory Council Member,
Program in Science, Technology and Society, University of Alberta, 2008–
Visiting Speaker Officer, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, 2008–
Comprehensive Examination Committee Member, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, 2006–
Work in Progress
“Scientific practice, conceptual change, and the nature of concepts.”
[manuscript]
Some of my online papers are listed on
PhilPapers and
PhOnline.
Funded Research Project
Integrating Different Biological Approaches: A Philosophical Contribution (2008–2011)
The traditional account about the relation of scientific disciplines was ‘theory reduction’, the idea that the knowledge of biological fields (e.g. developmental biology) can be logically deduced from a more fundamental theory (e.g. molecular biology). This account has largely been abandoned because it fails to capture actual biology and its diversity of methods, explanations, and modes of theoretical reasoning. As a result, many philosophers of biology have come to embrace ‘pluralism’ about methods, theories, and explanations. However, philosophical accounts emphasizing pluralism have not pursued the question of how different fields, methods, and concepts are related or can be integrated. This is unsatisfactory because the proliferation of biological subdisciplines not only promotes effective research, but creates potential communication problems across disciplines due to different fields using language differently and preferring different methods and kinds of explanation.
The goal of the project is to develop philosophical accounts of the relation and integration of various epistemic units (approaches, concepts, explanations, methods) in biology in order to: (1) provide a philosophical understanding of the nature of the partially existing integration in biology (e.g. which epistemic conditions make it possible or limit it), so as to put forward a more general philosophical theory that amounts neither to reduction nor mere pluralism; (2) use this framework to facilitate future integration in biology by interacting with scientists.
The focal area of study is evolutionary developmental biology, as it is a recent and ongoing attempt to synthesize knowledge from various disciplines bearing on evolution, such as population genetics, developmental genetics, phylogeny, paleontology, theoretical biology, morphology, and ecology. In aspiring to solve problems that have been beyond the scope of traditional neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology (e.g. accounting for the evolutionary origin of novelties and body plans), evolutionary developmental biology faces the significant challenge of integrating quite different methods and explanations, such as experimental and theoretical approaches, microevolutionary and macroevolutionary models, developmental and population genetic explanations. The project studies ongoing biological research addressing the complex problem of explaining the evolutionary origin of novelties in the vertebrate skeleton, e.g. fins and limbs.
This 3-year project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Standard Research Grant, $66,652 incl. teaching release stipend). I am the principal investigator, and my official collaborators are Alan Love and Todd Grantham. We will host two workshops at the University of Alberta bringing together biologists, philosophers, and historians of biology. The purpose of this is (i) to gather researchers that (as a group) possess knowledge covering the various biological approaches and fields relevant for explanations of the evolutionary origin of novelties, and (ii) to conduct in-depth discussion on the biological case so as to generate and criticize philosophical notions about the possibility and limits of integration in biology. We plan to disseminate the project results by organizing symposia at philosophical or biological conferences. The ideas developed are also to be used to continue existing and initiate further discussion with scientists (working on biological cases addressed by the project) to improve their reflections and practical strategies on integrating their research with other approaches. The further research team members to attend the workshops include Michael Caldwell, Brian Hall, Benedikt Hallgrímsson, Hans Larsson, Manfred Laubichler, Sean Rice, and Jason Robert.
(For my early views on the issue to be studied in more detail by the project, see “Beyond reduction and pluralism: toward an epistemology of explanatory integration in biology”, forthcoming in Erkenntnis.)
Other Research Projects
Concepts and the Rationality of Semantic Change:
While accounts of concepts in the philosophy of science have typically focused on the reference of terms, the notion of reference does not explain what makes semantic change – including change in a term's reference – rational and progressive. I suggest that each scientific concept consists of three components of content: 1) the concept's reference, 2) its inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued with the concept's use. In the course of history a concept can change in any of these three components. I introduce the epistemic goal pursued by a term's use as a genuine semantic property of terms, as it accounts for the rationality of semantic change (change in any of a concept's components). The two main cases studied are the development of the homology concept in the 19th and 20th century, and the change of the gene concept in the 20th century.
Context-Sensitive and Communal Use of Scientific Terms:
Despite the idea that a concept should have a clear-cut definition and stable reference, the usage and reference of the contemporary gene concept varies from case to case, even as used by a single biologists on different occasions. This project attempts to understand how the context-sensitive usage and reference of biological terms promotes successful scientific practice. The challenge is to find an adequate semantic framework capturing context-sensitivity, given that the context that determines a biological term's varying reference is essentially intentional and epistemic. Furthermore, in contrast to the idea that all individuals possessing a concept meet the same condition (e.g., having grasped the same definition), due to the division of scientific labour different biologists sharing a concept may have different beliefs and epistemic abilities. I study how the particular variation in a term's usage within a scientific community underwrites successful practice and determines rational conceptual change. This essentially communal nature of concepts is used to trace implications for theories of concepts and concept possession, criticizing both the causal theory of reference and two-dimensional semantics.
Material Inference, Explanation, and Scientific Reasoning:
Inference is predominantly viewed as formal inference, i.e., as being good in virtue of its logical form. Many accounts of theory reduction, scientific explanation, and confirmation are based on the idea that inference is formal inference. This project is working toward a novel perspective by viewing inference as material inference. A material inference is good in virtue of the empirical content of the concepts contained in the premises and the conclusion. I suggest that viewing different forms of scientific reasoning – reasoning involved in justification, explanation, and discovery – as based on material inference yields a more adequate account of these matters than formal models of inference. The project pays attention to theories of concepts and reasoning from recent cognitive psychology, as they exhibit parallels to the idea that scientific inference is material inference.
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