A roadmap to explanatory pluralism: introduction to the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour
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A roadmap to explanatory pluralism: introduction to the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour Eric Muszynski1 · Christophe Malaterre1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Pluralism is widely appealed to in many areas of philosophy of science, though what is meant by ‘pluralism’ may profoundly vary. Because explanations of behaviour have been a favoured target for pluralistic theses, the sciences of behaviour offer a rich context in which to further investigate pluralism. This is what the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour: Explanatory pluralism across the life sciences is about. In the present introduction, we briefly review major strands of pluralist theses and their motivations. We highlight three distinct types of pluralisms—type pluralism, fragmentation pluralism and insular pluralism—and introduce the articles of the topical collection. Keywords Pluralism · Behaviour · Explanation · Integration
1 Introduction The last few decades have seen a surge of publications in science and philosophy of science relating to pluralism. Authors have argued that contrary to what was defended in twentieth-century philosophy, science is not a unified endeavour, and instead calls on many theories, methods, taxonomies, ontologies, and explanatory strategies. Philosophy of biology has proven to be particularly ripe for pluralist positions, for various reasons. Some argue that the complexity of the subject matter implies that no single overarching theory will ever be sufficient to explain everything within the discipline (Mitchell 2003), others that the historical contingency of natural selection (Beatty 1993), the sheer diversity of questions being asked, or the competing scientific traditions within biology preclude any kind of unifying schemes (Morange 2015). These issues seem to be compounded in biological research relating to behaviour, where the
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Christophe Malaterre [email protected] Département de Philosophie and Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), 455 Boulevard René-Lévesque Est, Montréal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada
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complexity of the phenomena and the diversity of disciplines which can contribute to explanations give rise to much interesting research (e.g. Mitchell 2003; Laland and Brown 2011; Plaisance and Reydon 2012; Longino 2013; Tabery 2014). This makes the philosophy of behavioural biology a particularly important litmus test for pluralist positions: if pluralism does not hold in this area, then chances are that it may be difficult to defend in other areas. Scientific pluralism can mean many different things depending on what the plurality is attributed to (Kellert, Longino, and Waters 2006a). Ontological pluralism argues that we ought to rid ourselves of the assumption that the metaphysical foundation of the world is unified. Instead, the fundamental building blocks are recognized as being multiple (Dupré 1993; Cartwright 1999; Waters 2017). This is sometimes reflected in forms of taxonomic
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