The central theme of my published work has been the implications of biological science for philosophical and humanistic concerns. What new lessons and constraints do evolutionary biology and neuroscience pose to our self-understanding? What changes do they motivate in our theories of action, knowledge, rationality, value, selfhood, or society? What role do factors such as subjective experience and cultural difference play in the development and justification of the biological sciences themselves?
My previously published work has addressed various aspects of this relationship – for instance, the influence of philosophical commitments on Darwin interpretations (HOPOS, 2018); the tension and mutual consistency of the “natural” and “artificial” (Biology & Philosophy, 2021); 19th- and 20th-century rhetoric on the human “place” in nature (Palgrave, 2016); the contested role of "typological thinking" in biology (Studies C, 2015); the promises and dangers of seeking to ground ethical commitments in biology (IPQ, 2011); and Helmuth Plessner's views on organic life and human distinctiveness (IJPS, 2015).
In my current book project, Excentric Naturalism: Behavioral Plasticity and the Human Place in the World, I address the relation between the natural-scientific worldview and human concerns in a fundamental and original way. In the first half of the book, I argue for a single empirically plausible but controversial biological hypothesis – namely, that species-typical human life-histories are characterized by “second-order plasticity”: a plasticity feedback loop between an especially plastic developmental, behavioral, and cognitive repertoire, on the one hand, and the especially variable artifactual and social environment that mediates that development, behavior, and cognition, on the other. If true, the thesis entails that contingency, mediacy, and variability are the natural condition of human beings. In the second half of the book, I draw the consequences of this hypothesis for philosophy of mind, action, knowledge, normativity, technology, and society. The result challenges many canonical philosophical views. For instance, it affirms both the legitimacy of modern natural science’s epistemic authority and the inevitable subjectivity and historical-cultural contingency of all human knowledge and evaluation, including the norms and commitments of the modern sciences themselves.
One strain of my previous research has focused on a tradition of modern European thought known as “philosophische Anthropologie” (philosophical anthropology): for instance, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen, and Adolf Portmann. My work on these figures has explored the relevance of their ideas to contemporary debates about naturalism, the ontology of living things and processes, philosophies of nature, culture, society, technology, embodiment, and animality.
Another strain of my previous research has focused on the history of the philosophy of biology, mostly since 1950. This work has examined the limits of the fields of biology and philosophy and their epistemic relations to one another, including negotiation of boundaries, contests over epistemic authority, collaborations, and influences.
My previously published work has addressed various aspects of this relationship – for instance, the influence of philosophical commitments on Darwin interpretations (HOPOS, 2018); the tension and mutual consistency of the “natural” and “artificial” (Biology & Philosophy, 2021); 19th- and 20th-century rhetoric on the human “place” in nature (Palgrave, 2016); the contested role of "typological thinking" in biology (Studies C, 2015); the promises and dangers of seeking to ground ethical commitments in biology (IPQ, 2011); and Helmuth Plessner's views on organic life and human distinctiveness (IJPS, 2015).
In my current book project, Excentric Naturalism: Behavioral Plasticity and the Human Place in the World, I address the relation between the natural-scientific worldview and human concerns in a fundamental and original way. In the first half of the book, I argue for a single empirically plausible but controversial biological hypothesis – namely, that species-typical human life-histories are characterized by “second-order plasticity”: a plasticity feedback loop between an especially plastic developmental, behavioral, and cognitive repertoire, on the one hand, and the especially variable artifactual and social environment that mediates that development, behavior, and cognition, on the other. If true, the thesis entails that contingency, mediacy, and variability are the natural condition of human beings. In the second half of the book, I draw the consequences of this hypothesis for philosophy of mind, action, knowledge, normativity, technology, and society. The result challenges many canonical philosophical views. For instance, it affirms both the legitimacy of modern natural science’s epistemic authority and the inevitable subjectivity and historical-cultural contingency of all human knowledge and evaluation, including the norms and commitments of the modern sciences themselves.
One strain of my previous research has focused on a tradition of modern European thought known as “philosophische Anthropologie” (philosophical anthropology): for instance, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen, and Adolf Portmann. My work on these figures has explored the relevance of their ideas to contemporary debates about naturalism, the ontology of living things and processes, philosophies of nature, culture, society, technology, embodiment, and animality.
Another strain of my previous research has focused on the history of the philosophy of biology, mostly since 1950. This work has examined the limits of the fields of biology and philosophy and their epistemic relations to one another, including negotiation of boundaries, contests over epistemic authority, collaborations, and influences.