The Causal Structure of Natural Selection

Pence, Charles
(2023) National Taiwan University Center for Traditional and Scientific Metaphysics — Location: Taipei, Taiwan (30.October.2023)

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Contemporary arguments concerning the nature of causation in evolutionary theory, now often known as the debate between the “causalist” and “statisticalist” positions, have involved answers to a variety of independent questions – definitions of key evolutionary concepts like natural selection, fitness, and genetic drift; causation in multi-level systems; or the nature of evolutionary explanations, among others. In recent work, I have argued that a significant cluster of these questions, largely concerning causation, can be disconnected from the larger group and analyzed in isolation, allowing, I hope, for more fruitful engagement between the philosophy of biology and the metaphysics of science. Natural selection poses an under-studied but nonetheless not unique sort of causal structure that merits further exploration. In this talk, I will present some of these results, and highlight some of the exciting opportunities for future research that I believe this engagement could provide.
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Pence, C. (2023). The Causal Structure of Natural Selection. National Taiwan University Center for Traditional and Scientific Metaphysics, Taipei, Taiwan. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/29087