This book provides a comprehensive guide to the conceptual
methodological, and epistemological problems of biology, and treats in
depth the major developments in molecular biology and evolutionary
theory that have transformed both biology and its philosophy in recent
decades. At the same time the work is a sustained argument for a
particular philosophy of biology that unifies disparate issues and
offers a framework for expectations about the future directions of the
life sciences. The argument explores differences between autonomist and
anti-autonomist views of biology. The result is a vindication of
reductionism, but one that is unexpectedly hollow. For it leaves the
exponents of the autonomy of biology from physical science with as much
as their view of biology really requires - and rather more than the
reductionist might comfortably concede. Professor Rosenberg shows how
the problems of the philosophy of biology are interconnected and how
their solutions are interdependent, However, this book focuses more on
the direct concerns of biologists, rather than the traditional agenda of
philosophers' problems about biology. This departure from earlier books
on the subject results both in greater understanding and relevance of
the philosophy of science to biology as a whole.
