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Article ID: CBB736652942

L’empirisme logique est-il toujours d’actualité en philosophie de la biologie ? (2023)

Bertoldi, Nicola (Author)

Almagest
Volume: 14
Issue: 2
Pages: 28-35
Publication date: 2023
Language: French

URI: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.ALMA.5.136755

DOI: 10.1484/J.ALMA.5.136755

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History of philosophy of science Philosophy of biology 21st century 20th century Hull, David Lee Woodger, Joseph Henry Gawne, Richard Nicholson, Daniel J.

Dans un article fondateur de la philosophie de la biologie, David Hull (1969) a critique sechement les differentes manieres dont les philosophes s’etaient penches sur des problemes relevant des sciences du vivant tout au long de la premiere moitie du XX siecle. Il a epingle, en particulier, la methode de la ≪ reconstruction formelle d’enonces biologiques dans la notation de la logique mathematique ≫ qui avait ete adoptee par des penseurs lies a la tradition de l’empirisme logique, tels que J. H. Woodger (1929, 1937), afin de clarifier la signification et l’usage de concepts biologiques fondamentaux. Une telle critique s’inscrit dans un recit historiographique plus general, qui attribue les defauts de la philosophie de la biologie d’avant les annees 1970 a l’influence negative de preoccupations ideologiques propres a l’empirisme logique : l’antimetaphysique, le reductionnisme et la volonte d’imposer la physique comme science modele. Cependant, comme le montrent Daniel J. Nicholson et Richard Gawne (2014, 2015), une telle vision de l’histoire de la philosophie de la biologie se fonde sur une lecture selective et sur une interpretation etroite de l’oeuvre de Woodger, ainsi que, plus generalement, de l’empirisme logique en tant que mouvement philosophique heterogene. L’objectif de ce chapitre est ainsi de reevaluer l’apport de l’empirisme logique a l’histoire de la philosophie de la biologie, ainsi que son importance pour la comprehension d’enjeux contemporains, a partir des problemes souleves par l’axiomatisation des fondements des sciences biologiques proposee par Woodger lui-meme. [English translation by DeepL.com. Title: Is logical empiricism still relevant to the philosophy of biology? Abstract: In a seminal article on the philosophy of biology, David Hull (1969) sharply criticized the various ways in which philosophers had addressed problems in the life sciences throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, he pinpointed the method of ≪ formal reconstruction of biological enunciations in the notation of ≫ mathematical logic, which had been adopted by thinkers linked to the tradition of logical empiricism, such as J. H. Woodger (1929, 1937), in order to clarify the meaning and use of fundamental biological concepts. Such a critique is part of a more general historiographical narrative, which attributes the shortcomings of pre-1970s philosophy of biology to the negative influence of ideological preoccupations peculiar to logical empiricism: antimetaphysics, reductionism and the desire to impose physics as a model science. However, as Daniel J. Nicholson and Richard Gawne (2014, 2015) show, such a view of the history of the philosophy of biology is based on a selective reading and narrow interpretation of Woodger's work, as well as, more generally, of logical empiricism as a heterogeneous philosophical movement. The aim of this chapter is thus to re-evaluate the contribution of logical empiricism to the history of the philosophy of biology, as well as its importance for the understanding of contemporary issues, based on the problems raised by the axiomatization of the foundations of the biological sciences proposed by Woodger himself.]

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Article Vincent Jullien; Carmen Martínez-Adame (2023) Foreward. Almagest (pp. 6-14). unapi

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