Holism and reductionism in biology and ecology : the mutual dependence of higher and lower level research programmes
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Holism and reductionism in biology and ecology : the mutual dependence of higher and lower level research programmes
(Episteme / editor, Mario Bunge, v. 23)
Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2000
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [321]-350) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology.
Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
Table of Contents
Preface. Introduction. Part 1: Reduction and co-operation in biology. 1. Holism and reductionism. 2. Reduction of laws and theories. 3. Reduction of concepts. 4. Emergence, reduction and co-operating research programmes. 5. Co-operating research programmes: reduction of the Bohr effect. 6. Functional explanations in biology. Part 2: Reduction and co-operation in ecology. 7. The reduction problem in ecology. 8. Ecological communities: conceptual problems and definition. 9. The distinction between habitat and niche. 10. The reduction of the Lotka/Volterra competition model to modern niche theory. 11. Co-operation in island biogeography. 12. The inhibitory effect of the holism-reductionism dispute: a controversy in island biogeography and its solution. Epilogue. Notes. References. Name Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"