{"id":7775,"date":"2014-09-01T15:29:12","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T20:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=7775"},"modified":"2021-06-10T08:35:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T13:35:03","slug":"dupre-on-process-biology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/09\/01\/dupre-on-process-biology\/","title":{"rendered":"Dupr\u00e9 on process biology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science blog Auxiliary Hypotheses<\/a>, widely published<\/a> University of Exeter philosopher John\u00a0<\/span>Dupr\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0recently announced a project entitled A Process Ontology for Contemporary Biology<\/a> (PROBIO).<\/p>\n

According to Dupr\u00e9, who is\u00a0director of Egenis, the Center for the Study of the Life Sciences (formerly the ESRC Center for Genomics and Society), the project aims to “redress the balance” between substance based and processual views within the philosophy of science.\u00a0Giving the example of the cellular structure of the human body — where 90% of a body’s cells are microbial symbionts — \u00a0Dupr\u00e9\u00a0notes\u00a0that<\/p>\n

“In general, it seems increasingly plausible that there is no unique way of distinguishing biological things from the multiple processes by which they are sustained, which supports the hypothesis that the ontology of biological things is less fundamental than that of living processes.”<\/p>\n

The article then provides a series of examples that illustrate the relevance of a processual ontology for understanding contemporary biological dilemmas. These include the nature of the genome (“it is now clear that the genome is\u00a0…\u00a0an entity in constant flux”) and the distinction between structure and function in plant development and in protein molecules.<\/p>\n

The article can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science blog Auxiliary Hypotheses, widely published University of Exeter philosopher John\u00a0Dupr\u00e9\u00a0recently announced a project entitled A Process Ontology for Contemporary Biology (PROBIO). According to Dupr\u00e9, who is\u00a0director of Egenis, the Center for the Study of the Life Sciences (formerly the ESRC Center for Genomics and Society), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977,4422,4437],"tags":[4434,123521,123520,16911],"class_list":["post-7775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","category-process-relational-thought","category-science","tag-biology","tag-john-dupre","tag-philosophy-of-science","tag-process-philosophy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-21p","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1040,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/03\/13\/the-other-biocultural-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":0},"title":"the other biocultural studies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Following from the last entry: I should have mentioned the other kind of biocultural studies that's been getting more & more attention recently: see here, here, and here. The \"Biocultures Manifesto,\" which appeared in New Literary History back in 2007, seemed to suggest that it was time for all the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/23\/kauffman-shaviro-goodwin-et-al\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":1},"title":"Kauffman, Shaviro, Goodwin, et al.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Complexity theorist Stuart Kaufmann recently gave a talk here from his book Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion, which is getting more press these days than most books with a Spinozian\/Whiteheadian take on the emergent nature of intelligence, complexity, spirituality, and all that. Talking to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2971,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/17\/international-association-for-environmental-philosophy-cfp\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":2},"title":"cfp: Int’l Assoc. for Environmental Philosophy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The IAEP picks a nice image for this conference... Spirit tracks on Mars DEADLINE EXTENDED: The International Association for Environmental Philosophy has extended the deadline for submissions proposing papers and panels for its fifteenth annual meeting, to be held October 23 and 24, 2011 at the Sheraton Society Hill in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/03\/MER_A_Sol62-275x166.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/05\/process-relational-theory-primer\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":3},"title":"Process-relational theory primer","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the tasks of this blog, since its inception in late 2008, has been to articulate a theoretical-philosophical perspective that I have come to call \u201cprocess-relational.\u201d This is a theoretical paradigm and an ontology that takes the basic nature of the world to be that of relational process: that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5737,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/04\/29\/whiteheads-return-ecologys-boon\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":4},"title":"Whitehead’s return, ecology’s boon","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Ultimately, the thinking of speculative pragmatism that is activist philosophy belongs to nature. Its aesthetico-politics compose a nature philosophy. The occurrent arts in which it exhibits itself are politics of nature. \"The one-word summary of its relational-qualitative goings on: ecology. Activist philosophy concerns the ecology of powers of existence. Becomings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2012\/04\/flock1-275x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11589,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/02\/19\/in-defense-of-ecological-metaphor\/","url_meta":{"origin":7775,"position":5},"title":"In defense of ecological metaphor","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In my writing about media, I've been using the words \"ecology\" and \"ecosystem\" fairly liberally. In a new piece called \"The Limitations of the 'New Ecosystem' Metaphor,\" The Columbia Journalism Review's Lauren Harris argues that this metaphor is misguided. She interviews media scholar Anthony Nadler, who has claims that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Mycorrhizae_1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7777,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions\/7777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}