Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-vfh8q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-25T09:26:24.391Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Causal Democracy and Causal Contributions in Developmental Systems Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Susan Oyama
Susan Oyama*
Affiliation:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, CUNY
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, 924 West End Ave., #44, New York, NY 10025-3540.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In reworking a variety of biological concepts, Developmental Systems Theory (DST) has made frequent use of parity of reasoning. We have done this to show, for instance, that factors that have similar sorts of impact on a developing organism tend nevertheless to be invested with quite different causal importance. We have made similar arguments about evolutionary processes. Together, these analyses have allowed DST not only to cut through some age-old muddles about the nature of development, but also to effect a long-delayed reintegration of development into evolutionary theory.

Our penchant for causal symmetry, however (or ‘causal democracy’, as it has recently been termed), has sometimes been misunderstood. This paper shows that causal symmetry is neither a platitude about multiple influences nor a denial of useful distinctions, but a powerful way of exposing hidden assumptions and opening up traditional formulations to fruitful change.

Type
Philosophy of Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S332 - S347
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

‡

I am grateful to Peter Godfrey-Smith and Rasmus Winther for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

Bateson, Patrick (1983), “Genes, Environment and the Development of Behaviour”, in Halliday, T. R. and Slater, Peter J. B. (eds.) Animal Behaviour: Genetics and Development. Oxford: Blackwell, 52–81.Google Scholar
Bateson, Patrick. (1991), “Are There Principles of Behavioural Development?”, in Bateson, Patrick (ed.), The Development and Integration of Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19–39.Google Scholar
Block, Ned (December/January 1995–96), “Race, Genes, and IQ”, Boston Review: 30–35.Google Scholar
Bonner, John T. (1988), The Evolution of Complexity By Means of Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elman, Jeffrey L., Bates, Elizabeth A., Johnson, Mark H., Karmiloff-Smith, Annette, Parisi, Domenico, and Plunkett, Kim L. (1996), Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Freedman, Daniel G. (1979), Human Sociobiology: A Holistic Approach. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. and Gray, Russell D. (1994), “Developmental Systems and Evolutionary Explanation”, Journal of Philosophy 91: 277–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. and Gray, Russell D. (1997), “Replicator II: Judgement Day”, Biology and Philosophy 12: 471–492.10.1023/A:1006551516090CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. and Neumann-Held, Eva M. (1999), “The Many Faces of the Gene”, BioScience 49: 656–662.10.2307/1313441CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert (1997), System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Timothy D. (1987), “The Persistence of Dichotomies in the Study of Behavioral Development”, Developmental Review 7: 149–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, Annette (1992), Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn Fox and Lloyd, Elizabeth A. (eds.) (1992), Keywords in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip (in press), “Battling the Undead: How (and How Not) to Resist Genetic Determinism”, in Singh, R., Krimbas, C., Beatty, John, and Paul, Diane (eds.), Thinking about Evolution: Historical, Philosophical and Political Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lehrman, Daniel S. (1970), “Semantic and Conceptual Issues in the Nature-Nurture Problem”, in Aronson, Lester R., Tobach, Ethel, Lehrman, Daniel S., and Rosenblatt, Jay S. (eds.), Development and Evolution of Behavior: Essays in Memory of T. C. Schneirla. San Francisco: Freeman, 17–52.Google Scholar
Levins, Richard and Lewontin, Richard C. (1985), The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewontin, Richard C. (1974), “The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Causes”, American Journal of Human Genetics 26: 400–411.Google ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, Richard C. (1982), “Organism and Environment”, in Plotkin, Harold C. (ed.), Learning, Development, and Culture. New York: Wiley, 151–170.Google Scholar
Lindzey, G., Hall, C. S., and Thompson, R. F. (1978), Psychology, 2nd ed. New York: Worth.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst (ed.) (1976), Evolution and the Diversity of Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Nash, J. (1970), Developmental Psychology: A Psychobiological Approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen (1995), “Misrepresenting & Malfunctioning”, Philosophical Studies 79: 109–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann-Held, Eva M. (1999), “The Gene is Dead—Long Live the Gene! Conceptualizing Genes the Constructionist Way”, in Koslowski, Peter (ed.), Sociobiology and Bioeconomics: The Theory of Evolution in Biological and Economic Theory. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy, vol. 20. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 105–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oyama, Susan (2000a), Evolution's Eye: A Systems View of the Biology-Culture Divide. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Oyama, Susan. (2000b), The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Originally published by Cambridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1988), “Apportioning Causal Responsibility”, Journal of Philosophy 85: 303–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, Kim and Kitcher, Philip S. (1988), “The Return of the Gene”, Journal of Philosophy 85: 339–361.10.2307/2026953CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, Smith, Kelly C., and Dickison, Michael (1996), “The Extended Replicator”, Biology and Philosophy 11: 377–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1986), “Developmental Constraints, Generative Entrenchment, and the Innate-Acquired Distinction”, in Bechtel, William (ed.), Integrating Scientific Disciplines. Dordrecht: Martinus-Nijhoff, 185–208.10.1007/978-94-010-9435-1_11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1999), “Generativity, Entrenchment, Evolution, and Innateness”, in Hardcastle, Valerie (ed.), Biology Meets Psychology: Constraints, Connections, Conjectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 139–179.Google Scholar