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The Limitations of Hierarchical Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Angela Potochnik  and
Brian McGill
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Abstract

The concept of levels of organization is prominent in science and central to a variety of debates in philosophy of science. Yet many difficulties plague the concept of universal and discrete hierarchical levels, and these undermine implications commonly ascribed to hierarchical organization. We suggest the concept of scale as a promising alternative. Investigating causal processes at different scales allows for a notion of quasi levels that avoids the difficulties inherent in the classic concept of levels. Our primary focus is ecology, but we suggest how the results generalize to other invocations of hierarchy in science and philosophy of science.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 120 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

This work was conducted as a part of the Function and Evolution Working Group at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Homeland Security, and the US Department of Agriculture through NSF award EF-0832858, with additional support from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We received helpful input from the other members of that working group, from two anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science, and from Melinda Fagan. Potochnik also benefited from the feedback of the members of the philosophy of biology lab group at the University of California, Davis, and the audience of a colloquium at Stanford University.

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