Samir Okasha - The “Philosophy of Fitness” revisited

Samir Okasha (University of Bristol)

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites you to join us for our 65th Annual Lecture Series Talk. Attend in person in room 1008 in the Cathedral of Learning (10th Floor)  or visit our live stream on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.

The Annual Lecture Series, the Center’s oldest program, was established in 1960, the year when Adolf Grünbaum founded the Center. Each year the series consists of six to eight lectures, about three quarters of which are given by philosophers, historians, and scientists from other universities.

ALS – Samir Okasha

Friday, March 21st @ 3:30 pm - 5:30pm EDT

1008 Cathedral of Learning 

Title:  The “Philosophy of Fitness” revisited

Abstract:  The "philosophy of fitness'' was a disparaging name given to the philosophy of biology in the 1970s by critics who felt that practitioners of this emerging sub-discipline spent too much time analyzing the concept of fitness, to the exclusion of other topics. Despite the critics, the philosophical discussion of fitness has burgeoned since then. Oddly, though, this discussion makes little contact with the technical literature on fitness in evolutionary theory itself, where there are ongoing disagreements over what the "right" definition of fitness and / or the "right" mathematical measure of fitness is, in different contexts, and why. The existence of parallel literatures on a single topic is not uncommon in philosophy of science but is rarely ideal. Better integration is needed.

This talk is part of a broader project that re-visits the concept of fitness, tries to make sense of the controversies surrounding it, and to integrate the philosophical and biological discussions. The basic idea is to regard "fitness" as a theoretical term in science, and then to use the Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis technique to define it via its theoretical role. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that there is arguably more than one "fitness role". Moreover, in any particular evolutionary model, a given quantity, definable from the model parameters, may realize one of these fitness roles but not others. Taken together, this explains why the fitness concept has caused so much confusion, why the term "fitness" is polysemic in evolutionary biology, and why theorists can disagree about the "right" fitness measure despite the underlying science not being in dispute.

Can’t make it in-person? This talk will available online through the following:

 Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91859551683  and 

YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.

A reception with light refreshments will follow in The Center on the 11th floor from 5-6pm.