Philosophy of biology

Philosophy of biology (also called, rarely, biophilosophy) is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long been interested in biology (e.g., Aristotle, Descartes, and even Kant), philosophy of biology only emerged as an independent field of philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s. Philosophers of science then began paying increasing attention to developments in biology, from the rise of Neodarwinism in the 1930s and 1940s to the discovery of the structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid in 1953 to more recent advances in genetic engineering.

See also

• Philosophy of chemistry
• Philosophy of science
• Bioethics
• Philosophy of mind
• Neuroaesthetics
• Evolutionary anthropology
• Evolutionary psychology
• Sociobiology

Philosophers using biological ideas as a basis of their work

• Henri Bergson
• Daniel Dennett
• Mario Bunge
• Gerhard Vollmer