Journal Title
Title of Journal: Biol Philos
|
Abbravation: Biology & Philosophy
|
Publisher
Kluwer Academic Publishers
|
|
|
|
|
|
Authors: Nicholas Shea
Publish Date: 2006/12/13
Volume: 22, Issue: 3, Pages: 313-331
Abstract
There is ongoing controversy as to whether the genome is a representing system Sterelny K Smith KC and Dickson M 1996 Biol Philos 11 377–403 Griffiths PE 2001 Philos Sci 68 394–412 Although it is widely recognised that DNA carries information both correlating with and coding for various outcomes neither of these implies that the genome has semantic properties like correctness or satisfaction conditions GodfreySmith P 2002 In Wolenski J and KajaniaPlacek K eds In the Scope of Logic Methodology and the Philosophy of Sciences Vol II Kluwer Dordrecht pp 387–400 Here a modified version of teleosemantics is applied to the genome to show that it does indeed have semantic properties – there is representation in the genome The account differs in three respects from previous attempts to apply teleosemantics to genes It emphasises the role of the consumer of representations in addition to their mode of production It rejects the standard assumption that genetic representation can be used to explain the course of an organism’s development And it identifies the explanatory role played by representational properties of the genome A striking consequence of this account is that other inheritance systems could also be representational Thus a version of the parity thesis is accepted Griffiths PE 2001 Philos Sci 68 394–412 However the criteria for being an inheritance system are demanding so semantic properties are not ubiquitousMany thanks to the following for comments on this paper and earlier versions of this material Peter GodfreySmith Susan Hurley Matteo Mameli James Maclaurin Ulrich Stegmann and Kim Sterelny and audiences at the Universities of Oxford Reading and at the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the University of Western England The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the British Academy which funded this work through a postdoctoral research fellowship
Keywords:
.
|
Other Papers In This Journal:
|