Explanation in Biology: An Introduction

Abstract

Explanation in biology has long been characterized as being different from explanation in other scientific disciplines, in particular from explanation in physics. One of the reasons was the existence in biology of explanation types that were unheard of in the physical sciences: teleological and functional explanations, historical and evolutionary explanations. More recently, owing in part to the rise of molecular biology, biological explanations have been depicted as mechanisms. This profusion of explanatory patterns is typical of biology. The aim of the present volume Explanation in Biology. An Enquiry into the Diversity of Explanatory Patterns in the Life Sciences is to shed some new light on the diversity of explanation models in biology. In this introductory chapter, we recall the general philosophical context of scientific explanation as it has unfolded in the past seven decades, and highlight the specific issues that models of explanation have faced in biology. We then show how the different essays gathered in this collective volume tackle aspects of this important debate.