John Dupré

John Dupré (born 1952) is a professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Exeter.

Dupre was educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge and taught at Oxford, Stanford University and Birkbeck College of the University of London before moving to Exeter. Dupré's chief work area lies in philosophy of biology, philosoph of the social sciences, and general philosophy of science. Dupré, together with Nancy Cartwright, Ian Hacking and Patrick Suppes, and Peter Galison, are often grouped together as the Stanford school of philosophy of science.

Pluralistic Metaphysics

Dupré advocates a pluralistic model of science as opposed to the common notion of reductionism. Reductionism suggests that all science may be reduced to physical explanations due to causal chains that link all sciences back to physics (for example, psychology may be (in principle) an aspect of neuro-science, which is in turn an aspect of biology; biology then may be explained in terms of chemistry, chemistry being capable of a physical explanation). Dupré suggests, however, that such reduction is not possible as the world has an inherently pluralistic structure.

Determinism

A classical argument for the reductionism relies on a particular conception of causality. For each event there is thereafter a sufficient physical cause. If the psychological or biological conditions are not reducible on the physical conditions posed and the physical conditions already did all the causal work, then the psychological or biological conditions seem to be causally ineffective. In the philosophy of the spirit, this problem is discussed under the name of "mental causing."

Dupré tries to escape this problem, by rejecting the Determinism and its premise that there is a cause for each an every event. In place of Determinism, Dupré proposes a conception of indeterministic, probabilistic causality. His ideas are influenced of by Nancy Cartwright. The philosopher Karl Popper represents a similar position.

Philosophy of Biology

Dupré is an important critic of biological research programs in the life science community. In particular, the criticism refers to the human acts to understand evolution-biological stories and how are they related in Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Dupré means that such projects must remain speculative and reflect on the prejudices of the researchers as circumstances in the world.

Another point of criticism, Duprés is concerned with the handling of biological taxonomy. Biological classifications are made by humans. They are open thus to criticism and modification. This applies in particular also to the classifications of humans - for instance after race or sex.

Works

Books
*"Darwins legacy. The meaning of the evolution for the presence of humans" ("Darwins Legacy"). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 2005, ISBN 3-518-58432-4
*"The Disorder of Things. Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science". Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1993, ISBN 0-674-21260-6
*"Human Nature and the Limits of Science". Clarendon Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-924806-0
*"Humans and Other Animals". Clarendon Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-924709-9
*"The Constituents of Life (the Spinoza lectures)", Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, in press.
*"Value-Free Science: Ideal or Illusion (with Harold Kincaid and Alison Wylie)", New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
*"Darwin's Legacy: What Evolution Means Today", Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
*"The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science", Harvard University Press, 1993.

External links

* [http://www.shipss.ex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/dupre/index.php Dupré's homepage]

Persondata
NAME=Dupré, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=British philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH=1952
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=
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