History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Geneticization studies as a theoretical field: an uneven history and conceptual reconstruction.","authors":"Navid Ravan, Hamidreza Namazi","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00744-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00744-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Geneticization is a process of expanding genetics to define, predict, and possibly intervene in human conditions. Regardless of how and to what extent genetics has developed, theoretical reflection on the concept of geneticization which we call geneticization studies has an uneven history, and the interest in theoretically investigating geneticization has fluctuated over time. Our research question, therefore, is how we should perceive the changing visibility, role, and conceptual utility of geneticization as a theoretical framework for reflecting on the expansion of genetics. To answer this question, this article conducts a limited bibliometric analysis of publications on geneticization studies to examine the changes in research topics and the critical content of the geneticization framework. We categorized this uneven history into three phases with specific characteristics. Moreover, we identified an underseen distinction between informative and interventive forms of geneticization among geneticization studies. We argue that geneticization studies are not exhausted, and due to recent developments in genetics, as well as improvements in the capability of artificial intelligence, geneticization as a theoretical concept can still be fruitful for theoretical reflection. Thus, we introduce three new horizons to reconstruct and revise geneticization studies: medical humanities, philosophy of technology, and the 'gentle genetics' idea.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148406994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The gendered \"stathetic\" body: a scientifically informed philosophical approach to corporality.","authors":"Mariana Córdoba, Florencia Labombarda, John Dupré, Ana Belén Martínez, Dana María Negretti-Borga","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00743-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00743-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bodies are often treated as entities expected to conform to stable, idealized forms, such as binary sex, health, youth, beauty, slimness. Bodies must tend to present static and aesthetic traits. Yet this apparent stability conceals a deeper tension: bodies are continuously shaped, constrained, and reconfigured by biological processes, social norms, and technological interventions. In this paper, we develop a scientifically informed philosophical account of corporality that challenges static conceptions of the body. Drawing on a process ontology of organisms and the biological concept of autopoiesis, we argue that bodies are constantly produced, and that this production crucially includes technology. On this basis, we introduce the notion of the gendered stathetic body (\"stathetic\" from static and aesthetic), to describe how bodies are persistently forced to stabilize within a multidimensional \"cage\" of idealized traits. Through the analysis of contemporary medical and aesthetic interventions, we show that the pursuit of fixed, desirable characteristics operates as a form of mystification and constitutes a subtle yet pervasive violence against bodies. At the same time, we argue that corporality is never fully determined: it unfolds within a political field of tension, where the same technologies that enforce stabilization may also enable new forms of transformation and emancipation.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148378265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plant cognition after Darwin: historical and epistemological remarks.","authors":"Paolo Pecere","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00739-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00739-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Plant \"intelligence\" and \"sensation\" are controversial notions in contemporary botany. While some scientists argue that sensory awareness, learning, memory, communication, and possibly a kind of consciousness should be ascribed to plants, a substantial part of the scientific community dismisses such claims because of insufficient evidence and the lack of neural systems in plants. In this paper, I will examine this issue from a historical and epistemological perspective. First, I will go back to a crucial precedent that is often evoked in these debates, i.e., Darwin's remarks on plant \"sensation\" and \"behavior\" and his analogy between roots and brains in the 1880 book The Power of Movement in Plants. I will point out that the issue was already well known and controversial in the nineteenth century. I will then examine contemporary debates starting from new experiments and evidence on plant cognitive powers. I will argue that current debates are partly based on elements that have been available since Darwin, such as postulates of biological continuity among living beings and the use of analogy, leading to an epistemological contrast between the need to avoid ungrounded anthropomorphic projections and the argument that kinds of cognitive states could be realized in plants. I also finally point out that investigations on animal ethics and the revaluation of non-Western views on animism and ecology have recently been introduced into this debate to break the epistemological balance between opposing views.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13294307/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148320880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The vegetal model: Buffon's general theory of reproduction.","authors":"Stella Sandford","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00736-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00736-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines Buffon's general theory of reproduction, concentrating on his discussion of the similarities and differences between animals and plants and his explanation of nourishment, development and reproduction as effects of the same general cause. In the 'First Discourse' and various of the chapters of Volume II of Buffon's Natural History he seems to affirm two contradictory claims concerning the distinction between animals and plants: both that this distinction is absolute and indubitable and that it is false and insupportable. In this article I argue that this apparent contradiction is explained by distinguishing between what are for Buffon two distinct tasks in natural history: first, the classification of the natural world and the natural history of particular animals and plants; and second, enquiry into the general phenomena of life (nutrition, development and reproduction). It is in the first task, I argue, that the distinction between animals and plants is maintained, while it is largely inapplicable in the second. Distinguishing between these two tasks then also allows us to discern in Buffon's work, I argue, an implicit conceptual distinction between the empirical classificatory group of plants (les végétaux), distinguished from animals, and the vegetal (le végétal), concerning processes common to both animals and plants. The emphasis on the comparison of animals and plants, together with the conceptual distinction between plants (vegetables) and the vegetal, further allows us to see, I argue, that Buffon's general theory of reproduction is based on a vegetal model. That is, analysis of the details of Buffon's theory shows not just-as almost all of his predecessors agreed-that animals and plants share the vegetative functions of nutrition, development and reproduction, but that the process of vegetative multiplication provides the model for reproduction in general. Theories of generation and embryological development based on analogies with the plant seed were still not uncommon in the eighteenth century. But I argue that Buffon's general theory of reproduction presents something different in being based on the model of what we now call 'vegetative reproduction' (a new whole growing from a part) and in explaining the seed in these terms too. I conclude with some brief reflections on the implications of this vegetal understanding of Buffon's general theory of reproduction for other aspects of Buffon's natural history, particularly the introduction of the novel terminology of 'reproduction', the criticism of pre-existence theories and the controversy concerning the theory of the sexes of plants.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13260085/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148221096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anchoring the cluster: refining Pigliucci's family resemblance proposal via a dual constraint model of moderate scientific realism.","authors":"Yiyi Yang","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00737-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00737-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Massimo Pigliucci attempts to solve the species problem by integrating Wittgenstein's family resemblance into a scientific realist stance. He proposes that species are interest-independent natural clusters, yet he simultaneously concedes to the purpose-driven pluralism found in biological practice. We argue that this proposal leaves a central tension: it lacks a normative account to explain how an interest-independent ontology coexists with pluralistic practice. Although Pigliucci attempts to defend this realist commitment by appealing to the efficacy of scientific practice, we contend that his defense is problematic. Specifically, his defense exhibits three flaws: first, the inference from practical convergence to strong scientific realism is insufficient; second, it creates an explanatory tension regarding the coexistence of convergence and divergence; and third, it fails to rule out a more parsimonious institutional explanation. In response, we propose a practice-based moderate scientific realism. Decoupling reality from interest-independence, we formulate this realism as a dual constraint model: the reality of species is anchored in the world's causal constraints, while the objectivity of classification is maintained through the community's normative constraints. By substituting strong scientific realism with moderate scientific realism, this approach refines Pigliucci's family resemblance proposal, offering a coherent solution to the species problem that reconciles realist commitments with pluralistic practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A computational case study of Günter Blobel's idea of protein topogenesis and its influence.","authors":"Shane T Jinson, Jane Maienschein, Manfred Laubichler","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00732-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00732-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13253715/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148221090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Crossing paths: historical and philosophical perspectives on cancer and diabetes classifications.","authors":"Sarah Yvonnet, Karin Tybjerg","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00729-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00729-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>No one is perfect, and this is particularly true of disease classifications. When diseases are classified according to different dimensions (topography, symptoms, morphology, aetiology, etc), some characteristics of the diseases are prioritised while others are downplayed. Moreover not all diseases are equally well characterised by a given dimension, and especially complex, chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes have proved difficult to classify because of their heterogeneity. Their classification created tensions historically and still present challenges today. In this article we juxtapose the difficulties of classifying diabetes and cancer historically with the challenges arising in modern classifications of the two diseases. We trace the history of classifying cancer and diabetes, and find that while cancer proved difficult to classify based on its physiological features, diabetes could not readily be situated anatomically and they were classified according to different dimensions: cancer as patho-anatomical and diabetes as patho-physiological. We then discuss the limitations that come with the adoption of these classifications and how they are currently being challenged by new scientific developments. We show that the use of molecular markers to reclassify diabetes 2 and cancer allows their characterisation to cross paths i.e. to move across the classificatory dimensions that had been prioritised historically. Reopening down-prioritised dimensions comes at a price, though, and, we outline challenges as well as opportunities faced by type 2 diabetes and cancer classification. Finally, we argue that the combination of philosophical and historical analyses is well suited to cast light on classificatory tensions and challenges.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13253585/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148221110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Narratives of contingency as historical evidence for philosophical arguments of contingency: pathway decisions in the early development of molecular genetics.","authors":"Wessel de Cock","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00738-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00738-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article argues that philosophical arguments of contingency in the development of science can be advanced by starting from historical evidence produced through the framework of narratives of contingency. Narratives of contingency are conceptualized both as prospective narratives constructed by historical actors to navigate decisions at what they perceived as fork moments in the present and as an analytical framework for systematically reconstructing such decision-making processes from historical sources.The argument is developed in three steps. First, the article outlines three constraints that historical case studies must explicitly address in order to function as evidence for philosophical arguments of contingency and alternative pathway possibility. These are the identification of a juncture moment in a situated trajectory, an explanatory factor linking actors' decisions to the initiation of path-dependent sequences, and an explicit specification of analytical level and scale. Second, narratives of contingency are introduced as a historical framework that enables the systematic description and explanation of pathway decision-making processes, particularly in contexts of institutional deliberation where alternative courses of action were explicitly articulated. Third, the framework is illustrated through a case study of institutional decision-making in the early development of molecular genetics in Germany (1958-1960).</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13253592/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148221077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis: discovery and understanding of a novel disease.","authors":"Andrew S Reynolds","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00730-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00730-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) or \"brain-eating amoeba disease\" is a relatively rare but typically fatal infectious disease of increasing global concern. Discovery of PAM and that Naegleria fowleri is the causative agent responsible are frequently credited to a paper published by the Australian pathologists Malcolm Fowler and Rodney F. Carter in 1965. It was significant as confirmation of an earlier suspicion that free-living, non-parasitic amoebae may be opportunistic pathogens of the human central nervous system. Like many discoveries, however, the historical details are rather more complicated and involved a number of researchers and clinicians working over a decade from 1958 to 1971. Philosophical accounts of scientific discovery since Kuhn (Science, 136, 760-764, 1962) agree that discovery requires both recognition that something exists and understanding what it is. But there is little agreement about how much or what kind of understanding is required. This paper (i) excavates the complex array of observations, inferences, experiments, re-evaluations, and public statements by a number of scientific researchers and physicians that collectively resulted in the recognition of PAM as a novel form of central nervous system infection caused by a novel species of free-living amoeba; and (ii) considers how well several recent accounts of discovery apply to these achievements.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148221087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The short (and messy) life of the protagon theory of anaesthesia.","authors":"Matthew Perkins-McVey","doi":"10.1007/s40656-026-00735-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-026-00735-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>GABA_A and protein hypotheses aside, the lipid theory remains the most influential account of anaesthetic effects in modern pharmacology. An apparent aspect of the lipoidal model's continued dominance is its long historical pedigree, frequently aligned with a process of steady refinement from Bibra and Harless to Hermann, Pohl, and finally Meyer/Overton. This paper problematizes this continuum by placing the genesis of a short-lived experimental entity-protagon-at the centre of the transition from the fat-solvation theory to the modern lipoidal theory of anaesthesia, which broadly identifies fat as a central mediating substance. A 'historical ontology' of protagon and an outline of the 19th century history of brain composition in relation to the early history of anaesthetic pharmacology, it treats the initial appearance of fat-oriented theories of anaesthesia as emergent of the focus on cerebral fat endemic to early 19th century organic principle analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"48 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13135014/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147824073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}