Philosophy of Biology

4 credits · Undergraduate

Are living things simply complex machines? Many philosophers and biologists think that they are, for to think otherwise seems to fly in the face of recent scientific advances and threatens to reintroduce into biology unscientific notions like "spirit" and "vital force". This course takes seriously the position that life can not be reduced to chemical and physical processes. We will also study ways this question affects our understanding of the freedom of the will, the relation of the mind to the body, and "evolutionary" explanations of gender differences.