Wrongful life

logico-empiricist philosophy of biology

Gereon Wolters

pp. 187-208

in: Maria C. Galavotti, Alessandro Pagnini (eds), Experience, reality, and scientific explanation, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

Logico-empiricist philosophy of biology is a case of wrongful life. After conceiving philosophy of biology logical empiricism did almost everything to prevent it from becoming a healthy subdiscipline of the philosophy of science. Right from its birth logico-empiricist philosophy of biology was a defective child and it has remained so until the late sixties when antipositivistic tort-for-wrongful-life thinking together with other developments set a new philosophical stage for biology.