Project
The evolution and philosophy of endogenous death
The fate of every organism is death—or so it seems.
Project
An Evolutionary Cybernetic Theory of Semiosis
In recent years, particularly in the emerging field of biosemiotics, it has been proposed that semiotics - the study of signification processes - could bring a paradigmatic shift in our scientific conception of life, and consequently in scientific biology in general and beyond.
Project
Biological Laws: Analogies and Allometries
The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important.
Project
Information and Codes in Biochemistry
Biochemists traditionally accept the view that life is an extremely complex form of chemistry (the Chemical paradigm), a view which implies that genetic information and the genetic code are but metaphorical concepts because they cannot be described by physical quantities.
Project
Conceptual Foundations of Cell Mortality
Durand, P. M., & Ramsey, G. 2025. Conceptual Foundations of Cell Mortality. https://doi.org/10.1007/82_2025_328
Publication
Everyone flows : a process philosophy of human life
Recommended Citation Dupré, John. (2025). Everyone flows : a process philosophy of human life. Oxford University Press.
Project
Process Biology
Since around 500BCE, when Heraclitus declared that everything changes while Parmenides maintained that everything stays the same, the dichotomy of process and substance has been at the heart of Western philosophy.
Project
Metaphors of identity, recognition and connection in the 20th century - cell biology and literature
Every knowledge-based discipline proceeds trough history by coining new terms.
Publication
The Major Metaphors of Evolution: Darwinism Then and Now
Agosta, Salvatore J and Daniel R. Brooks. 2020. The Major Metaphors of Evolution: Darwinism Then and Now. Springer. https://www.springer.com...
Publication
Technology led to more abstract causal reasoning
Gärdenfors, Peter and Marlize Lombard. 2020. Technology led to more abstract causal reasoning. Biology & Philosophy, 35(4), 40. https://...
Project
Beyond Networks: an Organismic Systems Biology for the 21st Century
Biology is the science of life.
Publication
Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology
Jones, Nicholaos; Wolkenhauer, Olaf. 2012. Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology. BIOLOGY & PHILO...
Publication
Explanation and Organizing Principles in Systems Biology
Breidenmoser, Tobias and Olaf Wolkenhauer. 2015. Explanation and Organizing Principles in Systems Biology. Pp. 249–64 in Explanation in Biol...
Publication
Ernst Mayr’s Interactions with J. B. S. Haldane
Rao, Veena and Vidyanand Nanjundiah. 2016. Ernst Mayr’s Interactions with J. B. S. Haldane. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 38(1...
Publication
Debating Darwin
Richards, Robert J and Michael Ruse. 2016. Debating Darwin. Chicago: Universtity of Chicago Press. http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/...
Publication
Purpose & Desire
Turner, J. Scott. 2017. Purpose & Desire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651563/purpose-and-desire
Project
Inheritance Systems and the Extended Synthesis; Picturing the Mind
I will be completing a book in the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology series, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019; this is co-authored by Marion Lamb.
Project
Life in the transients
This project will explore a new theory of adaptation that I have termed Life in the Transients (LIT).
Project
Dichotomies in biology and the origin of life problem
Advances in synthetic biology have brought the long-standing ‘Origin of Life’ problem once again into prominence.
Project
The Scientific Method in Biology and Biomedicine
Philosophers tend to explain the success of the scientific enterprise in terms of a so-called scientific method believed to be typical of physics and chemistry.
