Integrative Promise

This book offers a new approach to the way in which biologists evaluate both the explanations they give of biological phenomena and those they would like to pursue. Departing from current scholarship on explanation, it draws out a cluster of virtues which unifies some biological explanations and, in turn, captures part of what makes the life sciences distinctive: integrative promise. With case studies drawn from a wide variety of historical and empirical domains (such as big data biology, model organisms, and natural history), as well as theoretical connections to a number of other areas in the philosophy of science (including mechanism, science and values, and scientific modeling), this work creates a new lens which helps us understand why contemporary life science takes the structure that it does. It provides insight for readers in philosophy and history of science, as well as biologists interested in the theoretical structure and future of their field.

Charles H. Pence is Chargé de cours in the Institut supérieur de philosophie at the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. His research spans the philosophy and history of the biological sciences, with particular focus on the role of chance in evolutionary theory and the use of digital approaches, especially textual analysis, in philosophical work. His most recent projects include studies of biodiversity and digital approaches to the history and philosophy of biology, as well as two book projects on the introduction of chance and statistical methodologies into evolutionary theory (The Rise of Chance in Evolutionary Theory, Elsevier) and our contemporary understanding of causation in evolutionary theory (The Causal Structure of Natural Selection, Cambridge Univ. Press). He is also executive editor of the journal Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, and associate editor of Biology & Philosophy.

Any reader will be impressed by the diverse examples covered, most pertaining to recent research. Charles Pence s Integrative Promise: Explanatory Virtues in Biology has centred on his account s core themes of stringency, opportunism, and explanatory integration, the different cases contain various further reflections and points that I am unable to cover here, but that will be of interest to readers. (Ingo Brigandt, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Vol 48 (1), 2026)