Formal Reconstruction of the Theory of Natural Selection

GINNOBILI, SANTIAGO

Munich

Workshop; 1st MCMP Munich-Buenos Aires Workshop.; 2013

The concept of fitness is probably the one that has generated the most discussion in the philosophy of biology. There is, however, relative agreement in the need to distinguish two uses of the term: ecological fitness on the one hand, and population genetics fitness, on the other. The goal of this presentation is to give an explication of the concept of fitness by providing a reconstruction of the theory of natural selection in which this concept is framed, that is, based on the way the theory was put to use in Darwin?s main texts. The meta-theoretical framework presupposed in the analysis will be that of metatheoretical structuralism.