1 Philosophy of Biology Paul E. Griffiths paul.griffiths@uq.edu.au 5131 wds inc refs Introduction The philosophy of biology has existed as a distinct sub-discipline within the philosophy of science for about thirty years. The rapid growth of the field has mirrored that of the biological sciences in the same period. Today the discipline is well represented in the leading journals in philosophy of science, as well as in several specialist journals. There have been two generations of textbooks (see conclusion) and the subject is regularly taught at undergraduate as well as graduate level. The current high profile of the biological sciences and the obvious philosophical issues that arise in fields as diverse as molecular genetics and conservation biology suggest that the philosophy of biology will remain an exciting field of enquiry for the foreseeable future. Three kinds of philosophy of biology Philosophers have engaged with biological science in three quite distinct ways. Some have looked to biology to test general theses in philosophy of science (see LAWS OF NATURE) . Others have engaged with conceptual puzzles that arise within biology itself. Finally, philosophers have looked to biological science for answers to distinctively philosophical questions in such fields as ethics, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology (see EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY). The debate which marked the beginning of contemporary philosophy of biology exemplified the first of these three approaches, the use of biological science as a testing ground for claims in general philosophy of science. In the late 1960s, Kenneth C. Schaffner applied the logical empiricist model of theory reduction to the relationship between classical, Mendelian genetics and the new molecular genetics (Schaffner 1967,