Teaser
“A neglected topic, of particular interest to me, refers to the benefits that different representation formats, and especially visual formats in contrast to sentential/linguistic ones, provide for epistemically oriented cognitive activities such as hypothesis generation and discovery, data aggregation and organization, model construction and simulation, and explanation of various kinds. Visual representations are so prominent and relevant for biology – and especially, I think, for systems biology approaches – that they are often objects of special interest… Our understanding of the role of visuals in biological practice, from both philosophy and cognitive science, has not kept pace with these developments. This is, I think, an underappreciated area for philosophical inquiry – and an attractive area too, if you enjoy putting visuals into papers and presentations.”
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Suggested Readings by Nicholaos Jones
Jones, N. (2014). Bowtie structures, pathway diagrams, and topological explanation. Erkenntnis, 79, 1135–1155.
Jones, N. (2016). Inference to the more robust explanation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Published online doi:10.1093/bjps/axw009.
Jones, N., & Wolkenhauer, O. (2012). Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology. Biology and Philosophy, 27, 705–721.
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Jones, N. (2017). Extracting Phenomena, Integrating Explanations, and Styling Representations: Some Frontiers for Philosophizing About Biology. In: Green, S. (eds) Philosophy of Systems Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47000-9_14
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