chris shambaugh

My latest paper, The Case for Pluralism About Teleological Explanation, is now available @philscijournal.bsky.social!

#philsci #HPbio #HPS

Great. This is working. Let's goo

tuning in ;)

from "D'Arcy Thompson and the Science of Form" (1971)

great Gould footnote on teleophobia in modern evolutionary orthodoxy

big things ahead for Plessnerian-Mauism

Thank you for the opportunity to share my work! It was great to get everyone’s feedback

it is incredible!

h/t @yavannakemi.bsky.social

But thanks, Vera. I'm excited to discuss the paper with you all

That’s another talk. This one is about renewing our capacity to experience the question ;)

Looks great! Can’t wait to read it

Poster for the talk by Chris Shambaugh, entitled "What is Dialectical Biology?". It will take place on Monday, 24 November 2025 at 4 pm (CET) via Zoom.

Next Monday, we welcome @cshambaugh.bsky.social from the University of Oregon in our ROTO Lecture Series who will talk about dialectical biology. Just register via the link and join the talk and discussion at 4pm (CET): rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture...
#HPBio #PhilSci #HistSci

🚨new publication🚨

𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗿𝘆

in: Understanding Social Struggles: Relating Recognition Theories and Epistemic Injustice (eds. H. Hänel and F. Schuppert), Transcript. pp. 49-64. 2025.

Open Access: philpapers.org/archive/BLUC...

so good

Organisms are not billiard balls, struck in deterministic fashion by the cue of natural selection, and rolling to optimal positions on life’s table. They influence their own destiny in interesting, complex, and comprehensible ways. | Gould

Screenshot of the first page of a Philosophy of Science journal article titled “Tool Use Beyond Humans” by Gianmaria Dani and Grant Ramsey, published by the Philosophy of Science Association. The authors are affiliated with the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at KU Leuven, Belgium. Abstract: The definition of tool use has long been debated, especially when applied beyond humans. Recent work argues that the phenomena included within tool use are so broad and varied that there is little hope of using the category for scientific generalizations, explanations, and predictions about the evolution, ecology, and psychology of tool users. One response to this argument has been the development of tooling as a replacement for tool use. In this article, we analyze the tool use and tooling frameworks. Identifying advantages and limitations in each, we offer a synthetic approach that suggests promising avenues for future research.

Defining non-human #ToolUse remains contested, complicating scientific generalization & inspiring the concept of “tooling.” Our new 📄 @philscijournal.bsky.social proposes a synthetic framework to advance research on 🔧 use & tooling 👇 www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #philsci #cogsci #evosky #HPbio

Just began working on organizing the blog & converting to shareable PDFs, & it’s going to be a big project! For life reasons, it’s going to be harder for me to keep going now, so any support would be crazy appreciated! & thanks for reading & sharing Substudies!

open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...

Habit: a Hegelian-enactive dialogue - Synthese Synthese - Enactive perspectives on habit reject mechanistic models and call attention to the neglect of this concept in computational approaches to the mind. Recent work has brought enactive views...

Two new open-access articles from Andrea Gambarotto and collaborators:

Enactivizing dialectics: from individual to social normativity and back (w/ Thomas van Es): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Habit: a Hegelian-enactive dialogue (w/ Ezequiel A. Di Paolo): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Cover, title page, and page of figures from the book.

OTD in 1880, Charles Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants. D believed that plants are active agents in the world: “A radicle may be compared with a burrowing animal such as a mole, which wishes to penetrate perpendicularly down into the ground.”

🧪🌱🐋 #philsci #HistSTM 🦋🦫

The Contested Domain by Lise Vogel edited by me, displayed on my grandmother’s kitchen table from the 1950s

She’s here!

To assume one basis for life and a different basis for science is as a matter of course a lie. | Marx

Marx as a philosophical biologist?

Chris Shambaugh on young Marx's account of organismal agency, its relation to human life to the critique of capitalism.

www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...

Author’s bio in a J.B.S. Haldane children’s book: “He thinks a lot of the magicians in old days were only doing, or trying to do, what scientists and engineers do now, and that science can be more exciting than magic ever was.”

Reading a Julius Schaxel article via @jamescrane.bsky.social translation. It’s so inspiring seeing a Marxist scientist reading and integrating science and philosophy like this. Anticipated evo-devo before its formalization! It’s also interesting how he’s still ahead of time w/ some philbio topics!

It’s here! My first physical copy of my book, out next month. @uchicagopress.bsky.social have a lovely traditional of sending the first copy straight from their offices in branded wrapping paper.

Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation William M. Paris’s first book makes wide-ranging and consequential interventions into contemporary critical theory, Africana philosophy, and criti...

ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/race...

Another generous review of my book!

wake me up when they re-press garbage

I bought a copy. I'll try to scan it this winter

I also think it is the text in the history of the philosophy of biology where organicism and dialectical materialism are closest together.