Philosophical Perspectives on the Engineering Approach in Biology: Living Machines?

Philosophical Perspectives on the Engineering Approach in Biology provides a philosophical examination of what has been called the most powerful metaphor in biology: The machine metaphor. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the idea that living systems can be understood through the lens of engineering methods and machine metaphors from both historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives.

In their contributions the authors examine questions about scientific explanation and met...