Dan Brooks is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy I, Ruhr University Bochum. His research interests are distributed throughout the history and philosophy of biology and neuroscience. He is currently conducting a research project supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) on the history, philosophy, and theoretical biology of the concept of levels of organization in biological science.

Vita

• 2021-present: Postodctoral Researcher, Department of Philosophy I, Ruhr-University Bochum
• 2017-2021: Visiting Scholar, Department of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati
• 2019: Visiting Scholar, Saarland University
• 2019: Instructor, Xavier University
• 2015-2017: Postdoctoral Fellow, Konrad Lorenz Insitute for Evolution and Cognition, Vienna
• 2014-2016: Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Münster
• 2014: PhD in Philosophy, Bielefeld University

Publications

 Books

• Levels of Organization in the Biological Sciences. (co-edited with James DiFrisco and William C. Wimsatt) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (2021) [Link]

In Preparation

• "'Dogmatic' vs. 'Legitimate' Organicism: Organisation as Explanans and Explanandum in Biology" (with Dan Nicholson)
• "Themes of Consolidation in Eugene P. Odum's Popularization of the the Levels Concept in Ecology Textbooks"
• "Levelling the World"

Journal Articles

• Brooks, D.S. forthcoming. "Adaptive Design, Contingency, and Ontological Principles for Limited Beings."in Philosophy of Science 88(5)
• Brooks, D.S. 2019. "A New Look at Levels of Organization in Biology." in Erkenntnis [Link]
• Brooks, D.S. 2019. “Conceptual Heterogeneity and the Legacy of Organicism: Thoughts on The Life Organic.” In History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 41:24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-019-0263-0
• Stiefel, K.M. and D.S. Brooks. 2019. “Why is There No Successful Whole Brain Simulation (Yet)?” In Biological Theory. 14(2): 122–130
• Brooks, D.S. and M.I. Eronen. 2018. “The Significance of ‘Levels of Organization’ for Scientific Research: A Heuristic Approach.” In Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 68: 34-41
• Eronen, M.I., and D.S. Brooks. 2018. “Levels of Organization in Biology.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy URL:  <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/levels-org-biology/>
• Brooks, D.S. 2017. “In Defense of Levels: Layer-cakes and Guilt by Association.” In Biological Theory. 12(3): 142–156
• Brooks, D.S. 2014. “The Role of Models in the Process of Epistemic Integration: The Case of the Reichardt Motion Detector”. In History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. Vol. 36(1): 90-113
• Eronen, M.I. and D.S. Brooks. 2014. “Interventionism and Supervenience: A New Problem and Provisional Solution”. In International Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 28(2): 185-202

Book Chapters

• Brooks, D.S., J. DiFrisco, and W.C. Wimsatt. forthcoming. “Levels of Organization: The Architecture of the Scientific Image”. In Levels of Organization in the Biological Sciences. Edited by Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt, pp.1-19. MIT Press
• Brooks, D.S. forthcoming. "Levels of Organization as Tool and Doctrine in Biology." In Levels of Organization in the Biological Sciences. Edited by Brooks, DiFrisco and Wimsatt, pp.39-59. MIT Press