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Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (Belgium). He obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Ruhr University Bochum and was a Writing-Up Fellow at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Austria). His research is focused on the history and philosophy of the life sciences, particularly on how organism-environment interactions have been construed in ecology and evolutionary biology. He has published on diverse topics such as the holobiont concept, organismal agency, reciprocal causation, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis debate. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Organism-Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Re-Appraisal, which is set to be published in 2025 by the MIT Press. Alongside Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto, and Gregory Radick, he is the co-editor of the volume The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections (Routledge, 2024). Currently, he is the book reviews editor of the Journal for General Philosophy of Science.

Before coming to Ruhr University Bochum to work in the DFG-Emmy Noether Research Group The Return of the Organism in the Biosciences: Theoretical, Historical, and Social Dimensions, he did a B.Sc. degree in Biology (Gabino Barreda Medal in University Merit) and a M.A. in Philosophy of Science (with complementary specialization in History of Science) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He graduated from UNAM in 2019 with a dissertation entitled “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Debate: Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Dimensions” (M.A with honors). His PhD dissertation (summa cum laude) was a philosophical and historical re-appraisal of the organism-environment relationship in the life sciences. In particular, he studied how this relationship has been theorized in the history of twentieth-century biology and how it features in contemporary debates through three interrelated notions: (i) organismal agency; (ii) reciprocity; and (iii) organism-environment separation.


Vita
  • December 2023- to date: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven
  • February 2020-November 2023: PhD student in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy I, Ruhr-University Bochum
  • October 2022-April 2023: Writing-Up Fellow, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
  • April-June 2022: Visiting PhD Student, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
  • March-April 2019: Visiting M.A. Student, Department of Philosophy I, Ruhr-University Bochum
  • 2017-2019: M.A. in Philosophy of Science, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
  • 2017: Gabino Barreda Medal in University Merit (B.Sc. in Biology), UNAM
  • 2011-2016: B.Sc. in Biology, School of Sciences, UNAM

Publications

Monographs

  • The Organism-Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Re-Appraisal (under contract with MIT Press).

Edited Volumes, Topical Collecitons, and Special Issues

  • The Pursuitworthiness of Experiments Across the Sciences. In: European Journal for Philosophy of Science (Co-editor: Enno Fischer; ongoing) [call for papers]
  • The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections. In: Routledge (Co-editors: Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto, Gregory Radick; 2024) [link]
  • Philosophy of Organismal Biology: From Ontogeny to Ecology and Evolution. In: ArtefaCToS: Revista de Estudios sobre la Ciencia y la Tecnología (Co-editor: Mariano Martín-Villuendas; 2023) [download pdf]

Journal Articles

  • Research Environments vis-à-vis Biological Environments: Ontological Parallels, Epistemic Parallax, and Metaphilosophical Parallelization. In: European Journal for Philosophy of Science (forthcoming)
  • What is the Philosophy of Organismal Biology? In: ArtefaCToS: Revista de Estudios sobre la Ciencia y la Tecnología 12(1), 5–25 (Co-author: Mariano Martín-Villuendas; 2023) [download pdf]
  • 'Man-Made Futures': Conrad Hal Waddington, Biological Theory, and the Anthropocene. In: Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age 19 (1),  35–56 (Co-author: Francisco Vergara-Silva; 2022) [download pdf]
  • Richard Lewontin y la reciprocidad organismo-ambiente en la historia de la biología. In: Ludus Vitalis XXIX (56), 31–38 (Co-author: Guido I. Prieto; 2022) [download pdf]
  • Unknotting reciprocal causation between organism and environment. In: Biology & Philosophy 36, 48 (Co-authors: Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto; 2021) [download pdf]
  • Global climate change, diet and the complex relationship between human host and microbiome: Towards an integrated picture. In: BioEssays 43, e2100049 (Co-authors: Francesco Catania, Jan Baedke, Abigail Nieves Delgado, Valerio Vitali, Le Anh Nguyen Long; 2021) [download pdf]
  • Revisiting Hans Böker's "Species Transformation Through Reconstruction: Reconstruction Through Active Reaction of Organisms" (1935). In: Biological Theory 16, 63–75 (Co-authors: Abigail Nieves Delgado, Jan Baedke; 2021) [download pdf]
  • Does the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis entail extended explanatory power? In: Biology & Philosophy 35, 20 (Co-authors: Jan Baedke, Francisco Vergara-Silva; 2020) [download pdf]
  • The holobiont concept before Margulis. In: Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 334(3), 149-155 (Co-authors: Jan Baedke, Abigail Nieves Delgado; 2020) [download pdf]
  • New Perspectives on Theory Change in Evolutionary Biology. In: Journal for General Philosophy of Science 50(4), 573-581 (2019) [download pdf]
  • The emerging structure of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: where does Evo-Devo fit in?. In: Theory in Biosciences 52, 169-184 (Co-author: Francisco Vergara-Silva; 2018) [download pdf]
  • Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts. In: Evolutionary Biology 45, 127–139 (Co-author: Francisco Vergara-Silva; 2018) [download pdf]

Book Chapters

  • Charting Contrasting Stances on Organismal Purposiveness and Agency in Early Twentieth-Century Biology. In: A. Fábregas-Tejeda, J. Baedke, G.I. Prieto, G. Radick (eds.): The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections (pp 41–60). Routledge (2024) [download pdf]
  • Organismal Agency: A Persistent Riddle in the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (Co-authors: Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto, Gregory Radick). In: A. Fábregas-Tejeda, J. Baedke, G.I. Prieto, G. Radick (eds.): The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections (pp 1–20). Routledge (2024) [download pdf]
  • The Organism in Evolutionary Explanation: From Early 20th Century to the Extended Synthesis (Co-author: Jan Baedke). In: T. Dickins, B. Dickins (eds.): Evolutionary Biology - Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory (pp 121–150). Springer (2023) [download pdf]
  • Organisms and the Causes and Consequences of Selection: A Reply to Vidya et al (Co-author: Jan Baedke). In: T. Dickins, B. Dickins (eds.): Evolutionary Biology - Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory (pp 159–169). Springer (2023) [download pdf]
  • Teleology, Organisms, and Genes: A Commentary on Haig (Co-author: Jan Baedke). In: T. Dickins, B. Dickins (eds.): Evolutionary Biology - Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory (pp 249–264). Springer (2023) [download pdf]
  • Explicación en biología (Co-author: Edna Suárez-Díaz). In: M. Martínez, J. Galindo (eds.): Diccionoario de biología evolutivia para las ciencias sociales y las humanidades (pp 235–243). Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (2022)
  • Síntesis Extendida. In: M. Martínez, J. Galindo (eds.): Diccionoario de biología evolutivia para las ciencias sociales y las humanidades (pp 538–545). Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (2022)
  • Dos debates en torno a la extensión de la ontología de la Síntesis Moderna: trazando puentes dialógicos en el evolucionismo contemporáneo con la teoría de construcción de nicho. In: A. Barahona, M. Casanueva, F. Vergara-Silva (eds.): Biofilosofías para el Antropoceno: la teoría de construcción de nicholo desde la filosofía de la biología y la bioética (pp 29–68). Heúresis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2021) [download pdf]

Book Reviews

  • Give in to Our Beastly Nature, or How the 'Pop Science' of What Makes Us Human Rose to Prominence. In: H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences (2023) [download pdf]

Non-Academic Philosophical Writing

  • Entelequia de sueños. In: La Tinta del Silencio (2023) [download ePub]

Talks

Selected Talks

  • The Pulses of Vital Normativity: A Metaphilosophical Bird's-Eye-View. July 2024, "The Organic and the Normative: Prospects and Challenges of Vital Normativity" International Conferencee, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • On the Prospects of Basal Cognition Becoming Fully Evolutionary: Promising Avenues and Cautionary Notes (Co-author: Matthew Sims). July 2024, British Society for the Philosophy of Science 2024 Annual Conference, University of York, United Kingdom.
  • Don't Call Me a Model: On Organisms as Flexible Model Carriers (Co-author: Guido I. Prieto). June 2024, 6th Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe) Workshop, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
  • Biological Environments vis-à-vis Research Environments: Meaningful Ontological Parallels or a Case of Epistemic Parallax? July 2023, Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), University of Toronto, Canada
  • Measuring and Conceptualiying Organismal Environments: Ontological and Epistemological Issues. July 2023, 17th Edition of the International Congress on Logic, Methodologz and Philosophy of Science and Techonology, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Organismal purposiveness in early twentieth-century (philosophy of) biology: from ontological principle to explanandum. December 1st 2021, "Life-Philosophies: Exploring Heterdox Naturalism" Seminar, Ghent University, Belgium [online seminar].
  • Organismal Agents for Biology, Intervenable Populations for Fisheries: The Theories and Practices of E.S. Russell, 1908-1939. November 19th 2021, 2021 Annual History of Science Society Meeting, New Orleans, United States [online meeting]
  • Re-negotiating the organism-environment boundary. September 16th 2021, 8th Biennial Meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA21), Turin, Italy.
  • Drawn, erased, re-negotiated: The organism-environment boundary in early twentieth-century biology. July 13th 2021,  ISHPSSB Biennial Meeting, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, United States [online meeting].
  • Organismal agency on the fringes of early twentieth-century biology? The cases of E.S. Russell and R.S. Lillie. May 6th 2021, ROTO Lecture Series, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany [online seminar].
  • The ´Organism´ in Post-war Biology: Paths, Boundaries, and Environments. September 2nd 2020, 9th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS), Bologna, Italy [online meeting]
  • The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis debate: some ontological, epistemological and historical dimensions. July 8th 2019, Meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), University of Oslo, Norway
  • The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis debate: some epistemological and sociological dimensions. April 2nd 2019, Evolution Evolving: Process, Mechanism and Theory, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (Co-author: Francisco Vergara-Silva)
  • Explanation and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Explanatory Integration, Epistemic Goals, and Explanatory Power. March 21st 2019, The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Philosophical and HIstorical Dimensions (7th Workshop on History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences), Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Alejandro Fábregas-tejeda
ALEJANDRO FÁBREGAS TEJEDA, Dr. des.

Fakultät III,
Institut für Philosophie I,
GA 3/34
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Universitätsstr. 150
44801 Bochum
Tel. +49(0)234/32-24816
Email: Alejandro.FabregasTejeda@rub.de


Office: Tanja Markner
GA 3/62
Tel.:+49(0)234/32-22063

Institut für Philosophie I
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