Ellen
Clarke

I am a philosopher of biology who works on levels of selection in evolutionary theory, the problem of defining the organism in biology, cultural selection theory, and anything connecting evolution to bacteria, plants, political philosophy, gender, or race.

I am a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

I am currently working on a Leverhulme Funded project to complete a monograph 'The Units of Life: Kind of individuals in biology'

CV available on request

[email protected]

Publications

  • Coming soon...

Research

Selected talks

  • 'On the need to keep hold of your biological individuals' at CNRS Paris, Sept 2021.
  • 'Group Selection and human morality' at Dolphin Beach, Australia, August 2019.
  • 'What are Major Transitions?' at ESEB 2017 , August 2017, Groningen.
  • 'Rethinking reproduction' at ISHPSSB 2015, July 5-10, Montreal.
  • 'On biological individuality', Moral Sciences Club, Jan 2015, Cambridge.
  • 'On the subject of bacteriology', UCL STS, November 2015, London.
  • 'How to count organisms', BSPS meeting, October 2014, LSE.
  • 'Bacterial Individuality', Keynote at PBUK 2014, April 2014, Cambridge.
  • 'The organism concept in biology' at Groups and Individuals conference, May 2012, Almora, India.

Conference organisation

Reading groups

  • Coming soon...

Work in progress

  • The Units of Life: Kinds of Individuals in Biology - A monograph for Oxford University Press
  • Can cultural selection drive an adaptive process? - A paper which evaluates different attempts to articulate an account of cultural evolution in which a cultural process that is analagous to natural selection leads to better cultural artefacts
  • Inheritance and cooperation - A review of different ways in which inheritance can be thought about, and the implications of different versions for our understanding of the evolution of cooperation.
  • Sex categories - Must we understand humans as mostly being either male or female? What are the advantages of doing so? How do those categories relate to broader biological concepts such as function?
  • Group Selection of human morality - How coherent is it?
  • Dudebro evolution - How have gender bias and colonialism influenced our stories about human evolution, especially the evolution of parenting and of morality?
  • Biological individuality in conservation - How does the way that organisms are conceived and counted impact conservation theory and practice, via biodiversity measures and more

Media

Teaching

  • Philosophy of Biology
    Undergraduate modules at levels 2 and 3, and masters classes
  • Philosophy of Science.
    Introductory module for first year undergraduates
  • Feminist Philosophy
    Undergraduate module, level 3
  • Philosophy of Race
    Undergraduate module, level 2
  • I am interested in supervising doctoral projects in cultural evolution theory, conservation metaphysics or any area of philosophy of biology

Contact

At the beach

[email protected]

https://hpsleeds.wordpress.com