Dr Celso Alves Neto
Lecturer (Philosophy)
Byrne House FF8
Overview
Welcome!
I am a philosopher of biology and race, working primarily on questions about biological and social classifications, complex micro and macroevolutionary dynamics, and the intersection between values and science.
Updated Information about my work can be found at www.celsoneto.net
Research
I am interested in several issues in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of race. Some of these issues are:
- Is There a Tree of Life?
- Are Races Real?
- What does Biology tell us about Race?
- Can Natural Selection explain Design and Functions in Nature?
- Are Classificatory Concepts in Biology (e.g., Organism, Species) merely Useful Fictions?
- Does Science benefit from Confusing Concepts and Models?
- Should We accept Political Values in Science?
Detailed information about my research can be found at www.celsoneto.net
Supervision
I am happy to supervise PhD and MA students working in the philosophy of science, biology, and race. In particular, I welcome students working on some of the following areas:
- Racial Classifications
- Metaphysics of Race and Gender
- Concepts of Racism
- Social and Psychological Dimensions of Racism
- Classificatory Concepts in Biology: Species, Individuals, Genes, Cells, and Lineages
- Animal Cognition
- The Social Organization of Science
- The Range and Limits of Natural Selection
- The Role of Values in Science
- Process Ontology
Do you want to discuss a potential topic of supervision with me?
Please contact me via C.Alves-Neto@exeter.ac.uk
Publications
Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.
2022
- Neto C, Doolittle WF. (2022) A Chemostat Model for Evolution by Persistence: Clade Selection and Its Explanatory Autonomy, Philosophy of Science, volume 90, no. 1, pages 21-38, DOI:10.1017/psa.2022.11. [PDF]
Teaching
Modules taught
- PHL2011A - The Philosophy of Nature 1
- PHL2119 - Animal Minds and Animal Ethics
- PHL2120 - Philosophy and Sociology of Race
Biography
I was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. There I did my B.A and M.A in philosophy at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). After spending 2 years studying at the Leibniz Universitaet Hannover (Germany), I moved to Canada and obtained my PhD at the University of Calgary in 2020. Then, I became a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University (Canada), working both at the philosophy and the biochemistry and molecular biology departments. I joined SPA and EGENIS in January 2022 and could not be more happy about this decision.
