Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles.
Design principles signify general dependency-relations between structures and functions, given a set of formally defined constraints. I contend that design principles increase our understanding of living systems by relating specific models to general types.
I show that constraint-based generality is distinct from other types of generality in biology, and argue that general principles play a unifying role does not entail theory reduction.
Keywords: Design Principles; Systems Biology; Unification; Biological laws; Constraints; Generic
abstraction
