He is the director of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter.
Dupré, together with Nancy Cartwright, Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Peter Galison, are often grouped together as the "Stanford School" of philosophy of science.
While reductionism of this sort is a common position among scientists and philosophers, Dupré suggests that such reduction is not possible as the world has an inherently pluralistic structure.
Dupré is an important critic of biological research programs in the life science community.
Dupré argues that such projects must remain speculative and reflect on the prejudices of the researchers as circumstances in the world.
Dupré's arguments in this area reflect and mirror the sentiments and criticism of evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.