The many faces of biological individuality

Pradeu, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s10539-016-9553-z

Cited by 65 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 88 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…These cases seem more problematic, insofar as it is not clear how to delimit the boundaries of the organism, or what counts as an individual rather than many. These aspects substantially complicate the task of attributing adaptations (Pepper and Herron, 2008;Dupré and O'Malley, 2009;Clarke, 2010Clarke, , 2013Dupré, 2010Dupré, , 2012Wilson and Barker, 2013;Pradeu, 2016;DiFrisco, 2017;Lidgard and Nyhart, 2017).…”

Section: Biological Individuals As Manifestors Of Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

Suárez

Triviño

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host-microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as "holobionts") can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology.

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Section: Biological Individuals As Manifestors Of Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

Suárez

Triviño

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…(We are not in a position to discuss this in depth here-a task for another occasion. However, for an initial detailed discussion see [53] and the rest of the papers in this special issue in Biology and Philosophy). If this concept is too broad, then it is hard to constrain the notion of intentional directedness appropriately, since many kinds of systems undergo histories of some kind of selection with regard to their functioning, like a thermostat.…”

Section: From Rec To Ae and Non-cognitivist Fep: Strong Life-mind Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where There is Life There is Mind: In Support of a Strong Life-Mind Continuity Thesis

Kirchhoff

Froese

2017

Entropy

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This paper considers questions about continuity and discontinuity between life and mind. It begins by examining such questions from the perspective of the free energy principle (FEP). The FEP is becoming increasingly influential in neuroscience and cognitive science. It says that organisms act to maintain themselves in their expected biological and cognitive states, and that they can do so only by minimizing their free energy given that the long-term average of free energy is entropy. The paper then argues that there is no singular interpretation of the FEP for thinking about the relation between life and mind. Some FEP formulations express what we call an independence view of life and mind. One independence view is a cognitivist view of the FEP. It turns on information processing with semantic content, thus restricting the range of systems capable of exhibiting mentality. Other independence views exemplify what we call an overly generous non-cognitivist view of the FEP, and these appear to go in the opposite direction. That is, they imply that mentality is nearly everywhere. The paper proceeds to argue that non-cognitivist FEP, and its implications for thinking about the relation between life and mind, can be usefully constrained by key ideas in recent enactive approaches to cognitive science. We conclude that the most compelling account of the relationship between life and mind treats them as strongly continuous, and that this continuity is based on particular concepts of life (autopoiesis and adaptivity) and mind (basic and non-semantic).

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“…However, rarely do biologists concern themselves with more than one type of individual at a time, let alone actively think about all the different conceptions of individuality possible in their studies. By contrast, some philosophers of biology recognise a wide array of types of individuals, and frequently grapple with how these different types of individuals interplay with the broader concept of biological individuality (Pradeu, , ; see also Gilbert, ; Table ). We think it is worth asking why most biologists do not actively think about individuality in the way philosophers do, especially when some philosophers of biology describe debates about individuality as of primary consequence and concern for scientists (Clarke, ; Haber, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We will use these experiments on less‐traditional organisms as a launchpad to explore the way biologists think about the levels of biological individuality in their everyday work, discuss how their thinking affects experimental design, and highlight some practical problems that can be created and avoided depending on a biologist's application (or non‐application) of the philosophical/theoretical concept of the individual. We find it particularly interesting that while philosophers are still debating definitions of individuality (Pradeu, ), biologists use intuitive, working definitions every day without much thought.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These characteristics are that biological individuality is hierarchical, transitory and continuous in nature (Pradeu, ). Additionally, as we will illustrate, the way one thinks about the biological individual depends not only on the organism being studied, but also strongly on the question being asked (Pradeu, ). In general, the strongest focus in both theoretical biology and philosophy is on the evolutionary individual, while behavioural ecology has largely been overlooked by both biological and philosophical work on biological individuality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can't see the colony for the bees: behavioural perspectives of biological individuality

Smith-Ferguson

Beekman

2019

Biological Reviews

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The question 'what is an individual' does not often arise in studies within the field of behavioural ecology. Generally behavioural ecologists do not think about what makes an individual because they tend to use intuitive working concepts of individuality. Rarely do they explicitly mention how individuality affects their experimental design and interpretation of results. By contrast, the concept of individuality continues to intrigue philosophers of biology. It is interesting that while philosophers of biology debate definitions of individuality, biologists generally use the concept of individuality every day without much thought. Here we review the philosophical approaches to defining biological individuality, and illustrate how the biological individuality concepts used by biologists are affected by their study question and choice of organism. We clarify the behavioural perspective of biological individuality by introducing the concept of the behavioural individual. The notion of the behavioural individual is particularly interesting when explored in less-conventional study organisms. By including less-conventional organisms, it becomes clear why the concept of biological individuality is usually intuitive in behavioural ecology.

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The many faces of biological individuality

Cited by 65 publications

References 88 publications

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

What Is a Hologenomic Adaptation? Emergent Individuality and Inter-Identity in Multispecies Systems

Where There is Life There is Mind: In Support of a Strong Life-Mind Continuity Thesis

Can't see the colony for the bees: behavioural perspectives of biological individuality

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