Introduction: working together on individuality / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- The work of biological individuality: concepts and contexts / Scott Lidgard and Lynn K. Nyhart -- Cells, colonies, and clones: individuality in the volvocine algae / Matthew D. Herron -- Individuality and the control of life cycles / Beckett Sterner -- Discovering the ties that bind: cell-cell communication and the development of cell sociology / Andrew S. Reynolds -- Alternation of generations and (...) class='Hi'>individuality, 1851 / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- Spencer's evolutionary entanglement: from liminal individuals to implicit collectivities / Snait Gissis -- Biological individuality and enkapsis: from Martin Heidenhain's synthesiology to the völkisch national community / Olivier Rieppel -- Parasitology, zoology, and society in France, ca. 1880-1920 / Michael A. Osborne -- Metabolism, autonomy, and individuality / Hannah Landecker -- Bodily parts in the structure-function dialectic / Ingo Brigandt -- Commentaries: historical, biological, and philosophical perspectives -- Distrust that particular intuition: resilient essentialisms and empirical challenges in the history of biological individuality / James Elwick -- Biological individuality: a relational reading / Scott F. Gilbert -- Philosophical dimensions of individuality / Alan C. Love and Ingo Brigandt. (shrink)

The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavy-weighted terms like “intentionality”, “rationality” or “mind”. However, most of the available definitions of agency are either too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. (...) We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: a) a system must define its own individuality, b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactionalasymmetry) and c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-celular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable to meet the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook to the road that lies ahead in the pursuit to understand, model and synthesis agents. (shrink)

The Problem of Biological Individuality is the problem of how to count organisms. Whilst counting organisms may seem easy, the biological world is full of difficult cases such as colonial siphonophores and aspen tree groves. One of the main solutions to the Problem of Biological Individuality is the Physiological Approach. Drawing on an argument made by Eric Olson in the personal identity debate, I argue that the Physiological Approach faces a metaphysical problem - the ‘Foetus Problem’. This paper (...) illustrates how metaphysics can contribute to debates about organisms in the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

This Element develops a view about biological individuality's value in two ways: while biological individuality matters for its theoretical and methodological roles in the production of scientific knowledge, its historical use in promoting the politics of social ideologies concerning progress and perfection of humanity's evolutionary future must not be ignored. Recent trends in biological individuality are analyzed and set against the history of evolutionary thought drawing from the early twentieth century. This title is also available as Open (...) Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

The paper links discussions of two topics: biological individuality and the simplest forms of mentality. I discuss several attempts to locate the boundary between metabolic activity and ‘minimal cognition.’ I then look at differences between the kinds of individuality present in unicellular life, multicellular life in general, and animals of several kinds. Nervous systems, which are clearly relevant to cognition and subjectivity, also play an important role in the form of individuality seen in animals. The last part (...) of the paper links these biological transitions to the evolutionary history of subjective experience. (shrink)

Mammals are usually considered unproblematic as biological individuals. This article contends the opposite. Once we consider pregnancy, criteria for biological individuality are not easily applicab...

Two major clarifications have greatly abetted the understanding and fruitful expansion of the theory of natural selection in recent years: the acknowledgment that interactors, not replicators, constitute the causal unit of selection; and the recognition that interactors are Darwinian individuals, and that such individuals exist with potency at several levels of organization (genes, organisms, demes, and species in particular), thus engendering a rich hierarchical theory of selection in contrast with Darwin’s own emphasis on the organismic level. But a piece of (...) the argument has been missing, and individuals at levels distinct from organisms have been denied potency (although granted existence within the undeniable logic of the theory), because they do not achieve individuality with the same devices used by organisms and therefore seem weak by comparison. We show here that different features define Darwinian individuality across scales of size and time. In particular, species-individuals may develop few emergent features as direct adaptations. The interactor approach works with emergent fitnesses, not with emergent features; and species, as a consequence of their different mechanism for achieving individuality (reproductive exclusivity among subparts, that is, among organisms), express many effects from other levels. Organisms, by contrast, suppress upwardly cascading effects, because the organismic style of individuality (by functional integration of subparts) does not permit much competition or differential reproduction of parts from within. Species do not suppress the operation of lower levels; such effects therefore become available as exaptations conferring emergent fitness—a primary source of the different strength that species achieve as effective Darwinian individuals in evolution. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both (...) the acceptability of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

In Individuality and Mass Democracy, Alex Zarakas acknowledges the importance of both, but focuses on the responsibility of citizens.

A recent development in biology has been the growing acceptance that holobionts, entities comprised of symbiotic microbes and their host organisms, are widespread in nature. There is agreement that holobionts are evolved outcomes, but disagreement on how to characterize the operation of natural selection on them. The aim of this paper is to articulate the contours of the disagreement. I explain how two distinct foundational accounts of the process of natural selection give rise to competing views about evolutionary individuality.

Although natural philosophers have long been interested in individuality, it has been of interest to contemporary philosophers of biology because of its role in different aspects of evolutionary biology. These debates include whether species are individuals or classes, what counts as a unit of selection, and how transitions in individuality occur evolutionarily. Philosophical analyses are often conducted in terms of metaphysics (“what is an individual?”), rather than epistemology (“how can and do researchers conceptualize individuals so as to address (...) some of their scientific goals?”). We review several philosophical distinctions in order to shift attention from metaphysics to epistemology. Many controversies involve epistemological differences rather than metaphysical disagreement. This implies that a pluralist stance about individuality in biology is warranted and has metaphysical consequences because the pluralism emerges from the diversity of scientific interests that investigate the complexity of living phenomena. (shrink)

Some recent work in the philosophy of quantum mechanics has suggested that quantum systems can be thought of as non-separable and therefore non-individual, in some sense, in Bell and E.P.R. type situations. This suggestion is set in the context of previous work regarding the individuality of quantal particles and it is argued that such entities can be considered as individuals if their non-classical statistical correlations are understood in terms of non-supervenient relations holding between them. We conclude that such relations (...) are strongly non-supervenient in Cleland's sense and note a possible connection between this idea and the realist quantum logic programme. (shrink)

I will argue that MLS theory does not provide a complete, self- sufficient approach to theorizing about evolutionary transitions. As a formal, mathematical theory about evolution within a population, it presupposes but does not address the material structure of the population that realizes the model. An MLS model might tell us whether a cooperative trait could be- come fixed in a population, for example, but it won’t be able to explain how the cooperation actually works to produce an adaptive effect (...) on the group’s fitness. It also won’t be able to account for the sources of variety in the pos- sible modes of cooperation available to a population. MLS theory can tell us when fitness has transferred from one level of units to another, but it can give misleading answers unless we have some other, principled guide for picking out units (Clarke 2012; Clarke 2014). Furthermore, it is commonly acknowl- edged among biologists that actually measuring the fitness of an individual— sometimes even obtaining and interpreting proxy measurements—is diffi- cult in practice and prone to error (Hendry 2005; Orr 2009). Hence even if MLS theory were sufficient in principle, there would still be room for other approaches in practice that avoided the difficulties and limitations of depend- ing on fitness alone. (shrink)

Why does Scheler reject the possibility of reconciling phenomenological personalism and Scholastic metaphysics? Mohr claims that Scheler's rejection is in part related to the meaning of moral development. For Scheler, personal value is not grounded in metaphysical capacities of a shared nature, but in the value of individuality. This paper interprets and clarifies Scheler's positions on the content of personal individuality, how this content is value-bearing, and whether this value is original or derivative, absolute or conditional. Traditional ways (...) of attempting to account for personal uniqueness, via either formal or empirical criteria, prove insufficient. If individuality is intrinsic to the person, and individuality is value-bearing, then there is a social responsible for assisting in disclosing personal individuality. (shrink)

Can there be two things that are completely indistinguishable? This simple question has raised numerous debates throughout the history of philosophy and science. The principle of the identity of indiscernibles claims that no two things can be completely indiscernible. But this thesis has been challenged in quantum physics and continues to be a hot topic in cutting edge areas of mathematics. The question has gained a renewed interest with the possibility of harnessing indistinguishability as a resource in quantum information tasks. (...) This theme issue is devoted to understanding identity and indistinguishability in philosophy and science, gathering an interdisciplinary group of experts in the field. It will allow readers of diverse disciplines to have an updated introduction to the topic. (shrink)

Introduction, the central experiences. - The concrete universal. - Uniformity and general law not antagonistic to individuality. - The teleology of finite consciousness, a sub-form of individuality. - Bodily basis of mind as a whole of content. - Self-consciousness as the clue to the typical structure of reality. - Ourselves and the absolute. - Individuality as the logical criterion of value. - Freedom and initiative. - Nature, the self, and the absolute.

The unique discourse of Confucian ritual practice encompasses a powerful and sophisticated way of talking about individual fulfillment within the context of more substantive or universal conceptions of the good life. To make this case, I will consider both the text of the "Analects" and the influential readings of the "Analects" offered by Fingarette in "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" and by Hall and Ames in "Thinking through Confucius". Though the two interpretive works are helpful in articulating the classical Confucian (...) contribution to the problem of balancing conformity and individuality, I will argue that an alternative reading is required to appreciate fully how values thought to embody and express the fullest humanity might be inculcated in ethical agents without undoing their individuality. Such an alternative is developed here. (shrink)

This paper is an application of the principles of individuality found in Guay and Pradeu to illuminate biological individuality in mushrooms. I begin with the distinction between logico-cognitive individuals and ontological individuals, and then I argue for genidentity plus material continuity, as a minimum conception of ontological individuality in biology. Of the many materially-continuous genidenticals found in fungi, only those with functional roles in biological theory, either evolutionary or physiological, warrant consideration. Given numerous ways that theory picks (...) out materially-continuous genidenticals in fungi, I argue for a pluralistic account of mushroom individuality. (shrink)

This chapter has a twofold aim. First, to look at the debate about identity and individuality in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and offer a limited defense of the view according to which identity facts are primitive in that domain. Second, to contribute to the clarification of the relationship between science and metaphysics, in particular with respect to what a proper “naturalistic” methodology should and should not be taken to entail as far as the theme of individuality is concerned. The (...) guiding idea is that taking identity and individuality facts as basic is not necessarily in conflict with naturalism. The overall picture that emerges, however, is that of a “pluralistic” approach, whereby different scientific domains and theories are likely to allow, and in fact to ask for, different forms of individuality. (shrink)

Individuality and Beyond: Nietzsche Reads Emerson. By Zavatta Benedetta, Reynolds Alexander).

Individuality has posed difficult problems throughout the history of philosophy. Not only is there the metaphysical difficulty of determining the principle of individuation, but, since our concepts and linguistic structure are based on universals, there is a gap in our knowledge of individuals and in our ability to express knowledge of individuals. God, who in Classical Theism is an individual, poses especially difficult problems. This dissertation proposes one way which may partially close the gap: metaphor. ;I argue that the (...) principle of individuation is what Duns Scotus called haecceitas, which uniquely delimits this particular individual. It is not opposed to form or to universality, but is the ultimate reality of form. I follow Scotus further in holding that the individual qua individual is intrinsically intelligible; our difficulty in understanding individuals is due to the weakness of our intellect, since our thought is through universal concepts. ;Next I defend the interaction theory of metaphor, which holds that the terms of a metaphor interact to form a new meaning which cannot be entirely reduced to the meanings of the terms. I argue further that metaphor can not only give us richer linguistic access to entities, but also give us cognitive insight which cannot be gained in any other way. ;I then defend a form of non-propositional knowing and argue that metaphor is a particularly appropriate way to express this knowledge. I argue that Scotus' theory of individuality, which holds that the individual is intrinsically intelligible, leaves open the possibility of some form of metaphoric cognition of the individual. I present a case study: the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins attempted to use metaphor and other devices in his poetry to illuminate individual beings. ;Finally I discuss God, the ultimate instance of the correlation of universality and individuality. God, being the ultimate individual, presents epistemological and linguistic problems similar in some ways to those which accrue to finite individuality. I defend the thesis that metaphorical and modelling language can help us gain insight into God. (shrink)

Biological individuality is a notoriously thorny topic for biologists and philosophers of biology. In this paper we argue that biological individuality presents multiple, interconnected questions for biologists and philosophers that together form a problem agenda. Using a case study of an interdisciplinary research group in ecology, behavioral and evolutionary biology, we claim that a debate on biological individuality that seeks to account for diverse practices in the biological sciences should be broadened to include and give prominence to (...) questions about uniqueness and temporality. We show that broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality draws attention to underrecognized philosophical issues and discussions and thereby organizes and enriches the existing debate. (shrink)

A significant and longstanding debate in philosophy of biology has centered around biological individuality. Although there have been numerous attempts to articulate a plausible and unifying view of what makes something a biological individual, the results are often conflicting and non-coextensive. In spite of these disputes, an open consensus around a few general ideas has surfaced (Pradeu 2016a). One common assumption that has been carried over with the consensus is that biological individuality is an intrinsic property of biological (...) entities (Clarke 2016a). This tendency is reflected in the properties typically selected as criteria: what makes something an individual is quite often a property that biological entities themselves possess. I draw on Ellen Clarke’s (2013) evolutionary account of biological individuality, research about the evolution and maintenance of cooperation in the origins of multicellularity (Brockhurst et al. 2007; Gulli et al. 2019), and important parts of the consensus around biological individuality to argue against this trend. What makes something a biological individual is not always something about the entities in question. I show that there are environmental mechanisms capable of acting as individuation mechanisms in circumstances that resemble early transition stages, or in situations where individuality departs from paradigm cases. Therefore, biological individuality is not necessarily an intrinsic property. (shrink)

All disciplines must define their basic units and core processes. In evolutionary biology, the core process is natural selection and the basic unit of selection and adaptation is the individual. To operationalize the theory of natural selection we must count individuals, as they are the bearers of fitness. While canonical individuals have often been taken to be multicellular organisms, the hierarchy of life shows that new kinds of individuals have evolved. A variety of criteria have been used to define biological (...) individuality. Some criteria rely on the presence/absence of a particular property while others advocate an approach that reflects the process of natural selection. The plethora of approaches to classifying individuality has resulted in confusion regarding how to study individuality in a given taxon. (shrink)

Familiar summaries of evolution by natural selection hold that one requirement for change of this kind is heredity. Parents must resemble their offspring; like must beget like. However, many life cycles feature long and complex chains in which like begets unlike, before they return to their starting point. Such life cycles are common, being seen in various plants, animals, fungi, and protists. In response to these cases, the chapter offers a framework in which the familiar notion of reproduction is treated (...) as a special case of a broader category. (shrink)

The place of the State in Spinoza's ontology has emerged in scholarly literature as one of the most complex issues involving Spinoza's political thought. At issue is whether Spinoza's State is an actual individual with its own conatus. Some consider it a completely real individual, others say that its individuality can only be metaphoric, whilst others point out the conceptual insufficiency of this polarity for explaining the ontological status of political aggregates and try to overcome it through new concepts, (...) such as the multitude, transindividuality, and figuration. In this paper, each of these interpretations is analyzed and dismissed in favour of a new one stating that Spinoza's State is actually a dynamic network of political concepts operating in resemblance of individuality and reflecting the main characteristics of the modern Nation-State. (shrink)

This review offers a critical examination of the relationship between individuality and natural selection. First, I challenge the widely held Individuality Assumption—the idea that an entity must be an individual to function as a unit of selection. Through a systematic analysis of the main concepts of units of selection and evolutionary individuals, I show that the Individuality Assumption is untenable: biological entities can play important evolutionary roles in the process of natural selection without qualifying as individuals in (...) any significant sense. Second, I shed light on the conceptual and theoretical relationship between the debates on the units of selection and evolutionary individuality, which have largely grown independently and are often treated separately. Third, I contend that the relationship between individuality and selection is obscured by the tendency to construe evolutionary individuality in terms of evolvability. To overcome this problem, I propose an integrative framework that connects the different concepts of units of selection and evolutionary individuals with a philosophical account of individuality. This framework is visualized in the form of an Individuality Space that serves as a heuristic tool to further investigate the relationship between individuality and selection. I illustrate its utility by applying it to evolutionary transitions in individuality. (shrink)

If harm is restricted to mean perceptible damage suffered by an agent against his wishes, so that his mere dislike with no evidence of injury is excluded, then Mill's liberty principle arguably is ‘one very simple principle’ as he claims. But even so, what of John Gray's charge that the liberty principle relies on a ‘radically defective’ notion of individuality or autonomy that is incompatible with every civil society's cultural and moral traditions? If he is correct about this, then (...) Mill's principle lacks appeal even if it can be stated in a definite and coherent manner. (shrink)

Recent attention to complex group-level behavior amongst bacteria has led some to conceive of multicellular clusters of bacteria as individuals. In this article, I assess these recent claims by first drawing a distinction between two concepts of individuality: physiological and evolutionary. I then survey cases that are representative of three different modes of growth: myxobacteria (surface-attached agglomerative growth), Bacillus subtilis (agglomerative growth not attached to a surface), and cyanobacteria (filamentous growth). A closer look at these cases indicates that multicellular (...) individuality among bacteria is remarkably complex. Physiologically, the three cases of multicellular clusters do not form physiological individuals. But matters are different when it comes to evolutionary individuality; although multicellular clusters that grow by agglomeration are not highly individuated, filament-forming groups achieve a relatively high degree of individuality. I also suggest that debates about bacterial multicellular individuality may have been obscured by a failure to see that selection on highly individuated groups is by no means the only mechanism to bring about the complex group-level behaviors that have led some to view bacteria as multicellular individuals. (shrink)

(1981). From individuality to character: The Herbartian sociology applied to education. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 69-79.

(1980). Education, individuality and community – education for self‐reliance in Tanzania. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 100-111.

There is a gap between the “non-individuals” interpretation of quantum mechanics and our world of experience. This chapter begins to bridge it. Section 9.1 states the problem with Abner Shimony’s “Phenomenological principle”; Sect. 9.2 briefly presents the interpretation with connection to standard quantum mechanics; Sect. 9.3 presents the measurement problem in connection with the Phenomenological principle, the standard way out of it, and why the “non-individuals” interpretation of quantum mechanics should not follow it; Sect. 9.4 finally shows two closed venues (...) for such an interpretation (Bohmian mechanics and the Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation), and two alternatives for such it (Everettian quantum mechanics and spontaneous collapse theories); Sect. 9.5 is a conclusion. (shrink)

The definition of biological individuality is one of the most discussed topics in philosophy of biology, but current debate has focused almost exclusively on evolution-based accounts. Moreover, several participants in this debate consider the notions of a biological individual and an organism as equivalent. In this paper, I show that the debates would be considerably enriched and clarified if philosophers took into account two elements. First, physiological fields are crucial for the understanding of biological individuality. Second, the category (...) of biological individuals should be divided into two subcategories: physiological individuals and evolutionary individuals, which suggests that the notions of organism and biological individual should not be used interchangeably. I suggest that the combination of an evolutionary and a physiological perspective will enable biologists and philosophers to supply an account of biological individuality that will be both more comprehensive and more in accordance with scientific practices. (shrink)

Features the full text of "Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical Method," by Charles L. Creegan. Discusses the works and theories of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).

Quasi-set theory $\cal Q$ allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that $x = x$ is not a formula, if $x$ is an arbitrary term. $\cal Q$ was partially motivated by the problem of non-individuality in quantum mechanics. In this paper I discuss the range of explanatory power of $\cal Q$ for quantum phenomena which demand some notion of indistinguishability among quantum objects. My main focus (...) is on the double-slit experiment, a major physical phenomenon which was never modeled from a quasi-set-theoretic point of view. The double-slit experiment strongly motivates the concept of degrees of indistinguishability within a field-theoretic approach, and that notion is simply missing in $\cal Q$. Nevertheless, other physical situations may eventually demand a revision on quasi-set theory axioms, if someone intends to use it in the quantum realm for the purpose of a clear discussion about non-individuality. I use this opportunity to suggest another way to cope with identity in quantum theories. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to offer a solution compatible with Graham Priest’s Noneism and Amie Thomasson’s Artifactual theory which stresses the epistemic features of the notion of individuality in fiction in a framework where individuals are conceived of as functions (the framework is known as the world-lines-semantics of Hintikka). According to our view, it is the endorsement of a reader’s perspective that extends the range of the values of the functions (individuals) and that offers an alternative (...) solution to cases of identity inside and outside the scope of a fictionality (or representation) operator. More technically, this proposal can be seen as both extending the notion of individuality of the Artifactual theory and furnishing an epistemic twist to Priest’s principle of freedom. (shrink)

This is a (very) introductory paper to a forthcoming existentalist account of moral absolutism and violence. It was written for and presented at ICPR Seminar 2018. In feminist ethics, the freedom to choose one's way of living is primary to the struggle against patriarchy. Such a choice to live a certain way is a manifestation of one's individuality. This assertion of individuality is accompanied by responsibility towards consequences of the way of living. To explore the relation between (...) class='Hi'>individuality and responsibility, I develop and build the hypothetical situation of a mother and daughter with different ways of living. The notion of a good life for each of them is mentioned and we ask: To what extent is the daughter responsible for the anguish that the mother undergoes in her assertion of individuality (through her choice of way of living)? My primary aim in this paper is to question the nature of individuality and to probe the claim that individuality is a source of violence. This will involve discussing the scope of responsibility for one's choices and the difficulty in forming a criterion to delineate such a scope. (shrink)

While discussing critical individuality as oneof the main goals of liberal education, theemphasis has usually been on direct educationalmeasures. Much less attention has been given tothe social preconditions for its development.This paper discusses the societal aspect of thequestion by employing the notion of spherepluralism. The attempt is to point out someways in which the diversified nature of societycan be employed in its full potential for thedevelopment of critical individuality. Thearticle aims to outline a form of spherepluralism, which is (...) based on structuraldifferentiation, cultural diversity, communalvitality, confessional pluralism andcross-communal criticism. The suggestion isthat the critical potential of sphere pluralismpresupposes a proper balance between sphereautonomy and inter-sphere criticism as well asthat between social construction of meaning andobjective-structural constraints. (shrink)

Individual form and relevant distinctions -- Reasons for affirming individual forms -- Types of essential structures -- Types of being -- Principles of individuality -- Individual form and mereology -- Challenges for individual forms -- Alternative accounts of individual form -- An alternative account revisited.