Abstract
The burgeoning debate over biological individuality raises deep issues, philosophical and scientific, but suffers from conceptual unclarity. This paper offers a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. It is argued that the problem of biological individuality, as it is often formulated in the literature, rests
on a category mistake. The mistake is to treat the expression ‘biological individual’ as if it were a sortal, when in fact it is not. This diagnosis sheds light on a number of otherwise puzzling aspects of the debate.
on a category mistake. The mistake is to treat the expression ‘biological individual’ as if it were a sortal, when in fact it is not. This diagnosis sheds light on a number of otherwise puzzling aspects of the debate.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | British Journal for the Philosophy of Science |
| Early online date | 1 Oct 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 1 Oct 2023 |