On Biological Individuality

Abstract

This dissertation is about biological individuals. Primarily, I grapple with the now longstanding problem of biological individuality and some of its main ingredients. These include the conditions that give rise to the problem itself, the inner workings and theoretical assumptions that shape its solutions, and the contested nature of biological individuals. I draw on a series of continuities between contemporary debates about biological individuality and earlier discussions in biology and philosophy of biology to articulate a different way of looking at these matters. The view I defend departs from the received view by advancing a reinterpretation of the solutions to the problem of biological individuality. Instead of thinking about accounts of biological individuality as constitutive definitions, I suggest that we can understand them as causal explanations of tractable surrogates of unity. They explain the origins, maintenance, and functioning of traits or states that have been theoretically identified with the individuality of biological entities. The plan is the following. Chapter 1 is an introductory overview of the current state of affairs and the dissertation as a whole. Chapter 2 looks at the problem of biological individuality through the prism of the problem of species. Searching for methodological similarities, Chapters 3 and 4 delve into the ins and outs of evolutionary and physiological accounts. Chapter 5 questions the idea that biological individuals form a broad kind of objects comprised of interrelated sub-kinds. Chapter 6 develops my proposal by building on previous findings and connects it to broader themes in the discussions about biological individuality.

Date of Award	13 May 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Tuomas Tahko (Supervisor) & Samir Okasha (Supervisor)