What is an organism? An immunological answer
| Abstract | The question “What is an organism?”, formerly considered as essential in biology, has now been increasingly replaced by a larger question, “What is a biological individual?”. On the grounds that i) individuation is theory-dependent, and ii) physiology does not offer a theory, biologists and philosophers of biology have claimed that it is the theory of evolution by natural selection which tells us what counts as a biological individual. Here I show that one physiological field, immunology, offers a theory, which makes possible a biological individuation based on physiological grounds. I give a new answer to the question of the individuation of an organism by linking together the evolutionary and the immunological approaches to biological individuation. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesRobert C. Richardson (2000). The Organism in Development. Philosophy of Science 67 (3):321.
Roy Sorensen (2002). Mirror Imagery and Biological Selection. Biology and Philosophy 17 (3).
Jason Scott Robert (2003). Constant Factors and Hedgeless Hedges: On Heuristics and Biases in Biological Research. Philosophy of Science 70 (5):975-988.
Marshall Abrams (2009). Fitness “Kinematics”: Biological Function, Altruism, and Organism–Environment Development. Biology and Philosophy 24 (4):487-504.
Wilfried Allaerts (1999). The Biological Function Paradigm Applied to the Immunological Self-Non-Self Discrimination: Critique of Tauber's Phenomenological Analysis. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 30 (1):155-171.
I. Lowy (2003). On Guinea Pigs, Dogs and Men: Anaphylaxis and the Study of Biological Individuality, 1902-1939. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C 34 (3):399-423.
Jack A. Wilson (2000). Ontological Butchery: Organism Concepts and Biological Generalizations. Philosophy of Science 67 (3):311.
Manfred D. Laubichler & Gunter P. Wagner (2000). Organism and Character Decomposition: Steps Towards an Integrative Theory of Biology. Philosophy of Science 67 (3):300.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-01-07Total downloads60 ( #15,965 of 549,088 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,317 of 549,088 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
