Keyword: organism

At the core of life is adaptivity, the organismal process of adjusting to ever-changing conditions. But despite its centrality, adaptivity is a surprisingly lonely concept. Its most immediate lexical relatives are parts of entirely distinct evolutionary conversations: ‘adapting’ immediately evokes thoughts of natural selection, ‘adaptive’ (typically paired with ‘maladaptive’) is used in normative evaluations of […]

Michael Barnett, Lena Meister and Paul B. Rainey provide evidence of a selective mechanism acting on bacteria that increases their evolvability.  Abstract: Can the capacity to evolve be selected by natural selection for greater ability to evolve? Barnett et al. designed experiments in which lineages of bacteria cycled between two selective environments (see the Perspective by […]

This new special issue of Synthese challenges the widespread neglect of teleology in analytic philosophy, demonstrating its ongoing relevance across multiple domains. While often dismissed due to its historical associations with Aristotelianism and pre-Darwinian thought, teleological explanations remain indispensable in understanding biological functions, human agency, social institutions, and even aspects of epistemology and ethics. The […]

Published open access in Philosophy of Science. Abstract: In this paper I offer a model-theoretic interpretation of Autonomy Theory as defended by Moreno, Mossio, Montévil, and Bich. I address accusations that Autonomy Theory is excessively liberal, such as those made by Garson (2017), arguing that these misunderstand the role of strategic abstractions and generalizations in […]

Published as part of The Routledge Handbook of Causality and Causal Methods and available open access here. Abstract: In order to carry out many scientific practices, say, doing measurements, building explanations, planning interventions, it is necessary to identify which causal systems will be measured, explained or intervened upon. Accordingly, it is important in biological research […]

By James DiFrisco & Richard Gawne. Published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology Abstract: This paper evaluates recent work purporting to show that the “agency” of organisms is an important phenomenon for evolutionary biology to study. Biological agency is understood as the capacity for goal-directed, self-determining activity—a capacity that is present in all organisms irrespective of […]

Published open-access in Philosophy of Science Abstract: Since Cannon, inspired by Bernard’s discussion of the conditions required for free and independent life, introduced the term homeostasis, many have embraced it as the main theoretical principle guiding physiology and medicine. Nonetheless, critics have argued that homeostasis is too limiting and have advanced a variety of alternative concepts such as heterostasis, rheostasis, […]

16/12/2024 — 29 rue d’Ulm, Centre Cavaillès, École Normale Supérieure, Paris. Workshop organization: Maël Montévil, Anton Robert. Abstract What understanding does the closure of constraints bring about a biological system in practices? Without discussing particular cases, one cannot answer this question. The goal of this workshop is to bring together and synthesize individual modeling experiences […]

Published open access in Frontiers in Phychology Abstract: The way organismic agents come to know the world, and the way algorithms solve problems, are fundamentally different. The most sensible course of action for an organism does not simply follow from logical rules of inference. Before it can even use such rules, the organism must tackle […]

Cross-posted at The Brains Blog Introduction: The Role of Functions in Biology and Philosophy Biological functions play a critical role in our understanding of living organisms and their traits. Whether we’re talking about the heart, lungs, or brain, their “function” helps an organism survive, grow, reproduce, and sometimes assist others. But can we explain more […]