Genidentity and Biological Processes

A crucial question for anyone willing to defend a process view of the biological world is how to identify a process and how to follow it through time. Here I suggest that the “genidentity” view (suggested first by psychologist Kurt Lewin, and then further explored by philosopher Hans Reichenbach, mainly in the context of physics) can contribute decisively to this project. According to the genidentity view, the identity through time of an entity X is nothing more than the continuous connection of the states through which X goes. In this paper, I explain how the genidentity view addresses the long debated problem of what constitutes diachronic identity in the biological world. I describe the centrality of the concept of genidentity in David Hull’s reflection on biological identity, and I then suggest an extension of Hull’s view on the basis of recent data demonstrating the ubiquity of symbiotic interactions in the living world. Finally, using immunological interactions as a key example, I show that the genidentity view sheds light on process biology by suggesting that the main interest of a process approach is epistemological rather than ontological, and that the main claim of a process approach is one of priority, that is, the claim that processes precede and define things, and not vice versa

Philosophy of Immunology

In this Element, Thomas Pradeu considers the ways in which current immunology sheds light on some of the most important contemporary philosophical issues, from the persistence of identity through time to the interaction of mind and body. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core

Philosophy of Immunology

Immunology is central to contemporary biology and medicine, but it also provides novel philosophical insights. Its most significant contribution to philosophy concerns the understanding of biological individuality: what a biological individual is, what makes it unique, how its boundaries are established and what ensures its identity through time. Immunology also offers answers to some of the most interesting philosophical questions. What is the definition of life? How are bodily systems delineated? How do the mind and the body interact? In this Element, Thomas Pradeu considers the ways in which immunology can shed light on these and other important philosophical issues

Understanding Multicellularity: The Functional Organization of the Intercellular Space

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to understand how multicellular systems realize functionally integrated physiological entities by organizing their intercellular space. From a perspective centered on physiology and integration, biological systems are often characterized as organized in such a way that they realize metabolic self-production and self-maintenance. The existence and activity of their components rely on the network they realize and on the continuous management of the exchange of matter and energy with their environment. One of the virtues of the organismic approach focused on organization is that it can provide an understanding of how biological systems are functionally integrated into coherent wholes. Organismic frameworks have been primarily developed by focusing on unicellular life. Multicellularity, however, presents additional challenges to our understanding of biological systems, related to how cells are capable to live together in higher-order entities, in such a way that some of their features and behaviors are constrained and controlled by the system they realize. Whereas most accounts of multicellularity focus on cell differentiation and increase in size as the main elements to understand biological systems at this level of organization, we argue that these factors are insufficient to provide an understanding of how cells are physically and functionally integrated in a coherent system. In this paper, we provide a new theoretical framework to understand multicellularity, capable to overcome these issues. Our thesis is that one of the fundamental theoretical principles to understand multicellularity, which is missing or underdeveloped in current accounts, is the functional organization of the intercellular space. In our view, the capability to be organized in space plays a central role in this context, as it enables (and allows to exploit all the implications of) cell differentiation and increase in size, and even specialized functions such as immunity. We argue that the extracellular matrix plays a crucial active role in this respect, as an evolutionary ancient and specific (non-cellular) control subsystem that contributes as a key actor to the functional specification of the multicellular space and to modulate cell fate and behavior. We also analyze how multicellular systems exert control upon internal movement and communication. Finally, we show how the organization of space is involved in some of the failures of multicellular organization, such as aging and cancer

Ontologies of Living Beings

Though the history of the interactions between ‘biology’ and metaphysics is almost as old as Western philosophy itself (Lennox 2001), it seems fair to say that there has been a resurgence of interest in this connection in the last couple of decades (e.g. Hull 1989; Millstein 2009; Clarke 2011; Dupré 2012; Pradeu 2012; Godfrey-Smith 2013; Ferner 2016; Wiggins 2016). Rediscovering this connection brings both opportunities and challenges

Ontologies of Living Beings

Though the history of the interactions between ‘biology’ and metaphysics is almost as old as Western philosophy itself (Lennox 2001), it seems fair to say that there has been a resurgence of interest in this connection in the last couple of decades (e.g. Hull 1989; Millstein 2009; Clarke 2011; Dupré 2012; Pradeu 2012; Godfrey-Smith 2013; Ferner 2016; Wiggins 2016). Rediscovering this connection brings both opportunities and challenges

Right out of the box: How to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics,” a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science.” We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity

Right out of the box: How to situate metaphysics of science in relation to other metaphysical approaches

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics,” a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science.” We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity