Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-ggg9q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-12T23:46:44.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ontological Butchery: Organism Concepts and Biological Generalizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jack A. Wilson
Jack A. Wilson*
Affiliation:
Washington and Lee University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, 24405; e-mail: jwilson@wlu.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Biology lacks a central organism concept that unambiguously marks the distinction between organism and non-organism because the most important questions about organisms do not depend on this concept. I argue that the two main ways to discover useful biological generalizations about multicellular organization—the study of homology within multicellular lineages and of convergent evolution across lineages in which multicellularity has been independently established—do not require what would have to be a stipulative sharpening of an organism concept.

Information

Type
Philosophy of Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S301 - S311
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank David Hull and Michelle Little for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

Beatty, John (1995), “The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis”, in Wolters, Gereon and Lennox, James G. in collaboration with McLaughlin, Peter (eds.), Concepts, Theories and Rationality in the Biological Sciences. Konstanz: University of Konstanz Press and Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 45–81.Google Scholar
Bonner, John T. (1988), The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brandon, Robert N. (1997), “Does Biology Have Laws?: The Experimental Evidence.”, Philosophy of Science 64 (Proceedings): S444–S457.10.1086/392621CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, Leo (1987), The Evolution Of Individuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Child, Charles M. (1915), Individuality in Organisms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.5962/bhl.title.31522CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, Richard (1982), The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. (1988), “Trends as Changes in Variance: A New Slant on Progress and Directionality in Evolution.”, Journal of Paleontology 62: 319–329.10.1017/S0022336000059126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. (1989), Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Haeckel, Ernst (1879), Das System der Medusen. Jena: Gustav Fischer.Google Scholar
Horvath, Christopher D. (1997), “Some Questions about Identifying Individuals: Failed Intuitions about Organisms and Species”, Philosophy of Science 64: 654–668.10.1086/392576CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huxley, Julian S. (1912), The Individual in the Animal Kingdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.5962/bhl.title.161324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huxley, Thomas H. (1852), “Upon Animal Individuality”, Proceedings of the Royal Institute, April 30, 1852: 184–189.Google Scholar
Jablonka, Eva and Lamb, Marion J. (1995), Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolution: The Lamarckian Dimension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, William P. (1994), Caulerpa. Scientific American 271(6): 100–105.10.1038/scientificamerican1294-100CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeon, Kwang (1991), “Amoeba and x-Bacteria,” in Margulis, Lynn and Fester, René (eds.), Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. (1989), “Some Puzzles About Species”, in Ruse, Michael (ed.), What the Philosophy of Biology Is. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Raff, Rudolf A. (1996), The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226256573.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Kenneth F. (1995), “Comments on Beatty”, in Wolters, Gereon and Lennox, James G. in collaboration with McLaughlin, Peter (eds.), Concepts, Theories and Rationality in the Biological Sciences. Konstanz: University of Konstanz Press and Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 99–106.Google Scholar
Schaffner, Kenneth F. (1998), “Model Organisms and Behavioral Genetics: A Rejoinder”, Philosophy of Science 65: 276–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. (1962), “The Architecture of Complexity”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106, 467–482.Google Scholar
Wilson, Edward O. (1975), Sociobiology. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Jack A. (1999), Biological Individuality: The Individuation and Persistence of Living Entities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139137140CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1998), “Simple Systems and Phylogenetic Diversity”, Philosophy of Science 65: 267–275.10.1086/392638CrossRefGoogle Scholar