This article focuses on the epistemological challenges of comprehending organic life. It explores the cognitive and experiential basis of the perspective that organisms are autonomous agents of their own teleological organization and development. According to Immanuel Kant and Hans Jonas, the conditions of the knowability of organic life lie within our mental faculties and inner experiences. This statement is often interpreted to mean that we cannot attain ontological knowledge about the life of an organism. Alternatively, attempts are made to “naturalize” (...) life, i.e. to explain the self-generating capacity of an organism from the interaction of its material components. In contrast, I posit that through the active mental representation of biological processes, such as the development of a plant, we can gain first-person insight into the life forces at play, suggesting a profound connection between our cognitive processes and the dynamic and teleological nature of life. Specifically, the parallels between life and our mental capacities lie in a blend of sensory perception, imaginative activity, conceptual thought, and the agential self, mirroring the physical structure and the autopoietic, teleological and agential organization of a living organism. It is shown that these parallels comprise four types of subject-object relationships. I propose and discuss that this correlation is not merely an analogy but reflects a deep ontological correspondence between life and mind and that this correspondence can provide empirical access to the study of life through first-person experience. I advocate for a re-evaluation of the materialistic view of nature to include qualities and experiences of life and mind, proposing that life’s properties can be “naturalized” by recognizing them as qualities we experience mentally. Overall, I call for a broader approach to understanding life that incorporates both empirical evidence and phenomenological, first-person experiences. (shrink)

This article proposes an approach to understanding life that overcomes reductionist and dualist approaches. Based on Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the cognitive prerequisites of knowing an organism, I refer to an idea of Gertrudis Van de Vijver and colleagues who described a co-constitutive relationship between the cognitive activities of the observer and the living features of the organism. Using the example of a developmental series, I show that within this active and relational process, the self-generating power and teleology of the (...) organism manifest themselves on the mental level of the observer. I posit that the Kantian mode of objectification, which refers to the sensually perceptible appearance of an organism, can be supplemented by an active mode of relational or “communicative” objectification that encompasses the life of the organism and the mind of the observer. By considering the mental processes of the observer which occur during the observation of biological phenomena, this analysis introduces a phenomenological first-person perspective on the study of life “from within”, which enables an empirical investigation of the vital properties of an organism. (shrink)

The field of the philosophy of biology is flourishing in its aim to evaluate and rethink the view inherited from the previous century ---the Modern Synthesis. Different research areas and theories have come to the fore in the last decades in order to account for different biological phenomena that, in the first instance, fall beyond the explanatory scope of the Modern Synthesis. This thesis is anchored and motivated by this revolt in the philosophy of biology. -/- The central target in (...) this context is the possibility of naturalizing teleology, a classical nightmare for the history of biology itself. This requires, principally, understanding the causes of teleological explanations without assuming an unfashioned backward causation of sorts. As the riddles of teleological explanations are about their temporal dimension, I analyze different temporal scales of biological processes: evolutionary, developmental, and physiological. -/- The first one is the one defended in the context of the Modern Synthesis. As expected, one of the aims of this thesis is to evaluate the adequacy of an evolutionary account of teleological explanation. The scrutiny is negative. Evolutionary explanations in the context of the Modern Synthesis lack the necessary causal roots to naturalize teleology. Concerning the physiological scale, a long tradition pushed up by Kant and the organicist movement in the 20th century allows us to better understand how teleological explanations can be naturalized in physiological process. The key notions in this temporal scale are self-organization and the recursive, looped character of physiological process. While the physiological scale may be suitably accounted by contemporaries views, such as Autonomous Systems Theory, different central teleological phenomena remain unexplained from a purely physiological perspective. In particular, different issues concerning the (adaptive) construction of organism ---such as plasticity, robustness, variation, novelty, inheritance--- deserve an ontogenetic analysis. -/- The principal aim of this thesis is to provide a theory of teleological development that falls beyond the Modern Synthesis' framework and is prompted by different insights from the history of biology. I call it Agential Teleosemantics. It rests on two central pillars. First, that developmental processes, beyond any gene-centered stance, can be understood in informational terms; i.e. developmental processes are about the interaction of developmental resources conveying biological information. The second ingredient is agentivity, namely the idea that development is regulated by an agentive system according to the adaptiveness of the phenotypic outcomes produced. The role of agency in Agential Teleosemantic is equivalent to the role of genes in the Modern Synthesis: it is responsible for explaining the order and the adaptive complexity in the living realm. -/- The second target of this thesis regards the possibility of naturalizing intentional explanations in cognitive science. The central project involved in such an aim is known as teleosemantics. Classical teleosemantics however is etiological: it explains the teleofunctions of representational systems in terms of evolutionary processes. The different disputes in the contemporary philosophy of biology provide two insights to analyze teleosemantics in cognitive science. First, the challenges against the Modern Synthesis must be extended to the evolutionary approach of etiological teleosemantics. Second, as Agential Teleosemantics suggests an alternative source for teleofunctions ---ontogeny, I offer an attempt to integrate Agential Teleosemantics into cognitive science in order to provide an alternative teleosemantic project to understand intentional explanations in cognitive science. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that cognition is a kind of natural agency. Natural agency is the capacity that certain systems have to act in accordance with their own norms. Natural agents are systems that bias their repertoires in response to affordances in the pursuit of their goals. Cognition is a special mode of this general phenomenon. Cognitive systems are agents that have the additional capacity to actively take their worlds to be certain ways, regardless of whether the world is really that (...) way. In this way, cognitive systems are desituated. Desituatedness is the root of specifically cognitive capacities for representation and abstraction. There are two main reasons why this view needs defending. First, natural agency is typically viewed as incompatible with natural science because it is committed to a teleological mode of explanation. Second, cognition is typically held to be categorically distinct from natural agency. This dissertation argues against both of these views. It argues against the incompatibility of agency and natural science by demonstrating that systems biology, general systems theory, and sciences that deal with complex systems have typically underappreciated conceptual and theoretical resources for grounding agency in the causal structure of the world. These conceptual resources do not, however, reduce agency to systems theory because the normativity inherent in agency demands descriptive resources beyond those of even the most sophisticated systems theory. It argues against the categorical difference between natural agency and cognition by pointing out that separating cognition from a richer web of situated, ecologically embedded relations between the agent and the world generates the frame problem, which is an insuperable obstacle to making cognition that is sufficiently responsive to the complexity of the world. Rooting cognition in natural agency is a more robust empirical bet for theorizing cognition and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic status of biology from the standpoint of the systemic approach to living systems based on the notion of biological autonomy. This approach aims to provide an understanding of the distinctive character of biological systems and this paper analyses its theoretical and epistemological dimensions. The paper argues that, considered from this perspective, biological systems are examples of emergent phenomena, that the biological domain exhibits special features with respect to other domains, and that biology as a discipline (...) employs some core concepts, such as teleology, function, regulation among others, that are irreducible to those employed in physics and chemistry. It addresses the claim made by Jacques Monod that biology as a science is marginal. It argues that biology is general insofar as it constitutes a paradigmatic example of complexity science, both in terms of how it defines the theoretical object of study and of the epistemology and heuristics employed. As such, biology may provide lessons that can be applied more widely to develop an epistemology of complex systems. (shrink)

Philosophers have proposed many accounts of biological function. A coarse-grained distinction can be made between backward-looking views, which emphasise historical contributions to fitness, and forward-looking views, which emphasise the current contribution to fitness or role of a biological component within some larger system. These two views are often framed as being incompatible and conflicting with one another. The emerging field of synthetic biology, which involves applying engineering principles to the design and construction of biological systems, complicates things further by adding (...) intentional design as a source of function. In the current study we explored how biology experts and novices think about function in the context of single-celled, multi-celled, and synthetic organisms. We also explored the extent to which each group were function pluralists, and if they were function pluralists, which accounts of function tended to be endorsed together. The results showed a surprising degree of similarity between experts and novices in most contexts, although certain differences were apparent. Most surprisingly, we found evidence not only of function pluralism in both groups, but pluralism between backward-looking and forward-looking accounts. We discuss these findings in the context of the philosophical debate on function and consider the practical implications for public acceptance of synthetic biology. First, we argue that philosophers of biology should re-examine the purported incompatibility between accounts of function. Second, we argue that due to the introduction of an intentional aetiology in synthetic biology, there may be an inherent conflict between the views of experts and novices when thinking about synthetic biology. (shrink)

Living systems employ several mechanisms and behaviors to achieve robustness and maintain themselves under changing internal and external conditions. Regulation stands out from them as a specific form of higher-order control, exerted over the basic regime responsible for the production and maintenance of the organism, and provides the system with the capacity to act on its own constitutive dynamics. It consists in the capability to selectively shift between different available regimes of self-production and self-maintenance in response to specific signals and (...) perturbations, due to the action of a dedicated subsystem which is operationally distinct from the regulated ones. The role of regulation, however, is not exhausted by its contribution to maintain a living system’s viability. While enhancing robustness, regulatory mechanisms play a fundamental role in the realization of an autonomous biological organization. Specifically, they are at the basis of the remarkable integration of biological systems, insofar as they coordinate and modulate the activity of distinct functional subsystems. Moreover, by implementing complex and hierarchically organized control architectures, they allow for an increase in structural and organizational complexity while minimizing fragility. Finally, they endow living systems, from their most basic unicellular instances, with the capability to control their own internal dynamics to adaptively respond to specific features of their interaction with the environment, thus providing the basis for the emergence of minimal forms of cognition. (shrink)

This paper investigates Hegel’s account of the animal organism as it is presented in the Philosophy of Nature, with a special focus on its normative implications. I argue that the notion of “organisation” is fundamental to Hegel’s theory of animal normativity. The paper starts by showing how a Hegelian approach takes up the scientific image of organism and assigns a basic explanatory role to the notion of “organisation” in its understanding living beings. Moving from this premise, the paper turns to (...) the group of accounts in contemporary theoretical biology known as “organisational accounts”, which offer a widely debated strategy for naturalizing teleology and normativity in organisms. As recent scholarship recognizes, these accounts explicitly rely on insights from Kant and Post-Kantianism. I make the historical and conceptual argument that Hegel’s view of the organism shares several basic commitments with OAs, especially regarding the notion of “organisational closure”. I assess the account of normativity that such accounts advance and its implications for how we approach Hegel. Finally, I argue that the notion of “organisation” is more fundamental to Hegel’s theory of animal normativity than the Aristotelian notion of “Gattung” or “species”, which by contrast appears derivative – at least in the Philosophy of Nature and the Lectures – and does not play the central role in his account maintained by some scholars. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine those versions of hylomorphism that attribute to form a very strong explicative role. According to them, form is both the source of new emergent powers and expression of the finalist structure of organisms. The main aim of this essay is to show that these two aspects do not holdup because the form only exercises a structural function, but does not exert an autonomous explanatory function. The form only allows the material components to develop those powers (...) that are not manifest in themselves, outside the configuration that forms as structure gives them. If the higher faculties of the human mind are really emergent over the neurophysiological ones, hylomorphism cannot explain it. As a consequence, hylomorphism does not have the resources to oppose materialism, on the one hand, and dualism, on the other. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology claim that function talk is consistent with naturalism. Yet recent work in biology places new pressure on this claim. An increasing number of biologists propose that the existence of functions depends on the organisation of systems. While systems are part of the domain studied by physics, they are capable of interacting with this domain through organising principles. This is to say that a full account of biological function requires teleology. Does naturalism preclude reference to teleological causes? Or (...) are organised systems precisely a naturalised form of teleology? In this paper I suggest that the biology of organised systems reveals several contradictions in the main philosophical conceptions of naturalism. To integrate organised systems with naturalism’s basic assumptions—that there is no theory-independent view for metaphysics, and that nature is intelligible—I propose an idealist solution. (shrink)

In this paper I return to Hegel's dispute with Kant over the conceptual ordering of external and internal purposiveness to distinguish between two conceptions of teleology at play in the contemporary function debate. I begin by outlining the three main views in the debate (the etiological, causal role and organizational views). I argue that only the organizational view can maintain the capacity of function ascriptions both to explain the presence of a trait and to identify its contribution to a current (...) system, for it is the only view that considers teleology as a natural cause. To establish how teleology can be considered as a natural cause, advocates of the organizational view return to Kant's analysis of internal purposiveness. However, while Kant identifies the requirements that an object must meet to satisfy the demands of teleological judgment, I suggest that he denies that we can know whether they are truly met. I argue that Hegel's philosophy of nature is better equipped to determine how internal purposiveness can be considered as a natural cause, for it grounds organization in a form of purposiveness that is more fundamental than a designer's intention. (shrink)

The concept of regulation pervades biology, for example in models of genetic regulatory networks and the endocrine system. Regulation has a normative opposite, dysregulation, which figures prominently in biomedical models of disease. The use of normative concepts in biology, however, has been thought to present some challenges for the physicalist view of the world, and various resolutions have been proposed. Up to now the problem of biological normativity has been debated largely in connection with the concept of biological information. In (...) this paper we shift focus to the concept of biological regulation, proposing that it provides a promising new approach to these issues. Models of regulatory systems have several features: they are causal, but they do not deal with the energy exchanges and transformations covered by physics and chemistry; further, and entirely connected, regulatory systems can break down, and this is because they and their causal-regulatory properties are dependent on fragile molecular structures. Biological regulatory systems exhibit normativity, because they are not determined by physical and chemical laws, but their close relationship with physical laws and physicalist ontology is transparent. (shrink)

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual (...) issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. -/- While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step. (shrink)

The new mechanists and the autonomy approach both aim to account for how biological phenomena are explained. One identifies appeals to how components of a mechanism are organized so that their activities produce a phenomenon. The other directs attention towards the whole organism and focuses on how it achieves self-maintenance. This paper discusses challenges each confronts and how each could benefit from collaboration with the other: the new mechanistic framework can gain by taking into account what happens outside individual mechanisms, (...) while the autonomy approach can ground itself in biological research into how the actual components constituting an autonomous system interact and contribute in different ways to realize and maintain the system. To press the case that these two traditions should be constructively integrated we describe how three recent developments in the autonomy tradition together provide a bridge between the two traditions: (1) a framework of work and constraints, (2) a conception of function grounded in the organization of an autonomous system, and (3) a focus on control. (shrink)

This paper addresses the foundations of Teleological Individualism, the view that organisms, even non-sentient organisms, are goal-oriented systems while biological collectives, such as ecosystems or conspecific groups, are mere assemblages of organisms. Typical defenses of Teleological Individualism ground the teleological organization of organisms in the workings of natural selection. This paper shows that grounding teleological organization in natural selection is antithetical to Teleological Individualism because such views assume a view about the units of selection on which it is only individual (...) organisms that are units of selection. However, none of the Conventionalist, Reductionist, or Multi-Level Realist theories serve to justify such an assumption. Thus, Teleological Individualism cannot be grounded in natural selection. (shrink)

There’s a general assumption that teleology and function do not exist in inanimate nature. Throughout biology, it is generally taken as granted that teleology (or teleonomy) and functions are not only unique to life, but perhaps even a defining quality of life. For many, it’s obvious that rocks, water, and the like, are not teleological, nor could they possibly have stand-alone functions. This idea - that teleology and function are unique to life - is the target of this paper. I (...) begin with an overview of McShea’s field theoretic account of teleology. I start with the field theoretic account because it presents a promising analysis of teleological systems. It is promising because, in not making any assumptions about life’s special status in teleological systems, it avoids counterexamples that have problematized other accounts. I then consider some of the prominent efforts that have been made to attempt to avoid ascribing functions or teleology to some form of inanimate nature. In my assessment, none of the efforts are successful. I conclude by offering mineral evolution as a case study to show how inanimate nature can be both teleological and functional. The evolution of mineral species reveals that teleology and function extend to inanimate nature, and that teleology and function come in degrees. (shrink)

While developments of a shared intellectual tradition, the enactivist approach and the organizational account proffer importantly different accounts of organismic normativity. Where enactivists tend to follow Hans Jonas, Andres Weber, and Francisco Varela in grounding intrinsic affordance norms in existential concern, organizational theorists such as Alvaro Moreno, Matteo Mossio, and Leonardo Bich seek a more deflationary account of these normative phenomena. Critiques directed at both of these accounts of organismic normativity motivate the introduction of the precedential account of organismic normativity, (...) which I nevertheless locate within the enactivist approach, broadly construed. After detailing empirical evidence that would seem to vindicate the precedential account, I explore some of its implications. (shrink)

The theory of biological autonomy provides a naturalized characterization of agency, understood as a general biological phenomenon that extends beyond the domain of intentionality and causation by mental states. Agency refers to the capacity of autonomous living beings (roughly speaking: organisms) to purposively and functionally control the interactions with the environment, and to adaptively modulate their own self-determining organization and behavior so as to maintain their own existence, construed as their intrinsic telos. We mention some crucial strengths of the autonomist (...) conception of agency, and some interesting challenges that it faces. Among the latter, we focus on the intertwined relationships between agency and evolution, as well as on the transition between agency and cognition. (shrink)

A phenome occurs through the many pathways of the complex net of interaction between the phenome and its environment; therefore researching and understanding how it arises requires investigation into many possible causes that are in constant interaction with each other. The most comprehensive investigations in biology are the ones in which many biologists from different sub-areas—evolutionary biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, physiology, genetics, epigenetics, ecology—have collaborated. Still, biologists do not always need to collaborate or look for the most comprehensive explanations. (...) A more standard investigation in biology occurs within a single subarea, and uses well-defined experiments with very specific conditions. This paper is about causation and related explanation in plant phenome research and its relevance to Aristotle’s Theory of Four Causes. I argue that there are causes which resemble Aristotle’s formal, material, and efficient causes in phenotype explanation and occurrence; but causes which resemble Aristotle’s final causes occur in phenotype explanation only, not in the occurrence. (shrink)

Teleosemantic theories aspire to develop a naturalistic account of intentional agency and thought by appeal to biological teleology. In particular, most versions of teleosemantics study the emergence of intentionality in terms of biological purposes introduced by Darwinian evolution. The aim of this paper is to argue that the sorts of biological purposes identified by these evolutionary approaches do not allow for a satisfactory account of intentionality. More precisely, I claim that such biological purposes should be attributed to reproductive chains or (...) lineages, rather than to individual traits or organisms, whereas the purposes underlying intentional agency and thought are typically attributed to individuals. In the last part of the paper I suggest that related difficulties are also faced, despite appearances, by accounts of intentionality relying on alternative organizational approaches to biological teleology. (shrink)

Recent accounts of teleological naturalism hold that organisms are intrinsically goaldirected entities. We argue that supporters and critics of this view have ignored the ways in which it is used to address quite different problems. One problem is about biology and concerns whether an organism-centered account of teleological ascriptions would improve our descriptions and explanations of biological phenomena. This is different from the philosophical problem of how naturalized teleology would affect our conception of nature, and of ourselves as natural beings. (...) The neglect of this metatheoretic distinction has made it difficult to understand the criteria we should use for evaluating proposals to naturalize teleology. We argue that a clearer distinction between scientific and philosophical contexts shows that we need more than one set of criteria for evaluating proposals to naturalize teleology, and that taking these into account might advance or dissolve recurring debates in the literature. (shrink)

The rise of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology—the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind—could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by “teleology” as well as what is meant “nature”. I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the twentieth century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly “self-controlled” systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics (...) failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas’s phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas’s phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas. (shrink)

The notion of biological function is fraught with difficulties—intrinsically and irremediably so, we argue. The physiological practice of functional ascription originates from a time when organisms were thought to be designed and remained largely unchanged since. In a secularized worldview, this creates a paradox which accounts of functions as selected effect attempt to resolve. This attempt, we argue, misses its target in physiology and it brings problems of its own. Instead, we propose that a better solution to the conundrum of (...) biological functions is to abandon the notion altogether, a prospect not only less daunting than it appears, but arguably the natural continuation of the naturalisation of biology. (shrink)

We develop a conceptual framework that connects biological heredity and organization. We refer to heredity as the cross-generation conservation of functional elements, defined as constraints subject to organizational closure. While hereditary objects are functional constituents of biological systems, any other entity that is stable across generations—and possibly involved in the recurrence of phenotypes—belongs to their environment. The central outcome of the organizational perspective consists in extending the scope of heredity beyond the genetic domain without merging it with the broad category (...) of cross-generation stability. After discussing some implications, we conclude with a reflection on the relationship between stability and variation. 1Introduction2From Extended Heredity to Cross-generation Stability 2.1Extending the scope of heredity: A brief state of the art2.2Rethinking heredity: Conceptual challenges3Biological Heredity in Light of Organization 3.1Biological organization within organisms and beyond3.2Extending organization in time3.3What is biological heredity?4Implications and Objections 4.1Heredity as a specific kind of cross-generation stability4.2Heredity at various levels of description4.3Non-functional and dysfunctional objects5Conclusions: From Conservation to Variation. (shrink)

Following the revival in the last decades of the concept of “organism”, scholarly literature in philosophy of science has shown growing historical interest in the theory of Immanuel Kant, one of the “fathers” of the concept of self-organisation. Yet some recent theoretical developments suggest that self-organisation alone cannot fully account for the all-important dimension of autonomy of the living. Autonomy appears to also have a genuine “interactive” dimension, which concerns the organism’s functional interactions with the environment and does not simply (...) derive from its internal organisation. Against this background, we focus on a family of natural philosophical approaches that historically have already strongly taken in account this aspect of autonomy, notably going beyond Kant’s perspective on self-organisation. We thus review Hegel, Plessner, and Jonas’ different perspectives on living beings, focussing in particular on four points: the distinction between organic and inorganic, the theory of biological organisation, the processuality of the living, and the “boundary” between inside and outside, through which the organism establishes its relationship to the environment. We, then, compare the three perspectives on these four points, and finally address the question of what advantages their contribution present—especially compared to Kant’s theory—with respect to the topic of organism’s autonomy. This could help—we hope—to better understand what is at the stake still today. (shrink)

The etiological account of function defines a part’s/trait’s function as whatever that part/trait does and was selected for doing. Some philosophers have tried to employ this as an account of biological interests, claiming that to benefit an organism is to promote its etiological functioning and to harm it is to inhibit such functioning. I argue that etiological functioning is not a good account of biological interests. I first describe the history of theories of biological interests, explaining the special role that (...) etiological accounts of function have played within such theories. Second, I explain the problems with allowing etiological accounts of function to play this role and consider objections to my line of argument. Finally, I consider the theoretical alternatives to etiological function accounts of interests and assess their advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

If ecological systems are functionally organised, they can possess functions or malfunctions. Natural function would provide justification for conservationists to act for the protection of current ecological arrangements and control the presence of populations that create ecosystem malfunctions. Invasive species are often thought to be malfunctional for ecosystems, so functional arrangement would provide an objective reason for their control. Unfortunately for this prospect, I argue no theory of function, which can support such normative conclusions, can be applied to large scale (...) ecosystems. Instead ecological systems have causal structure, with small clusters of populations achieving functional arrangement. This, however, does not leave us without reason to control invasive species. We can look at the causal arrangement of ecological systems for populations that support ecological features that we should preserve. Populations that play a causal role in reducing biodiversity should be controlled, because biodiversity is a good all prudent agents should want to preserve. (shrink)

If ecological systems are functionally organised, they can possess functions or malfunctions. Natural function would provide justification for conservationists to act for the protection of current ecological arrangements and control the presence of populations that create ecosystem malfunctions. Invasive species are often thought to be malfunctional for ecosystems, so functional arrangement would provide an objective reason for their control. Unfortunately for this prospect, I argue no theory of function, which can support such normative conclusions, can be applied to large scale (...) ecosystems. Instead ecological systems have causal structure, with small clusters of populations achieving functional arrangement. This, however, does not leave us without reason to control invasive species. We can look at the causal arrangement of ecological systems for populations that support ecological features that we should preserve. Populations that play a causal role in reducing biodiversity should be controlled, because biodiversity is a good all prudent agents should want to preserve. (shrink)

According to recent work in experimental philosophy, folk intuitions concerning various metaphysical issues are heavily teleological. The experiments in question, which belong to a broader research program in psychology about ‘promiscuous teleology’, have featured prominently in debates about the methodology of metaphysics, with some authors claiming that the folk’s teleological bias debunks everyday intuitions concerning composition, persistence, and organisms. The present paper argues for a possibility that is very rarely discussed in that debate, namely the idea that the folk’s intuitions (...) could be veridical. Our argument is based on an emerging naturalistic theory of biological functions called “the organismic view”. The gist of the organismic view is that biological systems are characterized by a special circular causal regime where each part of the system contributes to the boundary conditions of some other parts, as well as of the whole. We argue that teleological folk intuitions are veridical in the biological domain under such a view, and they are veridical in the social and artefactual domains under coherent extensions of the organismic view. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the connection between accounts of biological teleology and the biocentrist claim that all living beings have a good of their own. I first present the background for biocentrists’ appeal to biological teleology. Then I raise a problem of scope for teleology-based biocentrism and, drawing in part on recent work by Basl and Sandler, I discuss Taylor and Varner’s responses to this problem. I then challenge Basl and Sandler’s own response to the scope problem for its (...) reliance on a selectionist account of organismic teleology. Finally I examine the prospects for a biocentrist response to the problem of scope based on an alternative organisational account of internal teleology. I conclude by assessing the prospects for teleology-based biocentrism. (shrink)

This paper presents what we call ‘Hegel's philosophy of biology’ to a target audience of both Hegel scholars and philosophers of biology. It also serves to introduce a special issue of theHegel Bulletinentirely dedicated to a first mapping of this yet to be explored domain of Hegel studies. We submit that Hegel's philosophy of biology can be understood as a radicalization of the Kantian approach to organisms, and as prefiguring current philosophy of biology in important ways, especially with regard to (...) the nature of biological organization, the role of teleology in biological explanation, and the relation between life and cognition. (shrink)

We characterize Hegel’s stance on biological purposiveness as consisting in a twofold move, which conceives organisms as intrinsically purposive natural systems and focuses on their behavioral and cognitive abilities. We submit that a Hegelian stance is at play in enactivism, the branch of the contemporary theory of biological autonomy devoted to the study of cognition and the mind. What is at stake in the Hegelian stance is the elaboration of a naturalized, although non-reductive, understanding of natural purposiveness.

This paper aims to provide a philosophical and theoretical account of biological communication grounded in the notion of organisation. The organisational approach characterises living systems as organised in such a way that they are capable to self-produce and self-maintain while in constant interaction with the environment. To apply this theoretical framework to the study of biological communication, we focus on a specific approach, based on the notion of influence, according to which communication takes place when a signal emitted by a (...) sender triggers a change in the behaviour of the receiver that is functional for the sender itself. We critically analyse the current formulations of this account, that interpret what is functional for the sender in terms of evolutionary adaptations. Specifically, the adoption of this etiological functional framework may lead to the exclusion of several phenomena usually studied as instances of communication, and possibly even of entire fields of investigation such as synthetic biology. As an alternative, we reframe the influence approach in organisational terms, characterising functions in terms of contributions to the current organisation of a biological system. We develop a theoretical account of biological communication in which communicative functions are distinguished from other types of biological functions described by the organisational account (e.g. metabolic, ecological, etc.). The resulting organisational-influence approach allows to carry out causal analyses of current instances of phenomena of communication, without the need to provide etiological explanations. In such a way it makes it possible to understand in terms of communication those phenomena which realise interactive patterns typical of signalling interactions – and are usually studied as such in scientific practice – despite not being the result of evolutionary adaptations. Moreover, this approach provides operational tools to design and study communicative interactions in experimental fields such as synthetic biology. (shrink)

The causal closure of physics is usually discussed in a context free way. Here I discuss it in the context of engineering systems and biology, where strong emergence takes place due to a combination of upwards emergence and downwards causation. Firstly, I show that causal closure is strictly limited in terms of spatial interactions because these are cases that are of necessity strongly interacting with the environment. Effective Spatial Closure holds ceteris parabus, and can be violated by Black Swan Events. (...) Secondly, I show that causal closure in the hierarchy of emergence is a strictly interlevel affair, and in the cases of engineering and biology encompasses all levels from the social level to the particle physics level. However Effective Causal Closure can usefully be defined for a restricted set of levels, and one can experimentally determine Effective Theories that hold at each level. This does not however imply those effective theories are causally complete by themselves. In particular, the particle physics level is not causally complete by itself in the contexts of solid state physics, digital computers, or biology. Furthermore Inextricably Intertwined Levels occur in all these contexts. (shrink)

The concept of teleonomy has been attracting renewed attention recently. This is based on the idea that teleonomy provides a useful conceptual replacement for teleology, and even that it constitutes an indispensable resource for thinking biologically about purposes. However, both these claims are open to question. We review the history of teleological thinking from Greek antiquity to the modern period to illuminate the tensions and ambiguities that emerged when forms of teleological reasoning interacted with major developments in biological thought. This (...) sets the stage for an examination of Pittendrigh’s (Adaptation, natural selection, and behavior. In: Roe A, Simpson GG (eds) Behavior and evolution. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 390–416, 1958) introduction of “teleonomy” and its early uptake in the work of prominent biologists. We then explore why teleonomy subsequently foundered and consider whether the term may yet have significance for discussions of goal-directedness in evolutionary biology and philosophy of science. This involves clarifying the relationship between teleonomy and teleological explanation, as well as asking how the concept of teleonomy impinges on research at the frontiers of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Dignity is traditionally thought to apply to almost all and almost only humans. However, I argue that an account of a distinctly human dignity cannot achieve a coherent and non-arbitrary justification; either it must exclude some humans or include some nonhumans. This conclusion is not as worrying as might be first thought. Rather than attempting to vindicate human dignity, dignity should extend beyond the human, to include a range of nonhuman animals. Not only can we develop a widely inclusive account (...) of dignity by pursuing this route, but we can still defend the three core principles that lie at the heart of contemporary thinking about dignity: that bearers of dignity possess dignity to an equal degree, in virtue of possessing the same intrinsic worth, and that this generates direct and claimable rights. I thus develop an account of dignity that includes nonhuman animals. I argue that the capacity to value most plausibly grounds dignity. This capacity arises from valenced sentience: a being values insofar as they have experiences that matter to them. I then characterise what follows from this. First, I contend that it is only the capacity to value grounds dignity because this produces the most plausible, simplest, and most explanatorily powerful account of dignity. We ought to reject pluralist accounts which assert a sharp distinction between bearers and non-bearers of rational agency, and biocentric accounts which include non-sentient organic entities. Second, I argue this property grounds an account of dignity that is non-hierarchical. There are no degrees of dignity. Instead, all possessors of the capacity to value have the same kind of intrinsic value, and the same equal fundamental right: to consideration of their interest in leading a life of value. Finally, I argue that since the fundamental right is to consideration, moral agents have claimable duties to engage in a deliberative procedure with actionable requirements. Specific rights are instantiations of this general procedure. Certain revisionist conclusions follow on my view, for instance, that nonhumans should be given greater weight and inclusion in a far wider range of cases, but my account is sensitive to the range of different things different beings value, so it does not generate counterintuitive implications. I conclude that dignity extends beyond the human. (shrink)

A long-standing problem in understanding goal-directed systems has been the insufficiency of mechanistic explanations to make sense of them. This paper offers a solution to this problem. It begins by observing the limitations of mechanistic decompositions when it comes to understanding physical fields. We argue that introducing the field concept, as it has been developed in field theory, alongside mechanisms is able to provide an account of goal directedness in the sciences.

Cancer—and scientific research on cancer—raises a variety of compelling philosophical questions. This entry will focus on four topics, which philosophers of science have begun to explore and debate. First, scientific classifications of cancer have as yet failed to yield a unified taxonomy. There is a diversity of classificatory schemes for cancer, and while some are hierarchical, others appear to be “cross-cutting,” or non-nested. This literature thus raises a variety of questions about the nature of the disease and disease classification. Second, (...) philosophers of science have historically taken the aim of science to be arriving at true theories. However, scientists studying cancer come from a variety of disciplines, with different scientific as well as practical aims. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that historians and philosophers of science do not seem to agree on how best to characterize the aim and structure of cancer research; it is far from clear whether the appropriate characterization of the aim is arriving at true theories, or even whether the proper units of analysis are “theories”, or instead, “models”, “explanatory frameworks”, “research programs”, “paradigms”, or perhaps, “experimental traditions”. With the rise of “big data” science—such as the Cancer Genome Atlas Project (or TCGA)—and “systems” approaches to the study of disease, both philosophers and historians of science are rethinking how best to describe and explain these distinctive kinds of scientific inquiry. -/- Third, cancer is in part a byproduct of our developmental and life history, as well as our evolutionary history. Cancer progression can be compared to a reversion of development, or, to the evolution of multicellularity. Thus, cancer raises intriguing questions about how we conceive of “functions”, “development”, and the role of our evolutionary history and particularly, selective trade-offs, in vulnerability to disease. -/- Last but not least, cancer research provides a case study for consideration of the roles of values at the science-policy interface. Epidemiological and toxicological research on cancer’s causes informs toxics law and regulatory policy, which raises a variety of questions about the nature of evidence and inductive risk in such contexts. (shrink)

In recent decades, several theories have claimed to explain the teleological causality of organisms as a function of self-organising and self-producing processes. The most widely cited theories of this sort are variations of autopoiesis, originally introduced by Maturana and Varela. More recent modifications of autopoietic theory have focused on system organisation, closure of constraints and autonomy to account for organism teleology. This article argues that the treatment of teleology in autopoiesis and other organisation theories is inconclusive for three reasons: First, (...) non-living self-organising processes like autocatalysis meet the defining features of autopoiesis without being teleological; second, organisational approaches, whether defined in terms of the closure of constraints, self-determination or autonomy, are unable to specify teleological normativity, that is, the individuation of an ultimate beneficiary; third, all self-organised systems produce local order by maximising the throughput of energy and/or material (obeying the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle) and thereby are specifically organised to undermine their own critical boundary conditions. Despite these inadequacies, an alternative approach called teleodynamics accounts for teleology. This theory shows how multiple self-organising processes can be collectively linked so that they counter each other’s MEP principle tendencies to become codependent. Teleodynamics embraces – not ignoring – the difficulties of self-organisation, but reinstates teleology as a radical phase transition distinguishing systems embodying an orientation towards their own beneficial ends from those that lack normative character. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on teleology and functions in biology. More precisely, it focuses on the scientific legitimacy of teleofunctional attributions and explanations in biology. It belongs to a multi-faceted debate that can be traced back to at least the 1970s. One aspect of the debate concerns the naturalization of functions. Most authors try to reduce, translate or explain functions and teleology in terms of efficient causes so that they find their place in the framework of the natural sciences. Our approach (...) here is radically different, as we question the premise that teleological explanations are disguised causal explanations. On the contrary, we defend that they are acceptable in natural sciences and in biology in particular. We challenge the idea that teleological explanations are immature causal explanations, as well as the idea that teleology and functions are some sort of intentional explanations. We therefore reject the accusations of anthropomorphism, vitalism and finalism. On the contrary, we defend that teleology, causality and intentionality correspond to different, autonomous and complementary modes of representation of the outside world. -/- ———[FRANÇAIS]——— -/- Ce travail de thèse porte sur la téléologie et les fonctions en biologie. Plus précisément, il porte sur la légitimité scientifique des attributions et des explications téléofonctionnelles en biologie. Il s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un débat à plusieurs facettes que l’on peut faire remonter au moins jusqu’aux années 1970 et qui est encore très actif aujourd’hui. L’un des aspects du débat porte sur la naturalisation des fonctions, c’est-à-dire sur la manière de les réduire, de les traduire ou de les expliciter en termes de causes efficientes de sorte qu’elles trouvent leur place dans le cadre des sciences de la nature. Notre approche ici est radicalement différente, car nous remettons en question la prémisse selon laquelle les explications téléologiques seraient des explications causales déguisées. Nous défendons au contraire qu’elles sont acceptables en tant que telles aussi bien de façon générale que dans le domaine scientifique et en particulier en biologie. De façon générale, nous remettons en question l’idée selon laquelle la pensée téléologique serait une pensée causale immature, ainsi que sa dépendance présumée vis-à-vis de la psychologie, c’est-à-dire de l’intentionnalité. Nous rejetons donc les accusations d’anthropomorphisme, de vitalisme et de finalisme formulées contre elle. Nous défendons au contraire que la téléologie, la causalité et l’intentionnalité correspondent à des modes différents, autonomes et complémentaires de représentation du monde extérieur. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This paper analyses conceptual and experimental work in synthetic biology on different types of interactions considered as minimal examples or models of communication. It discusses their pertinence and relevance for the wider understanding of this biological and cognitive phenomenon. It critically analyses their limits and it argues that a conceptual framework is needed. As a possible solution, it provides a theoretical account of communication based on the notion of organisation, and characterised in terms of the functional influence exerted by the (...) sender upon the receiver. It shows that this account can be operationalised in synthetic biology, and that it can supply criteria and guidelines for the design and evaluation of synthetic models. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Circularity and the Micro-Macro-Difference” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: The target article defends the fundamental role of circularity for systems sciences and the necessity to develop a conceptual and methodological approach to it. The concept of circularity, however, is multifarious, and two of the main challenges in this respect are to provide distinctions between different forms of circularities and explore in detail the roles they play in organizations. This commentary provides some suggestions in this direction (...) with the aim to supplement the perspective presented in the target article with some insights from theoretical biology. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of minimal cognition by investigating the origin of some crucial cognitive properties from the very basic organisation of biological systems. More specifically, we propose a theoretical model of how a system can distinguish between specific features of its interaction with the environment, which is a fundamental requirement for the emergence of minimal forms of cognition. We argue that the appearance of this capacity is grounded in the molecular domain, and originates from basic mechanisms (...) of biological regulation. In doing so, our aim is to provide a theoretical account that can also work as a possible conceptual bridge between Synthetic Biology and Artificial Intelligence. In fact, we argue, Synthetic Biology can contribute to the study of minimal cognition, by providing a privileged approach to the study of these mechanisms by means of artificial systems. (shrink)

El prefijo “auto” en autoorganización y autopoiesis se refiere a la existencia de una identidad o agencialidad implicada en el orden, organización o producción de un sistema que se corresponde con el sistema mismo, en contraste con el diseño o la influencia de carácter externo. La autoorganización (AO) estudia la manera en la que los procesos de un sistema alcanzan de forma espontánea un orden u organización complejo, bien como una estructura o patrón emergente, bien como algún tipo de finalidad (...) o identidad autoconstruida. En este trabajo nos ocupamos del concepto de AO en el contexto de la problemática sobre la naturaleza la vida y de los organismos vivientes. Este concepto se elabora en diferentes tradiciones científicas y filosóficas, a partir de su origen en la filosofía kantiana. La cibernética trata de emular la organización de los seres vivos y su teleología mediante la construcción de máquinas; desarrolla una perspectiva centrada en la regulación y en la causalidad mutua entre componentes del sistema. Estos trabajos, a veces complementados con la teoría de sistemas y la teoría de la información, son fundamentales para el desarrollo de la ciencia del siglo XX, especialmente las ciencias computacionales y la biología. Una segunda corriente surge desde la termodinámica de los procesos irreversibles alejados del equilibrio a partir, entre otros, de los trabajos de la escuela de Bruselas, en la que la AO se explora como la formación espontánea de estructuras de orden disipativo. Una tercera tradición, tal vez la más profundamente kantiana, se desarrolla en el contexto de la biología del desarrollo e integra a las dos mencionadas previamente, pues combina aspectos de las dos previas en el desarrollo ontogenético. Podemos decir que cada una de estas concepciones de la AO se relaciona con modelos paradigmáticos diferentes. La noción de autopoiesis (AP), por su parte, fue propuesta en los años 70 por los biólogos chilenos Humberto Maturana y Francisco Varela para explicar la organización individual de los seres vivos como un proceso dinámico que genera una identidad desde las operaciones del sistema (Maturana y Varela 1973). Puede decirse que hereda y reorganiza ideas de la tradición de la AO, especialmente la kantiana y la cibernética, para proponer una teoría biológica alternativa. El enfoque autopoiético concibe el fenómeno de la vida y a los seres vivos de forma muy diferente a la teoría de la evolución o la biología molecular que constituían las líneas de investigación predominantes en la biología de su tiempo. La teoría subraya como propiedad básica de un sistema viviente su autoconstitución dinámica como unidad dotada de identidad a partir de interacciones entre sus componentes. Sin embargo, aquellas propiedades de la vida consideradas primordiales en el enfoque darwiniano, como la reproducción o la evolución, se ven como secundarias, pues requieren de la existencia previa de sistemas autopoiéticos. El objetivo de esta voz es examinar diferentes aspectos que configuran las tradiciones autoorganizativa y autopoiética, en especial las tensiones conceptuales internas que permiten comprender los desafíos a los que se enfrentan ambas en el marco de la filosofía y la teoría de la biología, así como la forma en que sus posiciones e intuiciones contrastan con otras perspectivas en biología. (shrink)