Abstract
In evolutionary biology and ecology, ontological and epistemological perspectives
based on the replicator and the interactor have become the background that makes
it possible to transcend traditional biological levels of organization and to achieve a
unified view of evolution in which replication and interaction are fundamental operating
processes. Using the transactional perspective proposed originally by John Dewey and Arthur
Fisher Bentley, a new ontological and methodological category is proposed here: the
transactor. The transactional perspective, based on the concept of the transactor, bridges
the dichotomy between organisms and environment that characterizes the interactional perspective on evolution and provides epistemological support for the emergentist, systemic
view of evolutionary and developmental processes