Abstract

Living systems are complex systems made of components that tend to degrade, but nonetheless they maintain themselves far from equilibrium. This requires living systems to extract energy and materials from the environment and use them to build and repair their parts. They do so by regulating their activities on the basis of their internal and external conditions in ways that allow them to keep living. The philosophical and theoretical approach discussed in this book aims to explain these features of biological systems by appealing to their organization. One of its distinctive features is that it addresses classical and more recent issues in philosophy of biology, from origins and definitions of life to biological teleology and functions, from an original perspective mainly focused on the living system, its physiology and behavior, rather than evolution. The book discusses and revises the conceptual foundations of this approach and presents an updated version of it.