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HomeUpcoming EventsChristopher Lean (ANU): Ecological Communities As Biological Individuals: A Contrary Proposal.
Christopher Lean (ANU): Ecological communities as biological individuals: A contrary proposal.

Biological individuality has been a central issue in the philosophy of biology over the last 10 years. Biological individuals are entities which either reproduce or persist via self-maintenance. They are hierarchical and display a nested structure with individuals within individuals. It is taken for granted that there is a floor to biological individuals, or a point under which the constituents are not biological individuals, and a roof above which there are no individuals. I believe that the roof may be lower than some have expected: ecological communities do not qualify as biological individuals. I will argue against recent attempts to assimilate ecological communities under the individuality framework by arguing ecological communities lack clear referents and robust boundaries and do not involve the steady identity of parts filling the same role over time, feeding back to the system as a whole. I, however, do not leave us at this negative conclusion. I will provide a set of features that make ecological systems explanatorily tractable without having to describe them as unique countable objects.

Date & time

  • Tue 02 Jun 2015, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room B

Event Series

Philsoc seminars