What Is a Biological Individual?

Author(s):  
Jan Baedke
SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401983746
Author(s):  
Trino Baptista ◽  
Elis Aldana ◽  
Charles I. Abramson

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was deeply influenced by Plato and conceived each species as an Idea, whose shape is essentially and permanently predetermined. He rejected Lamarck’s proposal of organ’s use/disuse as a source of evolution, but he was close to the orthogenetic movement that developed after his death. The philosopher did not conceive biological individual variability as a source for evolution, mathematical population analysis, and gradual evolution; he even imagined an ultra-rapid saltatory model in “higher forms.” Moreover, he conceived a metaphysically based coupling among all phenomena which resembles the contemporary model of natural drift of evolution. Hence, Schopenhauer did not strictly anticipate Darwin’s model of natural selection. However, he expressed in his own words competition and struggle for life. The philosopher thus anticipated more the orthogenesis and natural drift and less the Darwinian’s mechanisms of evolution than what is generally alleged. His work is a valuable philosophical source in the contemporary search for a new synthesis in evolutionary thought.


Author(s):  
Matthew Croasmun

This chapter turns specifically to the question of personhood, offering an emergent ontology of human persons at both the biological and psychological levels. These “individuals” prove to be internally composite and externally open to further combination. The discussion then moves to consider these “external” combinations. In somatic terms, this involves discussion of biology’s history of determining the biological “individual,” and the discussion of “superorganisms” that blur the distinction between parts and wholes. Various theories of “group mind” are evaluated in order to consider the relevance of the presence of group cognition in identifying the emergence of “persons” at higher levels of complexity. The hypothesis is presented that Sin should be understood as a mythological person—a superorganism with a group mind—supervening on the transgressions of individual human persons and sinful social systems.


PhaenEx ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
JANE DRYDEN

Recent work in the philosophy of biology argues that we must rethink the biological individual beyond the boundary of the species, given that a key part of our essential functioning is carried out by the bacteria in our intestines in a way that challenges any strictly genetic account of what is involved for the biological human. The gut is a kind of ambiguous other within our understanding of ourselves, particularly when we also consider the status of gastro-intestinal disorders. Hegel offers us theoretical tools to describe and understand our relationship to our gut. His description of our selves as continually mediated through otherness is strikingly compatible with the kind of structure contemporary biology presents us with. His accounts of digestion and habit, contextualized by his logic, help point toward an understanding of selfhood as porous and yet still capable of being sufficiently unified for us to make sense of ourselves, one which allows us to acknowledge otherness within us while still having enough unity for agency. 


Hypatia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-74
Author(s):  
Rebekah Sinclair

AbstractDespite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-105
Author(s):  
A. S Dimov

The experience of expired century was used as a basis of presenting certain philosophical and sociological foundations of sociology of physician. The main methodological defects of comprehension of the system “physician-patient” are revealed. The particular methodological aspects of status position of physician in social space are exposed. The original structure of status of physician is proposed as oneness of one's social (personality) and biological (individual) aspects. The absolute and relative differences of status of physician from other social units are described.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document