Ontologies of Living Beings: Introduction

Résumé En

Though the history of the interactions between 'biology' and metaphysics is almost as old as Western philosophy itself (Lennox 2001), it seems fair to say that there has been a resurgence of interest in this connection in the last couple of decades (e.g.). Rediscovering this connection brings both opportunities and challenges. Take, for example, the recent suggestions by certain philosophers of biology, especially John Dupré and co-workers (Dupré 2012), to shift towards a processual view of the living world. The shift, wherein organisms are to be considered processes rather than 'things,' is a dramatic and generative one. However, those readers more firmly positioned within the sphere of analytic metaphysics will know the kinds of objections that processual accounts excite, e.g., from substance led Aristotelians. Organisms, the Aristotelian says, are substances that undergo processes, but do not exemplify them. (For more general arguments for and against process-based ontolo-gies, see Seibt 2013; Wiggins 2016.) Albeit prominent, this is just one of many controversies about the metaphysical character of living beings. As originally envisaged, the aim of this special issue was to flesh out this debate alongside others, where the fields of biology, philosophy of biology, and metaphysics overlap. More generally, we had thought to bring together a series of papers examining the various frameworks, or 'ontologies,' within which one can pick out biological individuals (and to examine the relationships between these ontological frameworks). In certain respects, we hope, this special issue displays some of the successes of this project. It is easy, however, to become overly beholden to ambitions of 'success'—and, as editors, we have found our failures just as, if not more, valuable and interesting. Our intention for the issue was to bring together contributors from across the philosophical spectrum, to try to nurture dialogue between them on these topics; we asked philosophers of biology, analytic metaphysicians, and historians of science to help us examine the different ways that biological reality can be partitioned. Though strictly speaking they are sub-disciplines, the modes of inquiry and characteristic questions of these areas are sufficiently different for us to label this project 'interdisciplinary' (though others might prefer the term 'multidisciplinary'). Yet interdisciplinarity is difficult. We enter this here not as an excuse (though perhaps we should), but because it's important to emphasize why exactly it is so difficult. We are convinced