Rose Trappes

Biological individuality is without a doubt a key concept in philosophy of biology. Questions around the individuality of organisms, species, and biological systems can be traced throughout the philosophy of biology since the discipline’s inception, not to mention the sustained attention they have received in biology and philosophy more broadly. It’s high time the topic got its own Cambridge Element. McConwell’s Biological Individuality falls short of an authoritative overview of the debate on biological individuality. However, it sends a welcome message to new and seasoned scholars to reorient the debate towards practically and politically relevant themes.

Biological individuality is without a doubt a key concept in philosophy of biology. Questions around the individuality of organisms, species, and biological systems can be traced throughout the philosophy of biology since the discipline’s inception, not to mention the sustained attention they have received in biology and philosophy more broadly. It’s high time the topic got its own Cambridge Element. McConwell’s Biological Individuality falls short of an authoritative overview of the debate on biological individuality. However, it sends a welcome message to new and seasoned scholars to reorient the debate towards practically and politically relevant themes.

Tracking technology has been heralded as transformative for animal ecology. In this paper I examine what changes are taking place, showing how current animal movement research is a field ripe for philosophical investigation. I focus first on how the devices alter the limitations and biases of traditional field observation, making observation of animal movement and behaviour possible in more detail, for more varied species, and under a broader variety of conditions, as well as restricting the influence of human presence and observer bias. I reconstruct these as shifts in scope, objectivity, accuracy and fruitfulness. The second transformation is slightly less obvious but equally significant for animal ecology. Tracking devices generate complex data that demands both statistical and biological expertise, which has led to increasingly frequent and intensive collaborations between statisticians and biologists. Based on interviews, I examine how researchers in these interdisciplinary collaborations negotiate the collection, analysis and interpretation of movement data, integrating research interests, methodological constraints, previous field observations, and background theory. Tracking technology is therefore also shifting which disciplinary considerations are brought to bear on research into animal movement and behaviour and how this research is conducted.

Niches and mechanisms are two important but contested elements in the study of organism-environment interactions. Although they are closely interrelated, with niches playing a crucial role in theorizing about ecological and evolutionary mechanisms such as niche construction, facilitation, and species invasion, philosophical discussions about each issue have been largely disconnected. This collection addresses this gap, bringing together contributions from philosophers and biologists about the niche concept, niche construction theory, and ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. In this introduction we provide some background to the collection, which arose out of two workshops organized within an interdisciplinary research consortium. We also summarize each contribution, organized roughly into three groups with considerable overlap and interrelations: niche construction and evolutionary theory, niches, and ecological and evolutionary mechanisms.

In this paper I develop a concept of behavioural ecological individuality. Using findings from a case study which employed qualitative methods, I argue that individuality in behavioural ecology should be defined as phenotypic and ecological uniqueness, a concept that is operationalised in terms of individual differences such as animal personality and individual specialisation. This account make sense of how the term “individuality” is used in relation to intrapopulation variation in behavioural ecology. The concept of behavioural ecological individuality can sometimes be used to identify individuals. It also shapes research agendas and methodological choices in behavioural ecology, leading researchers to account for individuals as sources of variation. Overall, this paper draws attention to a field that has been largely overlooked in philosophical discussions of biological individuality and highlights the importance of individual differences and uniqueness for individuality in behavioural ecology.

Niche construction theory (NCT) aims to transform and unite evolutionary biology and ecology. Much of the debate about NCT has focused on construction. Less attention has been accorded to the niche: what is it, exactly, that organisms are constructing? In this paper I compare and contrast the definition of the niche used in NCT with ecological niche definitions. NCT’s concept of the evolutionary niche is defined as the sum of selection pressures affecting a population. So defined, the evolutionary niche is narrower than the ecological niche. Moreover, when contrasted with a more restricted ecological niche concept, it has a slightly different extension. I point out three kinds of cases in which the evolutionary niche does not coincide with realized ecological niches: extreme habitat degradation, commensalism, and non-limiting or super-abundant resources. These conceptual differences affect the role of NCT in unifying ecology and evolutionary biology.

Biological individuality is a notoriously thorny topic for biologists and philosophers of biology. In this paper we argue that biological individuality presents multiple, interconnected questions for biologists and philosophers that together form a problem agenda. Using a case study of an interdisciplinary research group in ecology, behavioral and evolutionary biology, we claim that a debate on biological individuality that seeks to account for diverse practices in the biological sciences should be broadened to include and give prominence to questions about uniqueness and temporality. We show that broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality draws attention to underrecognized philosophical issues and discussions and thereby organizes and enriches the existing debate.

The recent global pandemic has led to a shift to online conferences in philosophy. In this paper we argue that online conferences, more than a temporary replacement, should be considered a sustainable alternative to in-person conferences well into the future. We present three arguments for more online conferences, including their reduced impact on the environment, their enhanced accessibility for groups that are minorities in philosophy, and their lower financial burdens, especially important given likely future reductions in university budgets. We also present results from two surveys of participants who attended one large and three small online philosophy conferences this year. We show that participants were in general very satisfied with presentations and discussions at the conferences, and that they reported greater accessibility. This indicates that online conferences can serve as a good alternative to in-person conferences. We also find that networking was less satisfactory in online conferences, indicating a point for improvement and further research. In general, we conclude that philosophers should continue to organize online conferences after the pandemic. We also provide some advice for those wishing to organize online conferences.

Elizabeth Grosz's interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory to ground a feminist ontology of biology has been particularly controversial. Most critics have understood Grosz as supporting her theory with empirical evidence, and they criticize her for being either inaccurate or uncritical of and overly dependent on science. I argue that Grosz reads Darwin as a philosopher in a Deleuzian and Irigarayan sense, and that Grosz's project is therefore better understood in terms of its ethical and political goals rather than in terms of empirical adequacy. Employing this evaluative framework leads to a novel route for critique of Grosz's ontology in terms of its reliance on the Darwinian distinction between organism and environment. I conclude that Grosz's work is valuable for the way it maintains ethical and political considerations in feminist ontological debates, and that introducing a more sensitive understanding of the organism–environment relation will lead us closer to a truly feminist ontology of biology.