Leonardo Bich | Universidad del Páis Vasco (UPV/EHU) (original) (raw)

Books by Leonardo Bich

Cambridge University Press, 2024

Living systems are complex systems made of components that tend to degrade, but nonetheless they ... more 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.

Minati, G., Pessa E. and Abram, M. (eds) Systemics of Incompleteness and Quasi-Systems (pp- 295-302). New York: Springer., 2019

The concept of organisational closure, interpreted as a set of internally produced and mutually d... more The concept of organisational closure, interpreted as a set of internally produced and mutually dependent constraints, allows understanding organisms as functionally integrated systems capable of self-production and self-maintenance through the control exerted upon biosynthetic processes and the exchanges of matter and energy with the environment. One of the current challenges faced by this theoretical framework is to account for limit cases in which a robust functional closure cannot be realised from within. In order to achieve functional sufficiency and persist, prebiotic or biological systems may need to recruit external constraints or expand their network of control interactions to include other autonomous systems. These phenomena seem to contrast with the very idea of closure and the capability of living systems to specify their functional boundaries from within. This paper will analyse from an organisational perspective the role of environmental scaffolds and of different classes of intersystem interactions in prebiotic and su-pra-organismal biological scenarios, and show how the theoretical framework based on the notion of closure can account for these cases.

Papers by Leonardo Bich

Synthese, 2014

This paper argues that biological organisation can be legitimately conceived of as an intrinsical... more This paper argues that biological organisation can be legitimately conceived of as an intrinsically teleological causal regime. The core of the argument consists in establishing a connection between organisation and teleology through the concept of self-determination: biological organisation determines itself in the sense that the effects of its activity contribute to determine its own conditions of existence. We suggest that not any kind of circular regime realises self-determination, which should be specifically understood as self-constraint: in biological systems, in particular, self-constraint takes the form of closure, i.e. a network of mutually dependent constitutive constraints. We then explore the occurrence of intrinsic teleology in the biological domain and beyond. On the one hand, the organisational account might possibly concede that supra-organismal biological systems (as symbioses or ecosystems) could realise closure, and hence be teleological. On the other hand, the realisation of closure beyond the biological realm appears to be highly unlikely. In turn, the occurrence of simpler forms of self-determination remains a controversial issue, in particular with respect to the case of self-organising dissipative systems.

The Journal of Physiology, 2024

Since it was inspired by Bernard and developed and named by Cannon, the concept of homeostasis ha... more Since it was inspired by Bernard and developed and named by Cannon, the concept of homeostasis has been invoked by many as the central theoretical framework for physiology. It has also been the target of numerous criticisms that have elicited the introduction of a plethora of alternative concepts. We argue that many of the criticisms actually target the more restrictive account of homeostasis advanced by the cyberneticists. What was crucial to Bernard and Cannon was a focus on the maintenance of the organism as the goal of physiological regulation. We analyse how Bernard’s and Cannon’s broad conception of what was required to maintain the organism was narrowed to negative feedback, characterized in terms of setpoints, by the cyberneticists and demonstrate how many of the alternative concepts challenge the role of setpoints – treating them as variable in light of circumstances or in anticipation of future circumstances, or as dispensable altogether. To support our analysis, we draw on the experimental and theoretical work on thermoregulation, a phenomenon that has been considered as a paradigmatic example of homeostasis and has been a common focus of those advancing alternative concepts. To integrate the insights advanced by the original proponents of homeostasis and the theorists proposing replacement notions we advance a framework in which regulation is viewed from the perspective of maintaining the organism.

Biological Theory, Jun 13, 2024

Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the mater... more Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the material and energy from their environment that they need to maintain themselves. Since controlling eating requires procuring, processing, and assessing information, it constitutes a cognitive activity that provides a productive domain for pursuing cognitive biology as proposed by Ladislav Kováč. In agreement with Kováč, we argue that cognition is fundamentally grounded in chemical signaling and processing. To support this thesis, we adopt Cisek’s strategy of phylogenetic refinement, focusing on two animal phyla, Porifera and Placozoa, organisms that do not have neurons, muscles, or an alimentary canal, but nonetheless need to coordinate the activity of cells of multiple types in order to eat. We review what research has revealed so far about how these animals gather and process information to control their eating behavior.

Ratio, May 24, 2024

This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living s... more This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self-production. It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases.

Acta Biotheoretica, Dec 27, 2023

This paper focuses on physiological integration in multicellular systems, a notion often associat... more This paper focuses on physiological integration in multicellular systems, a notion often associated with biological individuality, but which has not received enough attention and needs a thorough theoretical treatment. Broadly speaking, physiological integration consists in how different components come together into a cohesive unit in which they are dependent on one another for their existence and activity. This paper argues that physiological integration can be understood by considering how the components of a biological multicellular system are controlled and coordinated in such a way that their activities can contribute to the maintenance of the system. The main implication of this perspective is that different ways of controlling their parts may give rise to multicellular organizations with different degrees of integration. After defining control, this paper analyses how control is realized in two examples of multicellular systems located at different ends of the spectrum of multicellularity: biofilms and animals. It focuses on differences in control ranges, and it argues that a high degree of integration implies control exerted at both medium and long ranges, and that insofar as biofilms lack long-range control (relative to their size) they can be considered as less integrated than other multicellular systems. It then discusses the implication of this account for the debate on physiological individuality and the idea that degrees of physiological integration imply degrees of individuality.

New Mechanism Explanation, Emergence and Reduction, 2024

According to new mechanists, mechanisms explain how specific biological phenomena are produced. N... more According to new mechanists, mechanisms explain how specific biological phenomena are produced. New mechanists have had little to say about how mechanisms relate to the organism in which they reside. A key feature of organisms, emphasized by the autonomy tradition, is that organisms maintain themselves. To do this, they rely on mechanisms. But mechanisms must be controlled so that they produce the phenomena for which they are responsible when and in the manner needed by the organism. To account for how they are controlled, we characterize mechanisms as sets of constraints on the flow of free energy. Some constraints are flexible and can be acted on by other mechanisms, control mechanisms, that utilize information procured from the organism and its environment to alter the flexible constraints in other mechanisms so that they produce phenomena appropriate to the circumstances. We further show that control mechanisms in living organisms are organized heterarchically-control is carried out primarily by local controllers that integrate information they acquire as well as that which they procure from other control mechanisms. The result is not a hierarchy of control but an integrated network of control mechanisms that has been crafted over the course of evolution.

Mossio, M (Ed). Organization in Biology. Springer, 2023

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenge... more Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step.

BioSystems, 2023

Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous-maintain themselves far from equilibrium th... more Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous-maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities-requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively small but distributed nervous system that relies on both chemical and electric transmission of signals. This system provides resources to integrate information from multiple sources as needed to maintain the organism. Especially important for the exercise of neural control are neuromodulators, which we present as setting agendas for control through more traditional electrical signaling. To illustrate how the C. elegans nervous system integrates multiple sources of information in controlling activities important for autonomy, we focus on feeding behavior and responses to adverse conditions. We conclude by considering how a distributed nervous system without a centralized controller is nonetheless adequate for autonomy.

Biology & Philosophy, 2015

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences , 2022

The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been chal... more The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been challenged by the current global scenarios (e.g., new diseases, new geographical distribution of diseases, effects of climate change on health, etc.) and by the ongoing scholarship in humanities and science. In this paper we question the mainstream definition of health adopted by the WHO-'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity' (WHO in Preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the international health conference, The World Health Organization, 1948)-and its role in providing tools to understand what health is in the contemporary context. More specifically, we argue that this context requires to take into account the role of the environment both in medical theory and in the healthcare practice. To do so, we analyse WHO documents dated 1984 and 1986 which define health as 'coping with the environment'. We develop the idea of 'coping with the environment', by focusing on two cardinal concepts: adaptation in public health and adaptivity in philosophy of biology. We argue that the notions of adaptation and adaptivity can be of major benefit for the characterization of health, and have practical implications. We explore some of these implications by discussing two recent case studies of adaptivity in public health, which can be valuable to further develop

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2022

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new me... more Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms.

In this article we provide an epistemological analysis of three uses of the concept of contingenc... more In this article we provide an epistemological analysis of three uses of the concept of contingency in biology. On the basis of this analysis we propose a heuristic solution to the issue of contingency versus determinism in the domain of studies on the origin of life, which makes it possible to approach this problem from a scientific point of view rather than by recurring to belief.

Sono molti i tentativi di rispondere a questa domanda dal punto di vista evolutivo o ecologico, p... more Sono molti i tentativi di rispondere a questa domanda dal punto di vista evolutivo o ecologico, partendo per esempio dallo studio dei comportamenti degli animali sociali e dei fenomeni collettivi (swarm, etc.). A questi approcci, di estremo interesse, ne vorremmo affiancare uno differente, basato sulla seguente pecisazione della domanda iniziale: "un modello teorico di organismo vivente puo dirci qualcosa sull’organizzazione e sul funzionamento dei sistemi sociali?". In linea di principio la risposta e affermativa, perche tali sistemi sono costituiti e realizzati da individui biologici. Ma l’irriducibilita dei fenomeni sociali a quelli biologici impone il problema di stabilire in quale modo e in che misura la caratterizzazione del dominio sociale puo appoggiarsi su quella del dominio biologico.

Ce chapitre propose un apercu de la tradition theorique et philosophique qui, au cours des deux d... more Ce chapitre propose un apercu de la tradition theorique et philosophique qui, au cours des deux derniers siecles, a mis la circularite au centre de l'analyse des phenomenes biologiques. Selon cette tradition, les organismes realisent un regime causal circulaire dans la mesure ou leur existence depend des effets de leur propre activite : les organismes biologiques s'autodeterminent. A son tour, l'autodetermination est le fondement d'un certain nombre de proprietes et dimensions biologiques, telles que l'individuation, la teleologie, la normativite ou encore la fonctionnalite. Nous montrons comment cette idee generale a fait l'objet d'une theorisation qui a pris, selon les cas, la forme d'une conceptualisation, d'une modelisation ou les deux a fois. Nous analysons les differences principales entre les differentes contributions, en soulignant leurs qualites et faiblesses. Enfin, nous concluons en evoquant certains developpements contemporains de cett...

In this paper we provide some theoretical guidelines for the characterization of the specificity ... more In this paper we provide some theoretical guidelines for the characterization of the specificity of biological systems in terms of organization and constraints. In the first place we advocate the view according to which a sound account of biological organization requires an appeal to emergent causation, and we propose a theoretical justification of emergence against existing criticisms by considering it as a causal power stemming from the relational properties of material configurations. Then, by interpreting constraints as a specific form of this emergent causal power, we propose a distinction between the roles played by constraints in physical and biological systems. As a result we provide a possible definition of biological organization as a closed network of co-dependent and internally produced constraints. LEONARDO BICH, MATTEO MOSSIO

Cambridge University Press, 2024

Living systems are complex systems made of components that tend to degrade, but nonetheless they ... more 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.

Minati, G., Pessa E. and Abram, M. (eds) Systemics of Incompleteness and Quasi-Systems (pp- 295-302). New York: Springer., 2019

The concept of organisational closure, interpreted as a set of internally produced and mutually d... more The concept of organisational closure, interpreted as a set of internally produced and mutually dependent constraints, allows understanding organisms as functionally integrated systems capable of self-production and self-maintenance through the control exerted upon biosynthetic processes and the exchanges of matter and energy with the environment. One of the current challenges faced by this theoretical framework is to account for limit cases in which a robust functional closure cannot be realised from within. In order to achieve functional sufficiency and persist, prebiotic or biological systems may need to recruit external constraints or expand their network of control interactions to include other autonomous systems. These phenomena seem to contrast with the very idea of closure and the capability of living systems to specify their functional boundaries from within. This paper will analyse from an organisational perspective the role of environmental scaffolds and of different classes of intersystem interactions in prebiotic and su-pra-organismal biological scenarios, and show how the theoretical framework based on the notion of closure can account for these cases.

Synthese, 2014

This paper argues that biological organisation can be legitimately conceived of as an intrinsical... more This paper argues that biological organisation can be legitimately conceived of as an intrinsically teleological causal regime. The core of the argument consists in establishing a connection between organisation and teleology through the concept of self-determination: biological organisation determines itself in the sense that the effects of its activity contribute to determine its own conditions of existence. We suggest that not any kind of circular regime realises self-determination, which should be specifically understood as self-constraint: in biological systems, in particular, self-constraint takes the form of closure, i.e. a network of mutually dependent constitutive constraints. We then explore the occurrence of intrinsic teleology in the biological domain and beyond. On the one hand, the organisational account might possibly concede that supra-organismal biological systems (as symbioses or ecosystems) could realise closure, and hence be teleological. On the other hand, the realisation of closure beyond the biological realm appears to be highly unlikely. In turn, the occurrence of simpler forms of self-determination remains a controversial issue, in particular with respect to the case of self-organising dissipative systems.

The Journal of Physiology, 2024

Since it was inspired by Bernard and developed and named by Cannon, the concept of homeostasis ha... more Since it was inspired by Bernard and developed and named by Cannon, the concept of homeostasis has been invoked by many as the central theoretical framework for physiology. It has also been the target of numerous criticisms that have elicited the introduction of a plethora of alternative concepts. We argue that many of the criticisms actually target the more restrictive account of homeostasis advanced by the cyberneticists. What was crucial to Bernard and Cannon was a focus on the maintenance of the organism as the goal of physiological regulation. We analyse how Bernard’s and Cannon’s broad conception of what was required to maintain the organism was narrowed to negative feedback, characterized in terms of setpoints, by the cyberneticists and demonstrate how many of the alternative concepts challenge the role of setpoints – treating them as variable in light of circumstances or in anticipation of future circumstances, or as dispensable altogether. To support our analysis, we draw on the experimental and theoretical work on thermoregulation, a phenomenon that has been considered as a paradigmatic example of homeostasis and has been a common focus of those advancing alternative concepts. To integrate the insights advanced by the original proponents of homeostasis and the theorists proposing replacement notions we advance a framework in which regulation is viewed from the perspective of maintaining the organism.

Biological Theory, Jun 13, 2024

Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the mater... more Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the material and energy from their environment that they need to maintain themselves. Since controlling eating requires procuring, processing, and assessing information, it constitutes a cognitive activity that provides a productive domain for pursuing cognitive biology as proposed by Ladislav Kováč. In agreement with Kováč, we argue that cognition is fundamentally grounded in chemical signaling and processing. To support this thesis, we adopt Cisek’s strategy of phylogenetic refinement, focusing on two animal phyla, Porifera and Placozoa, organisms that do not have neurons, muscles, or an alimentary canal, but nonetheless need to coordinate the activity of cells of multiple types in order to eat. We review what research has revealed so far about how these animals gather and process information to control their eating behavior.

Ratio, May 24, 2024

This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living s... more This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self-production. It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases.

Acta Biotheoretica, Dec 27, 2023

This paper focuses on physiological integration in multicellular systems, a notion often associat... more This paper focuses on physiological integration in multicellular systems, a notion often associated with biological individuality, but which has not received enough attention and needs a thorough theoretical treatment. Broadly speaking, physiological integration consists in how different components come together into a cohesive unit in which they are dependent on one another for their existence and activity. This paper argues that physiological integration can be understood by considering how the components of a biological multicellular system are controlled and coordinated in such a way that their activities can contribute to the maintenance of the system. The main implication of this perspective is that different ways of controlling their parts may give rise to multicellular organizations with different degrees of integration. After defining control, this paper analyses how control is realized in two examples of multicellular systems located at different ends of the spectrum of multicellularity: biofilms and animals. It focuses on differences in control ranges, and it argues that a high degree of integration implies control exerted at both medium and long ranges, and that insofar as biofilms lack long-range control (relative to their size) they can be considered as less integrated than other multicellular systems. It then discusses the implication of this account for the debate on physiological individuality and the idea that degrees of physiological integration imply degrees of individuality.

New Mechanism Explanation, Emergence and Reduction, 2024

According to new mechanists, mechanisms explain how specific biological phenomena are produced. N... more According to new mechanists, mechanisms explain how specific biological phenomena are produced. New mechanists have had little to say about how mechanisms relate to the organism in which they reside. A key feature of organisms, emphasized by the autonomy tradition, is that organisms maintain themselves. To do this, they rely on mechanisms. But mechanisms must be controlled so that they produce the phenomena for which they are responsible when and in the manner needed by the organism. To account for how they are controlled, we characterize mechanisms as sets of constraints on the flow of free energy. Some constraints are flexible and can be acted on by other mechanisms, control mechanisms, that utilize information procured from the organism and its environment to alter the flexible constraints in other mechanisms so that they produce phenomena appropriate to the circumstances. We further show that control mechanisms in living organisms are organized heterarchically-control is carried out primarily by local controllers that integrate information they acquire as well as that which they procure from other control mechanisms. The result is not a hierarchy of control but an integrated network of control mechanisms that has been crafted over the course of evolution.

Mossio, M (Ed). Organization in Biology. Springer, 2023

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenge... more Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step.

BioSystems, 2023

Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous-maintain themselves far from equilibrium th... more Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous-maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities-requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively small but distributed nervous system that relies on both chemical and electric transmission of signals. This system provides resources to integrate information from multiple sources as needed to maintain the organism. Especially important for the exercise of neural control are neuromodulators, which we present as setting agendas for control through more traditional electrical signaling. To illustrate how the C. elegans nervous system integrates multiple sources of information in controlling activities important for autonomy, we focus on feeding behavior and responses to adverse conditions. We conclude by considering how a distributed nervous system without a centralized controller is nonetheless adequate for autonomy.

Biology & Philosophy, 2015

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences , 2022

The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been chal... more The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been challenged by the current global scenarios (e.g., new diseases, new geographical distribution of diseases, effects of climate change on health, etc.) and by the ongoing scholarship in humanities and science. In this paper we question the mainstream definition of health adopted by the WHO-'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity' (WHO in Preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the international health conference, The World Health Organization, 1948)-and its role in providing tools to understand what health is in the contemporary context. More specifically, we argue that this context requires to take into account the role of the environment both in medical theory and in the healthcare practice. To do so, we analyse WHO documents dated 1984 and 1986 which define health as 'coping with the environment'. We develop the idea of 'coping with the environment', by focusing on two cardinal concepts: adaptation in public health and adaptivity in philosophy of biology. We argue that the notions of adaptation and adaptivity can be of major benefit for the characterization of health, and have practical implications. We explore some of these implications by discussing two recent case studies of adaptivity in public health, which can be valuable to further develop

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2022

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new me... more Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms.

In this article we provide an epistemological analysis of three uses of the concept of contingenc... more In this article we provide an epistemological analysis of three uses of the concept of contingency in biology. On the basis of this analysis we propose a heuristic solution to the issue of contingency versus determinism in the domain of studies on the origin of life, which makes it possible to approach this problem from a scientific point of view rather than by recurring to belief.

Sono molti i tentativi di rispondere a questa domanda dal punto di vista evolutivo o ecologico, p... more Sono molti i tentativi di rispondere a questa domanda dal punto di vista evolutivo o ecologico, partendo per esempio dallo studio dei comportamenti degli animali sociali e dei fenomeni collettivi (swarm, etc.). A questi approcci, di estremo interesse, ne vorremmo affiancare uno differente, basato sulla seguente pecisazione della domanda iniziale: "un modello teorico di organismo vivente puo dirci qualcosa sull’organizzazione e sul funzionamento dei sistemi sociali?". In linea di principio la risposta e affermativa, perche tali sistemi sono costituiti e realizzati da individui biologici. Ma l’irriducibilita dei fenomeni sociali a quelli biologici impone il problema di stabilire in quale modo e in che misura la caratterizzazione del dominio sociale puo appoggiarsi su quella del dominio biologico.

Ce chapitre propose un apercu de la tradition theorique et philosophique qui, au cours des deux d... more Ce chapitre propose un apercu de la tradition theorique et philosophique qui, au cours des deux derniers siecles, a mis la circularite au centre de l'analyse des phenomenes biologiques. Selon cette tradition, les organismes realisent un regime causal circulaire dans la mesure ou leur existence depend des effets de leur propre activite : les organismes biologiques s'autodeterminent. A son tour, l'autodetermination est le fondement d'un certain nombre de proprietes et dimensions biologiques, telles que l'individuation, la teleologie, la normativite ou encore la fonctionnalite. Nous montrons comment cette idee generale a fait l'objet d'une theorisation qui a pris, selon les cas, la forme d'une conceptualisation, d'une modelisation ou les deux a fois. Nous analysons les differences principales entre les differentes contributions, en soulignant leurs qualites et faiblesses. Enfin, nous concluons en evoquant certains developpements contemporains de cett...

In this paper we provide some theoretical guidelines for the characterization of the specificity ... more In this paper we provide some theoretical guidelines for the characterization of the specificity of biological systems in terms of organization and constraints. In the first place we advocate the view according to which a sound account of biological organization requires an appeal to emergent causation, and we propose a theoretical justification of emergence against existing criticisms by considering it as a causal power stemming from the relational properties of material configurations. Then, by interpreting constraints as a specific form of this emergent causal power, we propose a distinction between the roles played by constraints in physical and biological systems. As a result we provide a possible definition of biological organization as a closed network of co-dependent and internally produced constraints. LEONARDO BICH, MATTEO MOSSIO

Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 2010

In this article I will outline the basic theoretical assumptions of two examples of the confedera... more In this article I will outline the basic theoretical assumptions of two examples of the confederative and the integrative views of the living - respectively Ganti's Chemoton theory and Maturana and Varela's autopoietic theory - by showing that they are both consistent perspectives, but they differ in the accounts they make of the role of organization in biological systems. In doing so I will also put into evidence how the choice between these two theoretical frameworks is strictly connected to the problem of structure and function in living organisms and entails different strategies of investigation.

Cybern. Hum. Knowing, 2012

In this paper we criticize the “Ashbyan interpretation” (Froese & Stewart, 2010) of autopoietic t... more In this paper we criticize the “Ashbyan interpretation” (Froese & Stewart, 2010) of autopoietic theory by showing that Ashby’s framework and the autopoietic one are based on distinct, often incompatible, assumptions and that they aim at addressing different issues. We also suggest that in order to better understand autopoiesis and its implications, a different and wider set of theoretical contributions, developed previously or at the time autopoiesis was formulated, needs to be taken into consideration: among the others, the works of Rosen, Weiss and Piaget. By analyzing the concepts of organization and closure, the idea of components, and the role of materiality in the theory proposed by Maturana and Varela, we advocate the view that autopoiesis necessarily entails selfproduction and intrinsic instability and can be realized only in domains characterized by the same transformative and processual properties exhibited by the molecular domain. From this theoretical standpoint it can b...

Functional integration and individuality in prokaryotic collective organisations, 2021

Both physiological and evolutionary criteria of biological individuality are underpinned by the i... more Both physiological and evolutionary criteria of biological individuality are underpinned by the idea that an individual is a functionally integrated whole. However, a precise account of functional integration has not been provided so far, and current notions are not developed in the details, especially in the case of composite systems. To address this issue, this paper focuses on the organisational dimension of two representative associations of prokaryotes: biofilms and the endosymbiosis between prokaryotes. Some critical voices have been raised against the thesis that biofilms are biological individuals. Nevertheless, it has not been investigated which structural and functional obstacles may prevent them from being fully integrated physiological or evolutionary units. By contrast, the endosymbiotic association of different species of prokaryotes has the potential for achieving a different type of physiological integration based on a common boundary and interlocked functions. This type of association had made it possible, under specific conditions, to evolve endosymbionts into fully integrated organelles. This paper therefore has three aims: first, to analyse the organisational conditions and the physiological mechanisms that enable integration in prokaryotic associations; second, to discuss the organisational differences between biofilms and prokaryotic endosymbiosis and the types of integration they achieve; finally, to provide a more precise account of functional integration based on these case studies.