title: What is an organism? An immunological answer.
abstract: The question, "What is an organism?," formerly considered as essential in biology, has now been increasingly replaced by a larger question, "What is a biological individual?" On the grounds that i) individuation is theory-dependent, and ii) physiology does not offer a theory, biologists and philosophers of biology have claimed that it is the theory of evolution by natural selection that tells us what counts as a biological individual. Here I show that one physiological field, immunology, offers a theory that makes possible a biological individuation based on physiological grounds. I give a new answer to the question of the individuation of an organism by linking together the evolutionary and the immunological approaches to biological individuation.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris-Sorbonne & Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, IHPST-Sorbonne, 13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pradeu
mesh_terms: D000486:Allergy and Immunology; D000818:Animals; D001695:Biology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007109:Immunity; D010684:Philosophy / Q000266:history*; D013559:Symbiosis