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Contingency and Individuality: A Plurality of Evolutionary Individuality Types
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
Recently, philosophers have sought to determine the nature of individuals relevant to evolution by natural selection or evolutionary individuals. The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis is a claim about evolution that emphasizes the role of contingency or dependency relations and chance-based factors in how evolution unfolds. In this article, I argue that if we take evolutionary contingency seriously, then we should be pluralists about the types of individuals in selection.
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- Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association
Footnotes
Earlier drafts were read by Marc Ereshefsky, Jay Odenbaugh, and Adrian Currie. Their comments and feedback improved this article, and for that I am very grateful. A special thanks to Celso Neto, Megan Delehanty, Kirsten Walsh, Brian Hanley, and Ken Waters for their valuable input and support during the presentation of the ideas in this article.
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