Biological Individuality, Pregnancy, and (Mammalian) Reproduction

Abstract

Mammals are usually considered unproblematic as biological individuals. This article contends the opposite. Once we consider pregnancy, criteria for biological individuality are not easily applicable in mammals and give conflicting results: mammalian pregnancy poses a problem for biological individuality. This may open fruitful new approaches to biological individuality and is of relevance to metaphysicians interested in (human) organisms.

Topics & Concepts