Genes and the Agents of Life
The Individual in the Fragile Sciences Biology

This book undertakes to rethink the place of the individual in the biological sciences.

Robert A. Wilson (Author)

9780521544955, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 September 2004

314 pages, 5 b/w illus. 13 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.46 kg

"This is a bold, absorbing, and deeply-informed book...[Wilson's] views are often controversial and provocative, but always clearly and lucidly argued. As well as fostering productive debate within the philosophy of biology, this book has the potential to show a much wider audience why this discipline is currently so exciting." John Dupre, University of Exeter

Genes and the Agents of Life undertakes to rethink the place of the individual in the biological sciences, drawing parallels with the cognitive and social sciences. Genes, organisms, and species are all agents of life but how are each of these conceptualized within genetics, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and systematics? The book includes highly accessible discussions of genetic encoding, species and natural kinds, and pluralism above the levels of selection, drawing on work from across the biological sciences. The book is a companion to the author's Boundaries of the Mind, also available from Cambridge, where the focus is the cognitive sciences. The book will appeal to a broad range of professionals and students in philosophy, biology, and the history of science.

Part I. Individuals, Agency, and Biology: 1. Individuals and biology
2. Thinking about biological agents
Part II. Species, Organisms, and Biological Natural Kinds: 3. What is an organism?
4. Exploring the tripartite view
5. Specious individuals
Part III. Genes and Organismic Development: 6. Genetic agency
7. Conceptualizing development
Part IV. Groups and Natural Selection: 8. Groups as agents of selection
9. Arguing about group selection: the myxoma case
10. Pluralism, entwinement, and the levels of selection.

Subject Areas: Developmental biology [PSC], Genetics [non-medical PSAK], History of science [PDX], Philosophy of science [PDA], Cognitivism, cognitive theory [JMAQ]