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Contingency and Individuality: A Plurality of Evolutionary Individuality Types

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alison K. McConwell
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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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Type
Biology
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 5 , December 2017 , pp. 1104 - 1116
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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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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