Matt Haber, “The Recursive Account of Individuality and Process Ontology“
A recent development in the philosophy of biology has been the emergence of a process
ontology (Nicholson and Dupré 2018). Proponents contrast this stance with an entrenched
substance ontology, citing advantages that a process view carries in regard to accordance with biological practice and theory, and alignment with other philosophical theses. These contrasts are often cast as contemporary reflections of ancient debates on the nature of persistence and identity, e.g., proponents have adopted the Heraclitean slogan ‘Everything Flows’ (panta rhei), casting substance ontology as an adoption of Parmenidean or atomist tradition.
Philosophers of biology advocating process ontology have adopted the strategy of presenting how this stance may be applied to different biological examples and contexts,
calling for broader applications. One open case is whether biological lineages are good
candidate processes. Here I take up that question, considering how my Recursive Account
of Individuality provides a process view of biological lineages. This helps unpack the process ontology strategy and framework, as well as highlighting advantages of the process view. Yet, as hopeful as this may be, I argue that it does not exclude a substance account of lineages, suggesting that the competition of the two accounts is not as straightforwardly evaluated as process ontologists might suggest.