Philosophic Aspects of Individuality: Collaborative Travel to the 5th International Congress of Systemic & Evolutionary Biology, Budapest, Hungary, August 17-24, 1

一百多年来，生物个体一直是进化和发育生物学中的一个重要问题。进化论通常理所当然地认为其研究对象是个体(个体的特征各不相同)，而发展生物学试图解释个体是如何形成其最具特征的特性的。但是，作为一个“个体”意味着什么？生物学中的个体--个体有机体、细胞或DNA分子--与化学、量子力学或社会学中的个体有何不同？国际系统与进化生物学协会将利用将于1996年8月17日至24日在匈牙利布达佩斯举行的第五届国际系统与进化生物学大会为契机，召集一批致力于这一主题的哲学家。他们将准备在会议上发表的论文，并在他们自己之间以及与在场的其他人会面，以启动对有机个人主义本质的探究。

Organic individuality has been an important problem in evolutionary and developmental biology for over one hundred years. Theories of evolution usually take for granted that its subjects are individuals (whose characteristics vary), while developmental biology tries to explain how individuals come to have their most characteristic properties. But what does it mean to be an `individual,` and how are individuals in biology--individual organisms, cells, or DNA molecules--different from individual entities in, say, chemistry, quantum mechanics, or sociology? The PI will use the Fifth International Congress of Systemic and Evolutionary Biology, to be held in Budapest, Hungary, August 17-24, 1996, as an occasion to gather a group of philosophers working on this theme. They would prepare papers for presentation at the conference and meet among themselves and with others present to initiate inquiry into the nature of organic individualism.