The Problem of Biological Individuality

Ellen Clarke Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research Altenberg, Austria [email protected] Abstract Darwin described forces of selection acting upon individuals, but there remains a great deal of controversy about the exact status and definition of a biological individual. Recently some authors have argued that the individual is dispensable—that an inability to pin it down is not problematic because little rests on it anyway. The aim of this article is to show that there is a real problem of biological individuality, and an urgent need to arbitrate among the current plethora of solutions to it.