Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author's Abstract

• Mammalian placental pregnancy is a neglected problem case for theories of organismality. This example is “closer to home” than those typically discussed within philosophy of biology.
• I apply evolutionary and immunological accounts of organismality to the “counting question”: how many organisms are present during a placental pregnancy?
• I conclude that an evolutionary approach yields the answer “two”, due to bottlenecking, germ-soma sequestration and sexual recombination.
• By contrast, an immunological approach answers “one”, due to pervasive interactions across the placenta.
• This analysis expands and refines recent work on a biologically informed metaphysics of pregnancy, an under-theorised area of philosophy of science.