The Agent and the Network: A Comparative Analysis of Organism-Centered and Systemic Philosophies of Life
Aravindan Neelakandan
This paper makes a detailed comparative analysis of two contemporary philosophies of biology that challenge the 20th century’s gene-centric, mechanistic paradigm. They are represented by two books: ‘The Organism’ (Cambridge University Press, 2025) by philosopher of science Jan Baedke and ‘The Systems View of Life’ (Cambridge University Press, 2025) by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi. The previous one is based on an organism-centric approach and the latter is based on a network approach. The philosophies of biology presented in both the books seek to overcome the conceptual reduction of the organism to a passive object or vehicle, a mere pawn in the evolutionary game played by selfish genes.
The paper analyses the core concepts, and how much they converge and diverge, and their respective alignments with the worldview getting unveiled by modern scientific discoveries in the field of biology such as post-genomics, evolutionary biology, and complexity theory.
Keyword: Agent, organism-Centered , philosophy of life