Editorial Comments to Sober by Sarkar

Abstract

It seems plausible to suppose that the Self and the individual arise together, at least insofar as the biological Self is concerned. After all any notion of the Self in biology must surely be more general than the one that philosophers conventionally assume, namely, that it is connected inherently with what humans call “consciousness.” But, what is the individual? Even within biology different disciplines might well choose to construe it differently. The biochemist might choose to emphasize reasonably decoupled chemical cycles, that is, those cycles in which the interactions within are much stronger than those of the cycle as a whole. The molecular biologist might well choose other (generally simpler) mechanisms. Are they all individuals? From some philosophical points of view — those of Carnap and Quine, for example—there is no factual issue to be settled here: it is all a matter of convention, a matter for choice on pragmatic rather than “substantial” criteria. From other points of view, such as those of the “scientific realists,” there is an ontological issue of great importance here and one that has to be settled by a careful consideration of the biology of the processes involved.