Pierrick Bourrat (2025), Synthese 205(2), article 62 — DOI-10.1007/s11229-024-04880-w
Key takeaways
- Being reproduced (a reproducee), being able to reproduce with some autonomy across backgrounds (a reproducer), and being a Darwinian individual (a reproducer with high reproductive causal control) are distinct statuses — so genes in multicellular organisms are, like hearts, mere reproducees that serve larger reproducers, and material overlap is needed for reproduction by reproducers but not by reproducees.
Seeded from the abstract and a skim, before the reading in NOTE-100. What follows is what the work says about itself.
Bourrat examines the concept of reproduction in evolution. He distinguishes objects that are reproduced (reproducees), objects that reproduce by virtue of some reproductive autonomy (reproducers), and Darwinian individuals, which are reproducers with a high degree of reproductive causal control. Applied to genes, viruses and cells, the distinction explains why they differ in reproductive status. It also supports Griesemer’s view that reproduction requires material overlap.
Standing in the record
Filed from the 2026-09-26 sweep of the papers-feed tracker for philosophy: 100 seconds of active reading over 3 sessions. It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-100 is the close reading of 2026-09-26, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as the clearest statement of the reproduced/reproducing distinction and a tidy, well-scoped settlement of the material-overlap dispute. Its value is conceptual. Its two measures are recipes that are never computed, and the autonomy recipe does not match its own verbal definition.
When seeded, before the reading in NOTE-100, the entry gave a priority for a deeper reading: medium — solid engagement (t = 100 s over 3 sessions) and a load-bearing conceptual framework for biological individuality; the skim captures its structure but not the detailed conditions of §2.
What the seeding asked a deeper reading to check (NOTE-100 is that reading):
- Refines the units-of-selection vocabulary (replicator/reproducer/interactor; LIT-160, LIT-201) and biological individuality (LIT-168).
- Check how “reproductive causal control” is measured — whether it is operationalisable or only comparative.
- The treatment of genes as mere reproducees directly challenges gene’s-eye views and deserves checking against Lloyd’s replicator/reproducer question in LIT-160.
Access when seeded: Springer blocks automated fetches (and Semantic Scholar marks the article closed); read the typeset article PDF (26 pp., Synthese layout) from the author’s website (pierrickbourrat.com/publication/a-60/a-60.pdf), by section. Online date from Crossref.