Debates concerning the units and levels of selection have persisted for over fifty years. One
major question in this literature is whether units and levels of selection are genuine, in the …

This article proposes two conditions to assess whether an entity at a level of description is a
unit of selection qua interactor. These two conditions make it possible to (1) distinguish …

It has become customary in multilevel selection theory to use the same terms (namely
“multilevel selection 1” and “multilevel selection 2”) to denote both two explanatory goals …

In this paper, I identify two general positions with respect to the relationship between
environment and natural selection. These positions consist in claiming that selective claims …

This paper addresses the foundations of Teleological Individualism, the view that organisms,
even non-sentient organisms, are goal-oriented systems while biological collectives, such …

In this article I explore some statistical difficulties confronting going conceptions of 'group'as
understood in accounts of group selection. Most such theories require real groups but define …

It is not uncommon in the biological and philosophical literature related to units and levels of
selection 1 to read that two levels of selection can be in conflict. 2 For instance, when …

Kin selection theory and multilevel selection theory are distinct approaches to explaining the
evolution of social traits. The latter claims that it is useful to regard selection as a process …

Causalism is the thesis that natural selection can cause evolution. A standard argument for
causalism involves showing that a hypothetical intervention on some population-level …

Abstract In “Some Criticism of the Contextual Approach, and a Few Proposals” in Biological
Theory, Brian McLoone discusses some of the points about the contextual approach that I …