Plante Mirco
Biology Department, Collège Montmorency, 475 Boulevard de l'Avenir, Laval, QC, H7N 5H9, Canada.
Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique - Centre Armand-Frappier, Santé Biotechnologie, 531 Boul des Prairies, Laval, QC, H7V 1B7, Canada.
Theory Biosci. 2025 Feb;144(1):45-65. doi: 10.1007/s12064-024-00429-0. Epub 2024 Dec 5.
In biology, the concept of "living organism" has traditionally been based on the smallest level of organization comprising all the necessary and essential characteristics of life: the cell. Today, this concept is being challenged by the analysis of ambiguous biological entities, located both below and above the level of the living cell, which exhibit some of the characteristics of living organisms. This situation has given rise to an epistemological pluralism of the concepts of "organism", "individual" and "living", for which no clear and unanimous definition has yet been accepted. The aim of this manuscript is to explore new ideas and perspectives for defining the concept of "living organism", in order to eliminate a certain level of pluralism that could generate confusion, particularly in the pragmatic context of biological research. First, I expose the dualism of the concepts of "organism" and "individual" and suggest a fusion of these concepts in order to eliminate a certain level of pluralism. In doing so, I develop a symbiotic and holistic definition of the concept of "living organism", which includes different structural levels of the organism: molecular, cellular and ecosystems. Second, I present the epistemological problem of the concept of "living", which is closely related to the concepts of "organism" and "individual", by analyzing the list and gradational types of definition. In doing so, I propose a new symbiotic, holistic and gradualist model of the concept of "living organism", using a gradation of several properties of the living applied to the different structural levels of the organism developed previously (molecular, cellular, ecosystems).
在生物学中，“生物有机体”的概念传统上基于构成生命所有必要和基本特征的最小组织层次：细胞。如今，这一概念正受到对模糊生物实体分析的挑战，这些实体位于活细胞层次之下和之上，呈现出一些生物有机体的特征。这种情况导致了“有机体”“个体”和“生命”概念的认识论多元论，对此尚未有明确且一致认可的定义。本手稿的目的是探索定义“生物有机体”概念的新思想和新视角，以消除可能产生混淆的某种程度的多元论，特别是在生物学研究的实际背景下。首先，我揭示了“有机体”和“个体”概念的二元性，并建议将这些概念融合，以消除一定程度的多元论。在此过程中，我提出了“生物有机体”概念的共生和整体定义，其中包括有机体的不同结构层次：分子、细胞和生态系统。其次，我通过分析定义的列表和分级类型，呈现了与“有机体”和“个体”概念密切相关的“生命”概念的认识论问题。在此过程中，我使用应用于先前提出的有机体不同结构层次（分子、细胞、生态系统）的几种生命属性的分级，提出了一个新的“生物有机体”概念的共生、整体和渐变模型。
