{"id":265514,"date":"2026-07-16T14:14:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:14:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:14:55","slug":"life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Beyond Human Boundaries &#8211; Sabina Leonelli"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"text-align:center;margin:0 auto 1.5em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/11d0e6b96f826794.jpg\" alt=\" - Unknown book cover\" style=\"max-width:300px;width:100%;height:auto;box-shadow:0 4px 12px rgba(0,0,0,.25);border-radius:4px;\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Fran\u00e7ois Papale, W. Ford Doolittle, and S. Andrew Inkpen Abstract We argue that there is an explanatory or epistemic value in assuming that \u201cIt\u2019s the song not the singer(s)\u201d or ITSNTS is an example of process, rather than thing or substance, epistemology and that process ontology as in Nicholson and Dupr\u00e9 is the preferred way to go. We see this as one way to defeat the Platonic claim that ITSNTS is immaterial but affects, causally, the world of \u201cthings\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>6.1 Introduction We argue that the evolution of multispecies consortia is better explained as the evolution of processes, rather than of things or substances. This was the point of the \u201cIt\u2019s the song, not the singer(s)\u201d (ITSNTS) theory that two of us elaborated in 2018 (Doolittle &#038; Inkpen, 2018), and which originated in 2010 (Doolittle &#038; Zhaxy- bayeva, 2010). And if we\u2019re correct, this reveals an explanatory or epistemic bene\ufb01t of a process philosophy for evolutionary biology. In this chapter, we\u2019d like to go some way towards that revelation by explaining our thinking and defending it against a common objection to ITSNTS.<\/p>\n<p>We should make clear at the outset, though, that none of us is a metaphysician and our concerns here are with process philosophy as an epistemic (explanatory) project. We\u2019re not concerned with the question of whether the world is made up of F. Papale Department of Philosophy, Universit\u00e9 McGill, Montr\u00e9al, Canada e-mail: francoisppl@gmail.com W. F. Doolittle (B) Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada e-mail: W.Ford.Doolittle@Dal.Ca Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada S.<\/p>\n<p>A. Inkpen Department of Philosophy, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada e-mail: ainkpen@mta.ca \u00a9 The Author(s) 2026 S. Leonelli et al. (eds.), Life Beyond Human Boundaries: John Dupr\u00e9\u2019s Philosophy and the Interdisciplinary Study of the Life Sciences, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-032-26977-5_6 F. Papale et al. only processes or only things, nor with which is ontologically prior. Like Brunet (2024), we can see how both positions could be fruitful for understanding different living phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>We are therefore concerned only with showing how a process- philosophy perspective on some evolutionary and ecological phenomena is fruitful, epistemically. Given that the content of process philosophy varies among its proponents (Dupr\u00e9 &#038; Nicholson, 2018), we need to be clear about how we use these terms, which we take to be mostly in line with commonsense and common parlance in either discipline.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Life Beyond Human Boundaries: John Dupr\u00e9\u2019s Philosophy and the Interdisciplinary Study of the Life Sciences Sabina Leonelli \u00b7 Celso Neto \u00b7 Stephan Guttinger Editors Life Beyond Human Boundaries: John Dupr\u00e9\u2019s Philosophy and the Interdisciplinary Study of the Life Sciences Editors Sabina Leonelli School of Social Sciences and Technology Technical University of Munich M\u00fcnchen, Bayern, Germany Stephan Guttinger Centre for the Study of Life Sciences University of Exeter Exeter, UK Celso Neto Centre for the Study of Life Sciences University of Exeter Exeter, UK ISBN 978-3-032-26976-8 ISBN 978-3-032-26977-5 (eBook) https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-3-032-26977-5 This work was supported by University of Exeter and Technical University of Munich.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2026. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribu- tion and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.<\/p>\n<p>The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book\u2019s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book\u2019s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.<\/p>\n<p>in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a speci\ufb01c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.<\/p>\n<p>Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional af\ufb01liations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>This is a short excerpt from the opening of &ldquo;&rdquo; by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/#Book_Information\" >Book Information<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/#Reading_Word_Statistics\" >Reading &amp; Word Statistics<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/#Most_Frequent_Words\" >Most Frequent Words<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli\/#PDF_Download\" >PDF Download<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Book_Information\"><\/span>Book Information<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Unique ID:<\/strong> 11d0e6b96f826794<\/li>\n<li><strong>File Extension:<\/strong> .pdf<\/li>\n<li><strong>File Size:<\/strong> 2,845,752 bytes (2.714 MB)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Title:<\/strong> &#8211;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Author:<\/strong> Unknown<\/li>\n<li><strong>ISBN:<\/strong> 9783032269768, 9783032269775, 9780190636814, 9780198823650<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pages:<\/strong> 216<\/li>\n<li><strong>Language:<\/strong> English (en)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Reading_Word_Statistics\"><\/span>Reading &amp; Word Statistics<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Estimated Reading Time:<\/strong> 505.1 minutes<\/li>\n<li><strong>Total Words:<\/strong> 101,019<\/li>\n<li><strong>Total Characters:<\/strong> 659,010<\/li>\n<li><strong>Average Words per Page:<\/strong> 467.68<\/li>\n<li><strong>Average Characters per Page:<\/strong> 3050.97<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Most_Frequent_Words\"><\/span>Most Frequent Words<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>dupr\u00e9 (425), human (401), nature (377), philosophy (367), soil (349), science (331), biology (294), one (264), process (254), life (242), different (224), processes (224), biological (204), dupr\u00e9\u2019s (203), work (200), university (185), also (174), things (167), john (165), between (159), world (153), sciences (150), species (150), press (143), organisms (142), many (139), view (135), kinds (128), theory (125), evolutionary (122), way (121), ontology (121), https (117), living (116), natural (116), org (115), philosophical (114), evolution (113), language (112), use (109), like (109), health (107), research (101), chapter (99), scienti\ufb01c (99), two (99), even (98), organism (97), systems (94), concept (94), social (93), doi (93), philosophers (93), see (87), entities (85), think (84), symbiosis (83), studies (83), rather (83), humans (83), make (82), genes (82), important (81), economics (81), selection (81), scientists (80), study (79), empirical (79), kind (78), properties (78), terms (77), idea (77), well (76), understanding (75), metabolism (75), much (75), metaphysics (73), time (73), form (72), thing (72), within (70), \ufb01rst (70), question (69), new (69), interdisciplinary (68), part (68), material (67), often (67), ways (67), say (67), knowledge (66), case (66), system (66), models (65), community (65), need (64), classi\ufb01cation (62), particular (62), instance (61), account (61).<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"PDF_Download\"><\/span>PDF Download<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/life-beyond-human-boundaries-sabina-leonelli.pdf\" download rel=\"nofollow\" style=\"display:inline-block;background:#2271b1;color:#ffffff;padding:14px 36px;border-radius:6px;text-decoration:none;font-weight:bold;font-size:1.05em;\">&#11015;&#65039; PDF Download<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fran\u00e7ois Papale, W. Ford Doolittle, and S. Andrew Inkpen Abstract We argue that there is an explanatory or epistemic value in assuming that \u201cIt\u2019s the song not the singer(s)\u201d or ITSNTS is an example of process, rather than thing or substance, epistemology and that process ontology as in Nicholson and Dupr\u00e9 is the preferred way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":265512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}