Sign in

Leonardo Bich

@leonardobich.bsky.social
505 followers 518 following 52 posts

Associate Research Professor at the IAS-Research Center for Life, Mind and Society of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. leonardobich.wordpress.com www.researchgate.net/profile/Leonar…

PostsRepliesMedia
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
What does it mean that biological control is organized heterarchically? We turn common assumptions upside-down and argue that integration of control inputs ultimately takes place at the last step: in the controlled production mechanisms themselves rather than in the central nervous system. #philbio
000
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A new paper co-authored with William Bechtel on heterarchical control has just been published in the Journal of Physiology "The last-step integrator thesis: Heterarchical control of the mammalian gastrointestinal tract" physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The last‐step integrator thesis: Heterarchical control of the mammalian gastrointestinal tract
Abstract figure legend Heterarchy of control of the gastrointestinal tract. The production mechanisms (i.e. epithelial cells and muscles) are shown at the bottom in green. Above them are some of the ....
152
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
RUB History & Philosophy of Science @roto-rub.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
New paper out by our former visiting fellow Alberto Monterde Fuertes! It examines the methodological decisions structuring inquiry in engaged philosophy of science. Check it out here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #PhilSci
0174
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
The special issue of Biological Theory "Continually Discovering Complexity: Essays in Honor of William Bechtel" is finally out with all the contributions, including ours! @lauramenatti.bsky.social #philbio #philmed @biologicaltheory.bsky.social link.springer.com/journal/1375...
link.springer.com
Biological Theory
Biological Theory is devoted to theoretical advances in the fields of evolution and cognition with an emphasis on the conceptual integration afforded by ...
0167
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
The dialectical underpinnings of multilevel selection Evolution isn’t flat: new levels arise through conflict and then reshape the very dynamics that brought them into being
dialecticalsystems.eu
The Dialectics of Multi-Level Selection in Evolutionary Biology - Dialectical Systems
Introduction Dialectical thinking in biology has famously been put forward by the eponymous book of Levins and Lewontin (1985). Much of the book was dedicated to the interpenetration between organisms...
01811
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Happy to share this paper of mine! It took me a long time, but may it be a salutogenic beginning for everyone! #salutogenesis #health #environment #philsci #philmed www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Medicine, healthcare and the environment: from the salutogenic approach towards the salutogenic environments
Research in medicine is increasingly calling for greater attention to the importance of the environment and the effects of climate change. In this pap…
0104
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
CCOO UPV/EHU @ccoo-upv-ehu.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
💸¿Salario emocional? Preferimos salario REAL. El Supremo da la razón a CCOO sobre los impagos al Personal Investigador Margarita Salas y María Zambrano en la UPV/EHU. ¿Qué opinas de la gestión del Rectorado? 👇 ccooupvehu.blogspot.com/2026/01/Vict... #MargaritaSalas #MaríaZambrano
132
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Valencia Philosophy Lab @vlc-lab.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Only two days! 👇
051
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Valencia Philosophy Lab @vlc-lab.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
👤Leonardo Bich (University of the Basque Country): The Organizational Foundations of Minimal Cognition: Regulatory Heterarchical Control. #WorkshopOnMinimalCognition
052
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
thank you!
010
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
This chapter provides a positive characterization of the notion of heterarchy in biology beyond mere divergence from hierarchy, by identifying some fundamental principles of heterarchical control in living systems... ...more to come...
140
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
New chapter co-authored with William Bechtel on the notion of heterarchy #philbio "Autonomy and Heterarchy: Organizing Control in Biological Organisms" link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
link.springer.com
Autonomy and Heterarchy: Organizing Control in Biological Organisms
In order to maintain themselves as systems far from equilibrium with their environment, organisms must control the operation of numerous production mechanisms. Control involves mechanisms that make or...
1238
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Me, on Friday, after months of writing and years of doing philosophy. One of the most important qualifications of French research. Honored and a bit anxious ;) #france #research #philosophy #HDR #environment #health ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/actualite/so...
ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
Soutenance HDR - IHPST
Laura MENATTI soutiendra son habilitation à diriger des recherches de l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne le vendredi 7 novembre 2025 à 14h dans la Salle de conférences de l’IHPST (13 rue du Four, ...
043
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
➡️New article out⬅️ @leonardobich.bsky.social and @lauramenatti.bsky.social argue that health is not about balance or stability, but about adapting and transforming in response to changing circumstances — the capacity for adaptive change. link.springer.com/journal/13752
073
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
How did regulation and agency arise before genes? Shirt-Ediss et al. model evolving protocell ecologies with the Araudia platform—showing how simple metabolic systems can “learn” to adapt to changing environments dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
dialecticalsystems.eu
New Paper (2025): Modelling the prebiotic origins of regulation and agency in evolving protocell ecologies - Dialectical Systems
How could the first living systems learn to regulate themselves before the emergence of genes? In their new paper, Ben Shirt-Ediss, Arián Ferrero-Fernández, Daniele De Martino, Leonardo Bich, Álvaro M...
064
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Instead of seeing health as maintaining stable/balanced states, it proposes viewing it as adaptive change - the organism's ability to modify itself in relation to varying internal and external conditions.
040
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
The paper challenges the traditional "stability-focused" view of homeostasis in medicine and the idea of health as balance. It reframes the notion of homeostasis from cybernetic feedback models to dynamic regulation and apply it to rethink health beyond balance.
140
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Happy to announce our new paper co-authored with @lauramenatti.bsky.social on the relationship between homeostasis and health just published open access in Biological Theory! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Homeostasis and Health: From Balance to Change - Biological Theory
All living systems need to regulate themselves and coordinate the activities of their parts to maintain themselves under changing conditions. Historically, homeostasis is one of the central ideas that...
3217
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
📖 New Book Out Alvaro Moreno & Juli Peretó explore the major transitions in biological agency—from origins of life to metazoans—showing how agency drives the evolution of biological complexity www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
0131
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
the paper is part of a special issue on "Origins of life: the possible and the actual" with many interesting contributions royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1936
031
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
The first author Ben Shirt-Ediss wrote an interesting blog post discussing the main points of this research shirt-ediss.me/blog/araudia/
shirt-ediss.me
Simulating the Origins of Purposeful Behaviour in Evolving Protocell Ecologies | Blog
120
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Exploring the origin of regulation in prebiotic evolution, with implications for the emergence of adaptive agency, plasticity and evolvability
100
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
New paper: "Modelling the prebiotic origins of regulation and agency in evolving protocell ecologies" Happy to have participated in this work! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Modelling the prebiotic origins of regulation and agency in evolving protocell ecologies | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
How and why did natural systems develop the first mechanisms of regulation? How could they turn into adaptive agents in a minimal (though deeply meaningful) biological sense? A novel simulation platform, Araudia, has been implemented to address these ...
1142
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
0106
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
ISHPSSB2025 @ishpssb2025.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
#ISHPSSB2925 program booklet is out! Check it out here ishpssb2025.icbas.up.pt/wp-content/u... #hpbio #philsci #histstm #histsci #philbio #hbio #sts
Cover of the program booklet for ISHPSSB 2025.
03619
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Heading to #ishpssb2025 #ish2025 to present our paper coauthored with @lauramenatti.bsky.social “Homeostasis and Health: from balance to change” recently accepted for publication in Biological Theory
071
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Today we celebrate the new edition of Varela’s Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) from MIT Press, with a new critical apparatus by Ezequiel Di Paolo & Evan Thompson, reconnecting Varela's legacy in cognitive science to his theoretical biology dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
dialecticalsystems.eu
New edition of Principles of Biological Autonomy - Dialectical Systems
Today, we celebrate the new publication of Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) by MIT Press, now accompanied by a new critical apparatus by Ezequiel Di Paolo and Evan Thompson.Varela’s ideas cont...
0236
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Next week, thrilled to go back to #Paris #sciencespo to give a talk about 'Landscapes and medical spaces: psychological and philosophical perspectives' #health #natural and #built #environments #landscape #philosophy #psychology. www.sciencespo.fr/institut-tra...
sciencespo.fr
AIRE Annual Conference
This event will assemble the burgeoning environmental research community at Sciences Po, along with external partners. The agenda includes three panel sessions, a lunch, two keynote lectures and a clo...
032
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Embodied & enactive approaches aren’t just about individual cognition — they’re about society. A new Mind & Society special issue brings enactivism into conversation with ethics, social theory & political philosophy. www.dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...
1287
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Henry Potter and @wiringthebrain.bsky.social challenge reductive views in neuroscience by introducing richer, temporally extended notions of causality and arguing to re-center cognition and the organism as genuine causal agents in behavior onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience
The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c...
0147
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Adaptivity is central to life, yet conceptually homeless. While adaptation is tied to selection, adaptivity is an ongoing organismal process—rooted in metabolism, not just evolutionary causation www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contribution...
dialecticalsystems.eu
The Philosophy of Adaptivity - Dialectical Systems
At the core of life is adaptivity, the organismal process of adjusting to ever-changing conditions. But despite its centrality, adaptivity is a surprisingly lonely concept. Its most immediate lexical ...
093
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Asking for a friend: Has it ever happened to you that a manuscript had been ‘awaiting decision’ for 4 months? No replies from the editors. This is problematic especially for non-tenured scholars.
110
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
yes, it's me! Also in French #paris #philosophy #ihpst #sorbonne after two months of visiting and becoming associated here 📚✨ ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/actualite/po...
ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
Portrait de Laura Menatti - chercheuse invitée - IHPST
Laura Menatti est une chercheuse interdisciplinaire en philosophie des sciences et de la médecine, spécialisée dans la théorie et l'épistémologie du paysage et l'urbanisme. Titulaire de deux doctorats...
044
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
🥳Happy to share I've been appointed as an associate researcher at the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne & CNRS. #philsci #science #philosophy #Paris ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr lauramenatti.weebly.com/about-me.html
ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
IHPST | IHPST
3294
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Thanks! You are too kind!
110
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
and that Bernard and Cannon embraced a far broader understanding that can accommodate the alternatives advanced by the critics and provide an integrated theoretical framework for physiology.
030
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
We argue that the critics target a much narrower understanding of homeostasis put forward by the cyberneticists
120
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Nonetheless, critics have argued that homeostasis is too limiting and have advanced a variety of alternative concepts such as heterostasis, rheostasis, and allostasis.
110
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Since Cannon, inspired by Bernard’s discussion of the conditions required for free and independent life, introduced the term homeostasis, many have embraced it as the main theoretical principle guiding physiology and medicine. #philbio #philmed
110
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
www.cambridge.org/core/service...
cambridge.org
110
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
New paper on homeostasis with William Bechtel finally out in Philosophy of Science: " Rediscovering Bernard and Cannon: Restoring the Broader Vision of Homeostasis Eclipsed by the Cyberneticists" @ias-research.bsky.social @dialecticalsys.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Rediscovering Bernard and Cannon: Restoring the Broader Vision of Homeostasis Eclipsed by the Cyberneticists | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core
Rediscovering Bernard and Cannon: Restoring the Broader Vision of Homeostasis Eclipsed by the Cyberneticists
1219
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
IAS Research @ias-research.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Next Tuesday at 11:30, we will have the pleasure of welcoming 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐞́ (UPF, Barcelona), who will give a talk entitled ❞𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬❞ www.ias-research.net/blog/2025/02...
021
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
wow, I read their work many years ago during my PhD when I was into Rosen's formalism, but I didn't see further development of that work. Someone who is very competent on category theory (and also how it applies to biology and in Rosen's model) is Giuseppe Longo (Emeritus as ENS, Paris)
120
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Laura Menatti @lauramenatti.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
So happy: for the next 2 months I'll be visiting the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), Paris 1 Sorbonne. Thrilled to have received a fellowship to work on #environment #health #philosophy of #science in this amazing place. ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
IHPST | IHPST
031
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
I have finally received the hardcopies of my Element! Dracula is congratulating me after licking the book! www.cambridge.org/core/element...
0140
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
New OA paper by Charbel El-Hani et al. explores how living beings are individuated as causal systems via biological autonomy, with closure of constraints as a distinctively biological causal regime that defines system boundaries. 🔗 taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-...
0156
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
My Element on Biological Organization is finally available in printed version! But if you prefer the electronic version, it is open-access!! www.cambridge.org/core/element...
cambridge.org
Biological Organization
Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - Biological Organization
0205
Reposted by Leonardo Bich
Dialectical Systems @dialecticalsys.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
@leonardobich.bsky.social offers a fresh take on organizational accounts in theoretical biology, tracing their evolution from cybernetics & systems theory to autopoiesis and closure of constraints, with a groundbreaking view on regulation & biological control www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...
0104
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
It addresses these issues from a perspective primarily centered on the organism, its physiology, and behavior.
020
Leonardo Bich @leonardobich.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
The book discusses both classical and contemporary issues in philosophy of biology and theoretical biology. These include topics such as regulation, teleology, the origins of life, communication, symbiosis, and the role of the environment.
130