This paper aims to provide a philosophical and theoretical account of biological communication grounded in the notion of organisation. The organisational approach characterises living systems as organised in such a way that they are capable to self-produce and self-maintain while in constant interaction with the environment. To apply this theoretical framework to the study of biological communication, we focus on a specific approach, based on the notion of influence, according to which communication takes place when a signal emitted by a sender triggers a change in the behaviour of the receiver that is functional for the sender itself. We critically analyse the current formulations of this account, that interpret what is functional for the sender in terms of evolutionary adaptations. Specifically, the adoption of this etiological functional framework may lead to the exclusion of several phenomena usually studied as instances of communication, and possibly even of entire fields of investigation such as synthetic biology. As an alternative, we reframe the influence approach in organisational terms, characterising functions in terms of contributions to the current organisation of a biological system. We develop a theoretical account of biological communication in which communicative functions are distinguished from other types of biological functions described by the organisational account (e.g. metabolic, ecological, etc.). The resulting organisational-influence approach allows to carry out causal analyses of current instances of phenomena of communication, without the need to provide etiological explanations. In such a way it makes it possible to understand in terms of communication those phenomena which realise interactive patterns typical of signalling interactions—and are usually studied as such in scientific practice—despite not being the result of evolutionary adaptations. Moreover, this approach provides operational tools to design and study communicative interactions in experimental fields such as synthetic biology.

中文翻译：

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生物传播的组织方法

本文旨在提供基于组织概念的生物传播的哲学和理论解释。组织方法将生命系统描述为以这样一种方式组织的生命系统，即它们能够在与环境不断互动的同时自我生产和自我维持。为了将这一理论框架应用于生物交流的研究，我们专注于一种基于影响概念的特定方法，根据该方法，当发送者发出的信号触发接收者行为的变化时，就会发生交流。发件人本身的功能。我们批判性地分析了这个账户的当前表述，从进化适应的角度解释了对发送者来说什么是功能性的。具体来说，采用这种病因学功能框架可能会导致排除一些通常作为交流实例研究的现象，甚至可能排除整个研究领域，例如合成生物学。作为替代方案，我们从组织角度重新构建影响方法，根据对生物系统当前组织的贡献来表征功能。我们开发了生物交流的理论解释，其中交流功能与组织解释所描述的其他类型的生物功能（例如代谢、生态等）不同。由此产生的组织影响方法允许对当前的传播现象实例进行因果分析，而无需提供病因解释。通过这种方式，可以从通信的角度理解那些实现信号交互典型交互模式的现象——并且通常在科学实践中进行研究——尽管不是进化适应的结果。此外，这种方法为设计和研究合成生物学等实验领域的交流互动提供了操作工具。