Life (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Open a textbook in biology and you’ll find definition of life. It might consist of a list of characteristics that apply to organisms, their parts, their interactions, or their history. Some definitions may go beyond mere descriptions, but provide more controversial theoretical commitments. Like any basic concept, life is difficult to define. Most people avoid the issue. They may ignore marginal cases, accept fuzzy boundaries, or declare the whole issue beyond their scope. But many people believe their work requires a rigorous demarcation of life. So, a definition may be helpful in new scientific contexts, such as astrobiology, origins of life, or synthetic biology. As such, the nature of life continues to be debated. This article focuses on the subject matter of biology: life. The first half of this article will focus on attempts to characterize life by both philosophers and scientists. The first section will describe alternative accounts of definitions. Two subsections will cover hist