ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses individuality from the perspective of its origins. It is argued that the different forms and levels of biological organisation ultimately date back to – and lie in – the prebiotic appearance of a minimal form of individuality, understood as a self-encapsulated self-maintaining (autopoietic) organisation, which constitutes the core of what we now mean by organismality. Thanks to the spatially and temporally wider scaffold they created, these instances of actual organisation have enacted a new world where they deal with a population of semi-autonomous genetic entities. This has led to the appearance of a new form of individuality that can survive and thrive by incorporating immune mechanisms. At the end of the prebiotic evolution, we have hierarchically and cohesively organised individuated systems which, closely associated with similar individuated systems, generate new cohesive associated entities.
