The multitemporality of life: an analysis from Philosophy of Biology

ABSTRACT Although the issue of temporality has mainly been studied from Physics, this topic also exhibits diverse interesting aspects that could be addressed from a biological perspective. One possible way of approaching this subject is to examine the kinds of temporalities involved in biological processes. In that vein, the aim of this article is to analyze developmental and evolutionary processes' temporality in different biological fields of study, including a novel area (Evolutionary Developmental Biology) which attempts to integrate the research of those processes. To that end, we propose a taxonomy for the analysis of the temporal characteristics of biological processes. Making use of that taxonomy, we conclude that biological processes' temporality is extremely complex since not only different fields of study present differing temporal characteristics, but also each kind of biological process shows diverse temporalities. These observations point out the pertinence of biological insights and the relevance of Philosophy of Biology's contributions to the study of the extensive and multifaceted issues of time and temporality.