August Martin is a lecturer at the Institute for Philosophy.

More information about August Martin

Research

My research in philosophy of biology focuses on the problem of biological individuality. In particular, it is concerned with the nature and structure of concepts of biological and organismal individuals and how these concepts are interrelated and integrated into monistic and pluralistic solutions. Metaphysical and epistemological assumptions underlie these concepts, and clarifying these facilitates our efforts to resolve the problem by addressing the structure of our concepts. My aim is to identify all of the disparate concerns with individuality in the literature and determine whether or our concepts, as they are, are adequate to resolving the problem as a whole. Clarifying the criteria of our concepts requires identifying their persistence conditions, as some concepts may presume or build on other concepts. This directly impacts our assumptions about monism and pluralism and the adequacy of different alternatives. 

Curriculum vitae

Courses Taught at Leiden University

"Building Blocks of Nature: The Metaphysics of Science": Leiden University, 2nd Semester, 2014-2015.

"Sex and Death: From Darwinian Revolution to Philosophical Crisis": Leiden University, 1st Semester, 2014-2015.

Publications

"Peter Godfrey-Smith's Philosophy of Biology," ISPS, Vol. 29, Issue 4

"Kostas Kampourakis's Understanding Evolution," Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 63, Issue 4

Presentations

"Life and the Problem of Biological Individuality," presented at "What is the Actual Relevance of the Question, 'What is Life?'," Ghent, Belgium, August 2017

"The Role of Time and Temporal Persistence in the Problem of Biological Individuality," presented at Gut Siggen, Germany, July 2015

"The Relevance of the Metaphysics of Time and Temporal Persistence for the Species Problem and the Organism Problem," presented at ISHPSSB, Montreal, Canada, July 2015

"Organisms and Species as Persisting Entities in Biological Ontology," presented at the IUC conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 2014

"The Role of Time in the Problem of Organismal Individuality," presented at PhD Day at Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, January 2014

"The Perdurantist Implications of the Species-as-Individuals Thesis," presented at ISHPSSB, Montpellier, France, July 2013

Certificates

"Nederlands 1": Academic Language Center, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, April-June 2016

"Didactics for PhD Instructors": Master-class, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, April 2014

"On Being a Scientist": Master-class, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, January 2014

"Scientism and its Critics": Master-class, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, January 2014