Leonardo Bich
University of the Basque Country, Spain
Spring Term 2015

Leonardo Bich graduated in Philosophy from the University of Pavia (Italy) in 2004 and completed a PhD in Anthropology and Epistemology of Complex Systems at the University of Bergamo (Italy) in 2008. His thesis focused on the characterization of the organization of minimal living systems in terms of autonomy, on the epistemological implications of this framework, and on emergence in biology and complex systems.
He spent four years at the IAS-Research Center on Life, Mind and Society of the University of the Basque Country (Spain) as a Juan de la Cierva Research Fellow, and he is currently researcher and lecturer at the Biology of Cognition Lab of the Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de Chile. He is principal investigator of a research project (FONDECYT regular) on biological regulation funded by the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, Chile (CONICYT), and he has been participating into one European Network Project on Origins of Life, and several national projects in Spain and France on topics in Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology, Theoretical Biology and Cognitive Sciences.

His research, carried out in close interaction with scientists and characterised by an organizational/systemic perspective, is focused on several theoretical and epistemological issues in Philosophy of Science and Biology. His main topics include emergence, epistemology of complex systems, synthetic methodology, origins of life and minimal life, minimal cognition, biological regulation.

Selected publications:
Bich, L. and Damiano, L. (2007). Theoretical and Artificial Construction of the Living. Origins of Life Evolution of the Biospheres, 37, 459-464.
Bich, L. (2010). Biological Autonomy and Systemic Integration. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biospheres, 40, 480-484.
Bich, L. (2012). Complex emergence and the living organization: an epistemological framework for biology. Synthese, 185(2), 215-232.
Mossio, M., Bich, L. and Moreno, A. (2013). Emergence, closure and inter-level causation in biological systems. Erkenntnis, 78(2), 153-178.
Mossio, M., and Bich, L. (2014). What makes biological organisation teleological? Synthese.
Bich, L., Mossio, M., Ruiz-Mirazo, K. and Moreno, A. (2015). Biological regulation: controlling the system from within. Biology & Philosophy.
Bich, L. and Moreno, A. (2015). The role of regulation in the origin and synthetic modelling of minimal cognition. BioSystems.