Biological taxa are instances of a peculiar kind of individual that I will call lineages: individuals whose parts are their variants or tokens. Things as organisms, in contrast, are instances of this another kind of individual that I will call systems: individuals whose parts must maintain some synchronous causal interrelations among themselves that do not have to exist among the parts of a lineage, and cannot be considered as their variants or tokens. In this context, the distinction between a living individual considered as an organic system and as a token of a lineage will be object of a particular analysis, which will also lead us to examine the distinction part-character.
Characters; Natural kinds; Lineages; Organisms; Taxa; Tokens