Salthe, Stanley N. Evolving hierarchical systems . Columbia University Press, 1985.
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This is a work of metatheory of science from the perspective of a biologist concerned with evolutionary theory The questions taken up are matters of ontology, but I am overwhelmingly mindful that no such matters can be taken up without explicit reference to the epistemological constraints making it possible to approach them in the first place In particular this work will deal with representations of the things in the world (its “furniture”—Bunge 1977) and their relations, and with how these relations give rise to and guide the processes the things are caught up in. The paradigmatic process serving as an attractor for all the statements in this work is the evolutionary process "