Life and Mind: An Introduction -- Part I: Embodiment, Perception and Cognition -- Animal Understanding and Animal Self-Awareness -- A Methodological Response to the Motley Crew Argument. Explaining Cognitive Phenomena through Enactivism and Ethology -- Causal Closure, Synaptic Transmission, and Emergent Mental Properties -- Color and Competence: A New View of Color Perception -- Menstrual Cycles as Key to Embodied Synchronisation -- Part II: Evolution, Language and Culture -- Is Cultural Selection Creative? -- Incommensurability in Evolutionary Biology: The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Controversy -- Ontologies in Evolutionary Biology: The Role of The Organism in The Two Syntheses -- Tree Thinking and The Naturalization of Language -- Part III: Gene and Genotype Metaphysics -- A New Perspective on Type-Token Distinction in The Genotype and Phenotype Concepts -- The Gene as a Natural Kind -- Part IV: Teleology in Biology and Cognitive Sciences -- Evolutionary Causation and Teleosemantics -- Teleological Explanations and Selective Mechanisms. Biological Teleology Beyond Natural Selection. .