Bugbee, John.  "The Consequences of Metaphysics: or, Can Charles Peirce's Continuity Theory Model Stuart Kauffman's Biology?" Zygon 42 no. 1 (March 2007): 203-221.

Abstract

Stuart Kauffman's proposal in Investigations to ground a "general biology" in the laws of self-organization governing systems of autonomous agents runs up against the methodological problem of how to integrate formal mathematical with semantic and semiotic approaches to the study of evolutionary development. Gilles Deleuze's concept of the virtual and C. S. Peirce's system of existential graphs provide a theoretical framework and practical art for answering this problem of method by modeling the creative event of collective self-organization as both represented and practiced in the scientific community.