Enhanced communication between scientists and philosophers might help to overcome the reductionism and linear arborescence that have dominated thought on the origins and evolution of biological forms since the 17^th Century. In the 20^th Century, Alfred North Whitehead complicated thinking on origins with his concept of novelty, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari challenged concepts of linear evolution with their notion of rhizomatic difference and repetition. Supported by abundant empirical data, François Jacob and Jacques Monod ventured into new theoretical territory with their concept of cybernetic interactions, and Lynn Margulis, among others, demonstrated how eukaryotic cellular constituents arose from exogenous rather than autogenous sources. This new paradigm of endosymbiogenesis spun off notions of horizontal larval transfer, set-aside cells, and symbiogeny, the theory that eukaryotic cellular films and independent cells combined and evolved into tissues in metazoan organisms. Philosophy may thus open up new avenues of thought to biologists.