According with this paper: Phenomenological Levels and Evolutionary Rates, the main eldredge's idea is that
"There are as many phenomenological
levels of evolution as there are discrete
sorts of biological individuals involved in
the evolutionary process"
this debate is a little different to the debate of levels and units of selection, although is very allied, but, what it has to say in this topic the followers of multilevel selection theory?
Gould explored that topic further in their "Structure" book but probably is more related with the idea previously presented by him in the paper about 'the paradox of the first tier' than to the ideas of Eldredge
Is the issue raised by Eldridge really different/separable from the question whether selection works on different levels and how they can be distinguished?
One reason to claim the existence of discrete "phenomenological levels" was that higher levels of the hierarchy show selection processes different from and in addition to those observed for lower levels (Table 1).
Perhaps the principle to start with the definition of the lowermost level and to consider higher phenomenological/ selection levels only if they yield (explanations for) processes beyond those observed on a lower level is a reasonable way to approach multilevel selection.
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