Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-4hvwz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T01:15:48.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Defending Intrinsic Biological Essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael Devitt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism,” I went against the consensus in the philosophy of biology by arguing that a Linnaean taxon, including a species, has an essence that is, at least partly, an underlying intrinsic, mostly genetic, property: this intrinsic nature explains both the truth of generalizations about the phenotypic properties of the taxon and why being in the taxon is explanatory. The current article is a response to two criticisms: that this intrinsic essentialism is at odds with certain biological variations and that this talk of intrinsic essences is an uncalled for metaphysical addition to biology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 67 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I am grateful to the following people for helpful comments on drafts: Matthew Barker, John Dupré, Marc Ereshefsky, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Paul Griffiths, Joseph LaPorte, Antonella Mallozzi, Karen Neander, Makmiller Pedroso, Iakovos Vasiliou, Denis Walsh, and Andrea Woody.

References

Andrews, Kimberly R., Williams, Ashley J., Fernandez-Silva, Iria, Newmang, Stephen J., Copus, Joshua M., Wakefield, Corey B., Randall, John E., and Bowen, Brian W.. 2016. “Phylogeny of Deepwater Snappers (Genus Etelis) Reveals a Cryptic Species Pair in the Indo-Pacific and Pleistocene Invasion of the Atlantic.” Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 100:361–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barker, Matthew J. 2010. “Species Intrinsicalism.” Philosophy of Science 77:73–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo. 2009. “Natural Kinds in Evolution and Systematics: Metaphysical and Epistemological Considerations.” Acta Biotheoretica 57:77–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cracraft, Joel, Feinstein, Julie, Vaughn, Jeffrey, and Helm-Bychowski, Kathleen. 1998. “Sorting out Tigers (Panthera tigris): Mitochondrial Sequences, Nuclear Inserts, Systematics, and Conservation Genetics.” Animal Conservation 1 (2):139–50..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, Michael. 2008. “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism.” Philosophy of Science 75:344–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, Michael. 2018a. “Historical Biological Essentialism.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 71:1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, Michael. 2018b. “Individual Essentialism in Biology.” Biology and Philosophy 33:1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, Michael. Forthcoming. Biological Essentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc. 1999. “Species and the Linnaean Hierarchy.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Wilson, Robert A., 285–305. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc. 2010. “What’s Wrong with the New Biological Essentialism.” Philosophy of Science 77:674–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc, and Reydon, Thomas A. C.. 2015. “Scientific Kinds.” Philosophical Studies 172:969–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1974/1992. “A Radical Solution to the Species Problem.” In The Units of Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, ed. Ereshefsky, Marc, 279–91. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Greenspan, Ralph. J. 2001. “The Flexible Genome.” Nature Reviews Genetics 2:383–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hey, Jody. 2001. Genes, Categories, and Species: The Evolutionary and Cognitive Causes of the Species Problem. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. 1978/1992. “A Matter of Individuality.” In The Units of Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, ed. Ereshefsky, Marc, 293–316. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Keil, Frank C. 1989. Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1984/2003. “Species.” In In Mendel’s Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology, 113–34. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul A. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Leslie, Sarah-Jane. 2013. “Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition.” In Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 4, ed. Tamar Szabó Gendler and John Hawthorne, 108–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewens, Tim. 2012. “Species, Essence and Explanation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43:751–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matthen, Mohan. 1998. “Biological Universals and the Nature of Fear.” Journal of Philosophy 95:105–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, Ernst. 1961. “Cause and Effect in Biology.” Science 134:1501–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mishler, Brent D. 1999. “Getting Rid of Species?” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Wilson, Robert A., 307–15. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Needham, Paul. 2011. “Microessentialism: What Is the Argument?” Nous 45:1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir. 2002. “Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and the Question of Essentialism.” Synthese 131:191–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfenninger, Markus, and Schwenk, Klaus. 2007. “Cryptic Animal Species Are Homogeneously Distributed among Taxa and Biogeographical Regions.” BMC Evolutionary Biology 7:121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pušić, Bruno, Franjević, Damjan, and Gregorić, Pavel. 2017. “What Do Biologists Make of the Species Problem?” Acta Biotheoretica 65:179–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. Mind, Language and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roca, A. L., Georgiadis, N., Pecon-Slattery, J., and O’Brien, S. J.. 2001. “Genetic Evidence for Two Species of Elephant in Africa.” Science 293 (5534): 1473–77..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruse, Michael. 1987/1992. “Biological Species: Natural Kinds, Individuals, or What?” In The Units of Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, ed. Ereshefsky, Marc, 343–61. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Salazar Ciudad, Isaac, Sole, Richard, and Newman, Stuart A.. 2001. “Phenotypic and Dynamical Transitions in Model Genetic Networks.” Pt. 1, “Emergence of Patterns and Genotype-Phenotype Relations.” Evolution and Development 3:84–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Matthew H. 2013. Are Species Real? An Essay on the Metaphysics of Species. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 1980/1992. “Evolution, Population Thinking and Essentialism.” In The Units of Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, ed. Ereshefsky, Marc, 247–78. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, and Griffiths, Paul. 1999. Sex and Death. Chicago: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szathmary, Eors. 2002. “Evolution: Developmental Circuits Rewired.” Nature 411:143–45.Google Scholar
Walsh, Denis. 2006. “Evolutionary Essentialism.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57:425–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiggins, David. 1980. Sameness and Substance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar