Abstract
Marc Ereshefsky’s project of eliminative pluralism holds that, as there is no unifying feature among all species concepts, we ought to doubt the existence of the species category. Here, I argue that one promising strategy for saving the species category is to reframe it as a natural kind after the practice turn. I suggest situating the species category within a recent account of natural kinds proposed by Marc Ereshefsky and Thomas Reydon called “scientific kinds”. Scientific kinds highlight ontological boundaries. More importantly, they recognize boundaries drawn from the lab and the field, not only from the armchair. The point of this exercise is to situate the species category within an account of natural kinds that is sensitive to scientific practice. In order to argue for a realist interpretation of the species category, and not merely a pragmatic one, I rely on an approach to scientific metaphysics from Ken Waters that shifts the attention from “theory focused” to “practice-centered” analysis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A bit needs to be said here about my working definitions, as there is some discrepancy in the literature about how words like “taxa,” “concept,” and “category” are used. By “species taxa,” I am referring to recognized species such as Drosophila melanogaster or Homo sapiens. By “species category,” I am referring to the taxonomic rank of “species,” which is separate from “subspecies” or “genus.” By “species concept,” I am referring to the theoretical criteria scientists use to delineate species taxa. For example, two species taxa, species x and species y, are delineated by a biological species concept because they are reproductively isolated populations that cannot interbreed.
Thanks to Dan Weiskopf for helping to clarify this point.
Waters illustrates this thesis by recounting the interplay between theory and practice in the classical gene concept. Should one approach the “transmission theory” of classical genetics (i.e., transmission of genes relies on an understanding of chromosomal mechanics, differences in genes cause differences in phenotypes, etc.) outside the context of genetic experimental investigation, one runs the risk of drawing metaphysical conclusions about the classical gene concept that are not reflected in practice. In practice, geneticists used the classical gene concept as a kind of heuristic—a “blunt conceptual tool that works well in investigative and explanatory contexts in which precision is not available or useful” (Waters 2017). The concept was “grounded” in practice—not theory—where artificial breeding dynamics were established in order to track distinctive inheritance patterns.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out that one may simply reject the pluralistic realist’s claim. It may be that species revealed by the PPSC are not legitimate HPC kinds and are therefore not natural kinds. Fair enough. I suspect, however, that a monistic view about HPC might further compel one to accept Wilson, Barker, and Brigandt’s conclusion (2007) that the species category is a HPC kind. This treatment of the species category as a scientific kind is aimed at those who are unsatisfied with the theoretical constraints of accounts such as HPC.
Philip Kitcher’s quip originally comes from British ichthyologist Charles Tate Regan: a species is “a community or a number of related communities whose distinctive morphological characteristics are, in the opinion of a competent systematist, sufficiently definite to entitle it, or them, to a specific name” (1926). Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this clarification.
By producing additional classifications or extending existing classifications, Ereshefsky and Reydon mean that a particular program is progressive when it is “able to construct more stable and readily identifiable classifications” (Ereshefsky and Reydon 2015). “Producing additional classifications” is sometimes referred to as “splitting,” while “extending existing classifications” is referred to as “lumping.”.
For a more careful reading of the “Toroceratops” hypothesis, see Currie, A., 2016, “The Mystery of the Triceratops’s Mother: How to be a Realist about the Species Category,” Erkenntnis, 81: 795–816.
The conclusions provided in this analysis are reminiscent of Ingo Brigandt’s treatment of the species category as an “investigative kind concept” (Brigandt 2003). Brigandt’s account also makes the case that category realism is progressive to species eliminativism, although this paper does not engage it directly. In response to the eliminativist, Brigandt reminds us that, “there is also overlap with respect to the mechanisms that bring about the units called species…And because of this overlap and continuous transition between different evolutionary mechanisms, it is not obvious what counts as a unique and separate factor” (ibid.). This provides another sense in which privileging one particular species concept is not so helpful, and not so easily done.
Consider Waters (2010): “Both fundamentalist and toolbox theorist are realists, but their metaphysical pretensions and methodologies differ. While fundamentalists seek the universally correct theoretical account for each natural kind…regardless of explanatory interests about those natural kinds, toolbox theorists seek true theoretical accounts that best address particular interests.”
Many thanks to three anonymous referees, C. Kenneth Waters, Marc Ereshefsky, Thomas Reydon, S. L. Dwyer, and especially Dan Weiskopf for comments on earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to thank audiences at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science, the 7th Annual University of Calgary Graduate Philosophy Conference, and the Seventh Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, where I delivered presentations on this topic.
References
Boyd, R. (1991). Realism, anti-foundationalism, and the enthusiasm for natural kinds. Philosophical Studies, 61, 12.
Brigandt, I. (2003). Species pluralism does not imply species eliminativism. Philosophy of Science, 70, 1305–1316.
Cartwright, N. D. (1999). The dappled world: A study of the boundaries of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cartwright, N., Shomar, T., & Suárez, M. (1995). The tool box of science. In W. Herfel, W. Krajewski, I. Niiniluoto, & R. Wojcicki (Eds.), Theories and models in scientific processes (pp. 137–149). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Currie, A. (2016). The mystery of the Triceratops’s mother: How to be a realist about the species category. Erkenntnis, 81, 795–816.
Dupré, J. (1993). The disorder of things: Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ereshefsky, M. (1992). Eliminative pluralism. Philosophy of Science, 59, 671–690.
Ereshefsky, M. (1998). Species pluralism and anti-realism. Philosophy of Science, 65, 103–120.
Ereshefsky, M. (2010a). Microbiology and the species problem. Biology and Philosophy, 25, 67–79.
Ereshefsky, M. (2010b). Darwin’s solution to the species problem. Synthese, 175, 405–425.
Ereshefsky, M., & Reydon, T. A. C. (2015). Scientific kinds. Philosophical Studies, 172(4), 969–986.
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kendig, C. (2016). Natural kinds and classification in scientific practice. New York: Routledge.
Kitcher, P. (1984). Species. Philosophy of Science, 51, 308–333.
Ladyman, J., Ross, D., Collier, J., & Spurett, D. (2007). Everything must go: Metaphysics naturalized. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution and inheritance. Harvard. The rise of the biological species concept, p. 270–285.
Ross, D., Ladyman, J., & Kincaid, H. (Eds.). (2013). Scientific metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scarantino, A. (2012). How to define emotions scientifically. Emotion Review, 4, 358–368.
Tate Regan, C. (1926). Organic evolution. Report of the Brit. Assoc. Advanc. Sci. 1925: 75–86.
Waters, C. K. (2010). Okasha’s unintended argument for toolbox theorizing. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82(1), 232–240.
Waters, C. K. (2014). Shifting attention from theory to practice in philosophy of biology. In M. C. Galavotti, D. Dieks, W. J. Gonzalez, S. Hartmann, T. Uebel, & M. Weber (Eds.), New directions in the philosophy of science (pp. 121–139). Berlin: Springer.
Waters, C. K. (2017). No general structure. In M. Slater & Z. Yudell (Eds.), Metaphysics and the philosophy of science: New essays (pp. 81–108). Oxford: Oxford UP.
Wilkins, J. (2003). How to be a chaste species pluralist-realist. Biology and Philosophy, 18, 621–638.
Wilson, R. A., Barker, N. J., & Brigandt, I. (2007). When traditional essentialism fails: Biological natural kinds. Philosophical Topics, 35, 189–215.
Wimsatt, W. (2007). Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings: Piecewise approximations to reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hazelwood, C.C. The species category as a scientific kind. Synthese 198 (Suppl 12), 3027–3040 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02025-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02025-4