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Are homologies really natural kinds?

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Abstract

The metaphysical nature of homologies has been variously characterized as natural kind, individualist, and pluralist-pragmatic. In this essay, I aim to build on the work of proponents of a natural kinds ontology for homologies using Richard Boyd’s influential HPC account of natural kinds. I aim to advance this position by showing the unique fit of extending the HPC account to homologies, deflecting individualist critiques, as well as the pluralist-pragmatic alternative, showing that homologies have a determinate metaphysical character as kinds. As an important extension of this position, I attempt to explain away how the mistaken metaphysics of the individualist, and derivatively the pluralist-pragmatic approach that contextually embraces it, can facilitate certain elements of biological practice.

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Notes

  1. I do not want to diminish the importance or difficulty of a fully satisfactory definition of homology. The historical characterization of homology is itself contentious (Nelson and Platnick 1981). One could also envision issues of the proximity of the historical relation and serial homology raising questions. As will become apparent, I maintain that the HANK thesis is most fitting with a “developmental” definition and I will ultimately align my HPC view with Wagner’s (2007, 2014) analysis of the homology concept. Again though, my hope is that the discussion of homology’s metaphysics requires little beyond accepting the minimal historical definition adopted here.

  2. Later, as I discuss in relation to the pluralist-pragmatic approach to homology, Boyd comes to blur the strict distinction between kinds and individualist views of species. But as I aim to show, species and homology are importantly differently in their metaphysical character, such that only an HPC kinds approach will fit for homology.

  3. In introducing this contrast between “Aristotelian” and “Millian” frameworks I want to emphasize that I am not making any substantive commitments to Aristotle’s and Mill’s actual views on kinds. The labels are historically inspired, of course, but the rationale is largely just a matter of convenient labeling for alternative views on kinds and the associated ideas of essentialism and laws of nature.

  4. Thanks to Jay Odenbaugh for noting this point.

  5. The idea here draws from efforts such as Lange (1995, 2000), Sober (1997), Mitchell (2000), and Woodward (2001) to make sensible the idea of laws in biology.

  6. This, of course, is a weighty metaphysical presupposition that appropriately might be flagged as a problem for the individualist. For the sake of argument, however, I’ll grant the presumption and attempt to show that kinds proponents can accommodate radical evolutionary transformation.

  7. I’m indebted to an anonymous reviewer for urging me to deal with this possibility. Notably, the point bears a resemblance to the earlier mentioned competitor critique from Ereshefsky and Reydon.

  8. As an aside, I’ve focused here on Wagner’s ChIN framework, since I think it is the best developed, but one might consider alternative developmental approaches to homology (e.g. Van Valen 1982), which would also fulfill the fundamental demand on a persistent mechanism.

  9. An alternative conceptual anchor for this point is that of integration, particularly as it’s applied to understanding the individuality of distinct organisms (see for example Clark’s 2016 idea of “individuating mechanisms”). There is good reason to think that integration and cohesion pick out distinct means of establishing individuality (see Mishler and Brandon 1987), but since cohesion represents what I think is the relevant dimension of SAI as it concerns HAI, I’ll focus my attention on cohesion.

  10. Though the point should be apparent from the discussion and illustration, it may be worth making explicit that I do not take mere historical relatedness to be a CGR. The languages illustration presents a pretty clear counter, but there is an abundance of possibilities that do the same. For example, various chemical elements—the paradigmatic case of natural kinds—stand in historical relationships to one another.

  11. Note here that the analogy should not be extended too far. I am not claiming that languages have metaphysical individuality. The point is merely to show the effects of branching within a lineage on individuality. This requires only the minimal, and I take it uncontroversial, notion of there being individual languages. ‘German’ designates an individual linguistic unit in a way that ‘German + English’ does not.

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  1. SIUE- Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Box 1433, Edwardsville, IL, 62026, USA

    Christopher H. Pearson

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Pearson, C.H. Are homologies really natural kinds?. Biol Philos 34, 42 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9696-9

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