Not for their own sake: Species and the riddle of individuality

Review of Metaphysics

Volumn 52, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 867-896

  Borjesson, Gary ^a  

^a ST JOHN S COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 0040313238     PISSN: 00346632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Aristotle, Metaphysics 7.6.1040b5. All references to the Metaphysics are to Aristotle's Metaphysics, trans. H. G. Apostle (Grinnell: Peripatetic Press, 1979).
2. Michael Ghiselin's recent book, Metaphysics and the Origin of Species (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), is the most comprehensive work on the topic. He frames the controversy in terms of the class/individual dualism, and rejects the possibility of a third metaphysical category. See the introduction and pp. 37, 43 especially.
3. Elliot Sober, "Sets, Species, and Evolution: Comments on Philip Kitcher's 'Species,'" Philosophy of Science 51 (1984): 334-41. For Kitcher's view, see "Species," 308-33 in same issue, and "Some Puzzles About Species," in What the Philosophy of Biology Is, ed. Michael Ruse (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 183-208.
4. Elliot Sober, "Sets, Species, and Evolution: Comments on Philip Kitcher's 'Species,'" Philosophy of Science 51 (1984): 334-41. For Kitcher's view, see "Species," 308-33 in same issue, and "Some Puzzles About Species," in What the Philosophy of Biology Is, ed. Michael Ruse (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 183-208.
5. Elliot Sober, "Sets, Species, and Evolution: Comments on Philip Kitcher's 'Species,'" Philosophy of Science 51 (1984): 334-41. For Kitcher's view, see "Species," 308-33 in same issue, and "Some Puzzles About Species," in What the Philosophy of Biology Is, ed. Michael Ruse (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 183-208.
6. See Phillip R. Sloan's interesting account, "From Logical Universals to Historical Individuals: Buffon's Idea of Biological Species," in Histoire Du Concept d'Espèce dans les Sciences de la Vie (Paris: Foundation Singer-Polignac, 1985), 101-40.
7. See Darwin, On the Origin of Species (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 6.
8. Michael Ghiselin, "Species Concepts, Individuality, and Objectivity," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 129-43. See also Ghiselin's "A Radical Solution to the Species Problem," Systematic Zoology 23 (1974): 536-44. Compare Ernst Mayr's discussion in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 328.
9. Michael Ghiselin, "Species Concepts, Individuality, and Objectivity," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 129-43. See also Ghiselin's "A Radical Solution to the Species Problem," Systematic Zoology 23 (1974): 536-44. Compare Ernst Mayr's discussion in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 328.
10. Michael Ghiselin, "Species Concepts, Individuality, and Objectivity," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 129-43. See also Ghiselin's "A Radical Solution to the Species Problem," Systematic Zoology 23 (1974): 536-44. Compare Ernst Mayr's discussion in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 328.
11. Mayr, Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 318. The BSC is restricted to sexually reproducing species.
12. David Hull, The Metaphysics of Evolution (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 114. Compare Mayr's discussions in "The Ontological Status of Species: Scientific Progress and Philosophical Terminology," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 145-66, and Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 350-2.
13. David Hull, The Metaphysics of Evolution (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 114. Compare Mayr's discussions in "The Ontological Status of Species: Scientific Progress and Philosophical Terminology," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 145-66, and Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 350-2.
14. David Hull, The Metaphysics of Evolution (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 114. Compare Mayr's discussions in "The Ontological Status of Species: Scientific Progress and Philosophical Terminology," Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 145-66, and Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 350-2.
15. Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81.
16. Ghiselin, Metaphysics and Origin of Species, 126.
17. Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81. Ghiselin's criteria of individuality are somewhat more elaborate, but they amount to a closer analysis of what is contained in Hull's spatiotemporal unity and continuity criterion. Ghiselin's list includes noninstantiation, spatiotemporal restriction, concreteness, and individual as prior to being member of a class. See his Metaphysics and Origin of Species, 46-7.
18. Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81. Ghiselin's criteria of individuality are somewhat more elaborate, but they amount to a closer analysis of what is contained in Hull's spatiotemporal unity and continuity criterion. Ghiselin's list includes noninstantiation, spatiotemporal restriction, concreteness, and individual as prior to being member of a class. See his Metaphysics and Origin of Species, 46-7.
19. Mayr, Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 322.
20. Compare Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81; and Ghiselin, Metaphysics and Origin of Species, 125.
21. Compare Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81; and Ghiselin, Metaphysics and Origin of Species, 125.
22. Ghiselin, Metaphysics and the Origin of Species, 38. In this same passage Ghiselin also moves up the chain to ever larger individuals, from the Milky Way to the universe. Hull is in complete agreement with this view. Compare Metaphysics of Evolution, 80.
23. Ghiselin, Metaphysics and the Origin of Species, 38. In this same passage Ghiselin also moves up the chain to ever larger individuals, from the Milky Way to the universe. Hull is in complete agreement with this view. Compare Metaphysics of Evolution, 80.
24. While not immediately obvious, the reductionist bias at the root of this admission is clear, for such a view makes sense only if so-called heterogeneous parts ultimately are constructed from and reducible to homogeneous elements.
25. It is an old temptation (rooted perhaps in the primacy of sight) to construe all forms of closure in spatiotemporal terms. Hull makes precisely this mistake. For examples, see Metaphysics of Evolution, 87 and 91.
26. Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 80.
27. After all, Hull's collection of essays is called The Metaphysics of Evolution and Ghiselin's book is entitled Metaphysics and the Origin of Species.
28. After all, Hull's collection of essays is called The Metaphysics of Evolution and Ghiselin's book is entitled Metaphysics and the Origin of Species.
29. Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 81.
30. "Species, Higher Taxa, and the Units of Evolution," in The Units of Evolution, ed. Marc Ereshefsky (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 394.
31. See Ereshefsky, Units of Evolution, for a good explanation of why genetic homeostasis and common selection regimes are untenable, especially 384-6.
32. Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 272. Not surprisingly, Ghiselin is uncomfortable with the emphasis on relation, since he realizes it is too thin to support a notion of individuality. Compare Metaphysics of Evolution, 110.
33. Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 272. Not surprisingly, Ghiselin is uncomfortable with the emphasis on relation, since he realizes it is too thin to support a notion of individuality. Compare Metaphysics of Evolution, 110.
34. See Mayr's discussion in Toward A Philosophy of Biology, 348-52. I should note that even sexual reproduction between organisms with identical genotypes may still yield slightly different offspring. There are examples in nature of sexual species with homogeneous genotypes. The cheetah is one. It remains somewhat mysterious whether this is a complex accident, or whether evolution favored such an outcome and, if so, why. See O'Brien and others, "Genetic Basis for Species Vulnerability in the Cheetah," Science 227 (1985): 1428-34.
35. See Mayr's discussion in Toward A Philosophy of Biology, 348-52. I should note that even sexual reproduction between organisms with identical genotypes may still yield slightly different offspring. There are examples in nature of sexual species with homogeneous genotypes. The cheetah is one. It remains somewhat mysterious whether this is a complex accident, or whether evolution favored such an outcome and, if so, why. See O'Brien and others, "Genetic Basis for Species Vulnerability in the Cheetah," Science 227 (1985): 1428-34.
36. Mayr, Toward a Philosophy of Biology, 328-9.
37. While parties to the species debate appreciate this difficulty, to the best of my knowledge none addresses its substance. Ghiselin's discussion of the problem in Metaphysics and the Origin of Species is better than most, but typically inconclusive. Though flirting briefly with the Aristotelian solution, namely, that the unity through change is explained by understanding the entity in terms of its characteristic activity (56), he winds up evading the problem by in effect letting intuition determine what lies within the range of an entity's "metaphysical possibilities" (see 47-9).
38. Mayr's initial definition of species included the phrase "actually or potentially interbreeding" population, a deliberate move away from the stricture of actual gene flow. See his Systematics and the Origin of Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 120; also quoted in the Growth of Biological Thought, 273.
39. Mayr's initial definition of species included the phrase "actually or potentially interbreeding" population, a deliberate move away from the stricture of actual gene flow. See his Systematics and the Origin of Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 120; also quoted in the Growth of Biological Thought, 273.
40. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1986), 264.
41. This supposition is warranted because there are other conclusive reasons that gene flow will not suffice, and also because there is increasing evidence that as a universal thesis about the rate of evolution, gradualism is simply false. See discussion and n. 35 below.
42. Ereshefsky, Units of Evolution, 394.
43. Ereshefsky, Units of Evolution, 394-5.
44. Mayr, Toward A Philosophy of Biology, 349.
45. Compare Stuart Kauffman's view of species at the edge of chaos, poised between the extremes of ordered complexity and randomness: At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 220.
46. George C. Williams reminds us of evolution's essentially conservative nature: "I regard it as unfortunate that the theory of natural selection was first developed as an explanation for evolutionary change. It is much more important as an explanation for the maintenance of adaptation"; Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 54.
47. Ghiselin admits as much. See "Species Concepts, Individuality, and Objectivity," 141.
48. For a sampling of the many directions from which criticisms of gradualism are coming, see Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge's classic "Punctuated Equilibria," reprinted in the appendix to Eldridge's Time Frames (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985); see also Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991); Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe. Gould and Eldridge's theory of punctuated equilibrium suggests that, contrary to gradualist claims, evolutionary change is often compressed into brief episodes between which lie long periods of stasis. This not only more accurately reflects evidence from the fossil record, but it is buttressed by growing evidence that within a single lifetime the genotype is responsive to its environment; if true, this radically changes the potential pace of change (see Wesson's work). These considerations find further support in the emerging science of complexity, which argues that the traditional view of natural selection will have to be revised extensively in light of evidence that life was not randomly cobbled together but is instead an expected consequence of the self-organizing character of natural motion (see Kauffman).
49. For a sampling of the many directions from which criticisms of gradualism are coming, see Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge's classic "Punctuated Equilibria," reprinted in the appendix to Eldridge's Time Frames (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985); see also Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991); Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe. Gould and Eldridge's theory of punctuated equilibrium suggests that, contrary to gradualist claims, evolutionary change is often compressed into brief episodes between which lie long periods of stasis. This not only more accurately reflects evidence from the fossil record, but it is buttressed by growing evidence that within a single lifetime the genotype is responsive to its environment; if true, this radically changes the potential pace of change (see Wesson's work). These considerations find further support in the emerging science of complexity, which argues that the traditional view of natural selection will have to be revised extensively in light of evidence that life was not randomly cobbled together but is instead an expected consequence of the self-organizing character of natural motion (see Kauffman).
50. For a sampling of the many directions from which criticisms of gradualism are coming, see Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge's classic "Punctuated Equilibria," reprinted in the appendix to Eldridge's Time Frames (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985); see also Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991); Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe. Gould and Eldridge's theory of punctuated equilibrium suggests that, contrary to gradualist claims, evolutionary change is often compressed into brief episodes between which lie long periods of stasis. This not only more accurately reflects evidence from the fossil record, but it is buttressed by growing evidence that within a single lifetime the genotype is responsive to its environment; if true, this radically changes the potential pace of change (see Wesson's work). These considerations find further support in the emerging science of complexity, which argues that the traditional view of natural selection will have to be revised extensively in light of evidence that life was not randomly cobbled together but is instead an expected consequence of the self-organizing character of natural motion (see Kauffman).
51. See Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 84, and E. O. Wilson, "The Perfect Societies," Science 184 (1974): 54-55.
52. See Hull, Metaphysics of Evolution, 84, and E. O. Wilson, "The Perfect Societies," Science 184 (1974): 54-55.
53. See, for example, Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.8.1050b3-5.
54. Ghiselin, Metaphysics and the Origin of Species, 56.
55. Ghiselin, Metaphysics and the Origin of Species, 132. The puzzle is whether a ship all of the parts of which have been replaced is still the same ship. Ghiselin wants to distinguish functional definition from final cause, but his account is too cursory to cast any real light on the matter.
56. While unnecessary to my argument here, I encourage the reader to consult Aristotle's insightful view of these issues. See Metaphysics 7.16.1040b1-15.
57. Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a25-b5.
58. I wish to thank my advisor, Donald Phillip Verene, and the members of my committee, Carl Page and Ann Hartle, for their support of the dissertation that inspired this essay. Special thanks to Carl Page for commenting on the penultimate draft of this essay.