Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:57:30.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nature of Biological Species

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Kent E. Holsinger
Kent E. Holsinger*
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, University of California at Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although it is possible to regard a species as a set with a special internal structure, it is preferable to regard a species as an individual precisely to emphasize this internal structure. It is necessary to recognize, moreover, that two organisms that are part of a single entity with respect to one process need not be part of a single entity with respect to another process. Furthermore, choosing to regard two entities (with respect to one process) as conspecific is not to deny that there are two entities within this species. Thus, the systematist need not propose formal names for every entity he discovers, but the names he proposes ought to be as faithful to the relationship among the entities as is possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 293 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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

†

David Hull, Philip Kitcher, Ernst Mayr, Robert Ornduff, J. J. C. Smart, and John H. Thomas provided helpful comments on various earlier versions of this paper, though none of them can be held responsible for the views expressed here. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of a research fellowship from the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, University of California, Berkeley.

References

Anderson, E. (1949), Introgressive Hybridization. New York: John Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonovics, J., and Bradshaw, A. D. (1970), “Evolution of closely adjacent plant populations. VII. Clinal patterns at a mine boundary”, Heredity 23: 507–524.Google Scholar
Antonovics, J., Bradshaw, A. D. and Turner, R. G. (1971), “Heavy metal tolerance in plants”, Advances in Ecological Research 7: 1–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradshaw, A. D. (1972), “Some of the evolutionary consequences of being a plant”, Evolutionary Biology 5: 25–47.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, A. D. (1974), “Environment and phenotypic plasticity”, Brookhaven Symposium on Biology 25: 75–94.Google Scholar
Caplan, A. L. (1980), “Have species become declassé?” PSA 1980 Vol. 1: 71–82.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1967), The Logical Structure of the World. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P. R., and Holm, R. W. (1962), “Patterns and populations”, Science 137: 652–657.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ehrlich, P. R., and Raven, P. H. (1969), “Differentiation of populations”, Science 165: 1228–1232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ghiselin, M. T. (1966), “On psychologism in the logic of taxonomic controversies”, Systematic Zoology 15: 207–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghiselin, M. T. (1974), “A radical solution to the species problem”, Systematic Zoology 23: 536–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, V. (1957), “The plant species in theory and practice”, in E. Mayr (ed.), The Species Problem. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, pp. 39–80.Google Scholar
Grant, V. (1971), Plant Speciation. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Grant, V. (1981), Plant Speciation, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, G. C. D. (1974), “On the foundations of biological systematics”, Acta Biotheoretica 23: 85–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, G. (1957), “The threat of clarity”, American Journal of Psychiatry 114: 392–396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hull, D. L. (1965a), “The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis I”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 15: 314–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1965b), “The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis II”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1974), Philosophy of Biological Science. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1976), “Are species really individuals?” Systematic Zoology 25: 174–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1978), “A Matter of Individuality”, Philosophy of Science 45: 335–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1980), “Individuality and selection”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11: 311–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jain, S. K., and Bradshaw, A. D. (1966), “Evolutionary divergence among adjacent plant populations, I. Evidence and theoretical analysis”, Heredity 21: 407–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, K. (1896), “On mechanical selection and other problems”, Novitates Zoologicae 3: 426–525.Google Scholar
Jordan, K. (1905), “Der Gegensatz zwischen geographischer und nichtgeographischer Variation,” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie 83: 151–210.Google Scholar
Kent, W. (1958), “Scientific Naming”, Philosophy of Science 25: 185–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, G. H. M. (1951), Taxonomy of Vascular Plants. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Levin, D. A. (1979), “The nature of plant species”, Science 204: 381–384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levin, D. A., and Kerster, H. W. (1971), “Neighborhood structure in plants under diverse reproductive methods”, American Naturalist 105: 345–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, D. A., and Kerster, H. W. (1974), “Gene flow in seed plants”, Evolutionary Biology 7: 139–220.Google Scholar
Levin, D. A., and Kerster, H. W. (1975), “The effect of gene dispersal on the dynamics and statics of gene distribution in plants”, Heredity 35: 317–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, H. (1963), “The taxonomic problem of inbreeders, or how to solve any taxonomic problem”, Regnum Vegetabile 27: 37–44.Google Scholar
Marcus, R. B. (1974), “Classes, collections, and individuals”, American Philosophical Quarterly 11: 227–232.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1942), Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1957), “Species concepts and definitions”, in The Species Problem, Mayr, E. (ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Sci., pp. 1–22.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1969), Principles of Systematic Zoology. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1970), Populations, Species, and Evolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1982), The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, D. J. (1976), “How far does pollen travel?” Nature 260: 388–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulton, E. B. (1903), “What is a species?” Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London, pp. lxxvi–cxvi.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1960), From a Logical Point of View: 9 Logico-Philosophical Essays. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1981), Theories and Things. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. G. (1961), Principles of Animal Taxonomy. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stebbins, G. L. Valencia, J. T., and Valencia, R. M. (1946), “Artificial and natural hybrids in the Gramineae, tribe Hordeae, I. Elymus, Sitanion, and Agropyron”, American Journal of Botany 33: 338–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waser, N. M., Vickery, R. K. and Price, M. V. (1982), “Patterns of seed dispersal and population differentiation in Mimulus guttatus”, Evolution 36: 753–761.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed