Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T15:59:58.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Species as Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jun Otsuka
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article characterizes various species concepts in terms of set-theoretic models that license biological inferences and illustrates the logical connections among different species concepts. Species in this construal are abstract models, rather than biological or even tangible entities, and relate to individual organisms via representation, rather than the membership or mereological whole/part relationship. The proposal sheds new light on vexed issues of species and situates them within broader philosophical contexts of model selection, scientific representation, and scientific realism.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1075 - 1086
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

†

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of Sydney, Kyoto University, the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, and the 2018 A meeting at Seattle. I thank the audience for helpful comments and discussions. A part of this work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant-in-aid 16K16335.

References

Beatty, John. 1981. “What’s Wrong with the Received View of Evolutionary Theory?” In PSA 1980: Proceedings of the 1980 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 2, ed. Asquith, Peter D. and Giere, Ronald N., 397–426. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard N. 1999. “Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. A, Robert. Wilson, 141–58, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc. 2001. The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frigg, Roman, and Nguyen, James. 2016. “Scientific Representation.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/scientific-representation/.Google Scholar
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1974. “A Radical Solution to the Species Problem.” Society of Systematic Biologists 23:536–44.Google Scholar
Ghiselin, Michael T.. 1997. Metaphysics and the Origin of Species. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Hennig, Willi. 1966. Phylogenetic Systematics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. 1976. “Are Species Really Individuals?” Systematic Zoology 25:174–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1984. “Species.” Philosophy of Science 51:308–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladyman, James. 2016. “Structural Realism.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/structural-realism/.Google Scholar
Lloyd, Elisabeth A. 1988. The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mayden, Richard L. 1997. “A Hierarchy of Species Concepts: The Denouement in the Saga of the Species Problem.” In Species: The Units of Biodiversity, ed. Claridge, M. F., Dawah, H. A., and Wilson, M. R., 381–424. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst. 1942. Systematics and Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
McKinsey, John C. C., Suppes, Patrick, and Sugar, A. C.. 1953. “Axiomatic Foundations of Classical Particle Mechanics.” Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis 2:253–72.Google Scholar
Paterson, Hugh E. H. 1985. “The Recognition Concept of Species.” In Species and Speciation, ed. Vrba, E. S., 21–29. Pretoria: Transvaal Museum.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 2008. Evidence and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokal, Robert R., and Sneath, Peter H. A.. 1963. Principles of Numerical Taxonomy. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Suppe, Frederick. 1989. The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Suppes, Patrick. 2002. Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Valen, Leigh. 1976. “Ecological Species, Multispecies, and Oaks.” Taxon 25:233–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velasco, Joel D. 2008. “The Internodal Species Concept: A Response to ‘The Tree, the Network, and the Species.’” Biological Journal of Linnean Society 93:865–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiley, Edward O. 1978. “The Evolutionary Species Concept Reconsidered.” Systematic Biology 27:17–26.Google Scholar