Individual essentialism in biology

Biology and Philosophy 33 (5-6):39 (2018)
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Abstract

A few philosophers of biology have recently explicitly rejected Essential Membership, the doctrine that if an individual organism belongs to a taxon, particularly a species, it does so essentially. But philosophers of biology have not addressed the broader issue, much discussed by metaphysicians on the basis of modal intuitions, of what is essential to the organism. In this paper, I address that issue from a biological basis, arguing for the Kripkean view that an organism has a partly intrinsic, partly historical, essence. The arguments appeal to the demands of biological explanation and are analogous to arguments that I have given elsewhere that a taxon has a partly intrinsic, partly historical, essence. These conclusions about the essences of individuals and taxa yield an argument for Essential Membership. Finally, I cast doubt on LaPorte’s objection to that doctrine arising from the view that a species cannot survive having a daughter.

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Michael Devitt
CUNY Graduate Center

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.
Philosophy of Biology.Elliott Sober - 1993 - Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Sameness and substance.David Wiggins - 1980 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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