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Full Idea
The signs are that the higher categories are not natural kinds and so the Linnaean hierarchy must be abandoned. ...This is not abandoning a hierarchy altogether, it is not abandoning a tree of life.
Gist of Idea
The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up
Source
Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 6)
Book Ref
Devitt,Michael: 'Putting Metaphysics First' [OUP 2010], p.211
A Reaction
Devitt's underlying point is that the higher and more general kinds do not have an essence (a specific nature), which is the qualification to be a natural kind. They explain nothing. Essence is the hallmark of natural kinds. Hmmm.
| 13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
| 16663 | Things are limited by the species to certain modes of being [Olivi] |
| 19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
| 17049 | 'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough [Kripke] |
| 17050 | Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them [Kripke] |
| 17051 | The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances [Kripke] |
| 17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
| 17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
| 17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
| 17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |
| 17366 | Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features [Okasha] |