Ideas from 'Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and Essentialism' by Samir Okasha [2002], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Synthese' (ed/tr -) [- ,]].

green numbers give full details    |     back to texts     |     unexpand this idea


27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species
Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features
                        Full Idea: On all modern species concepts (except the phenetic), the property in virtue of which a particular organism belongs to one species rather than another is a relational rather than an intrinsic property of the organism.
                        From: Samir Okasha (Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and Essentialism [2002], p.201), quoted by Michael Devitt - Resurrecting Biological Essentialism 4
                        A reaction: I am in sympathy with Devitt's attack on this view, for the same reason that I take relational explanations of almost anything (such as the mind) to be inadequate. We need to know the intrinsic features that enable the relations.