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Defending Intrinsic Biological Essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael Devitt
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Abstract

In “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism,” I went against the consensus in the philosophy of biology by arguing that a Linnaean taxon, including a species, has an essence that is, at least partly, an underlying intrinsic, mostly genetic, property: this intrinsic nature explains both the truth of generalizations about the phenotypic properties of the taxon and why being in the taxon is explanatory. The current article is a response to two criticisms: that this intrinsic essentialism is at odds with certain biological variations and that this talk of intrinsic essences is an uncalled for metaphysical addition to biology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 67 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to the following people for helpful comments on drafts: Matthew Barker, John Dupré, Marc Ereshefsky, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Paul Griffiths, Joseph LaPorte, Antonella Mallozzi, Karen Neander, Makmiller Pedroso, Iakovos Vasiliou, Denis Walsh, and Andrea Woody.

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