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What's Wrong with the New Biological Essentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marc Ereshefsky
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Abstract

The received view in the philosophy of biology is that biological taxa (species and higher taxa) do not have essences. Recently, some philosophers (Boyd, Devitt, Griffiths, LaPorte, Okasha, and Wilson) have suggested new forms of biological essentialism. They argue that according to these new forms of essentialism, biological taxa do have essences. This article critically evaluates the new biological essentialism. This article's thesis is that the costs of adopting the new biological essentialism are many, yet the benefits are none, so there is no compelling reason to resurrect essentialism concerning biological taxa.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 674 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

My thanks to Matt Barker, Ingo Brigandt, Michael Devitt, Travis Dumsday, Bence Nanay, Olivier Rieppel, Elliott Sober, Rasmus Winther, and a referee for this journal for their helpful suggestions. Financial support was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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