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'Species' without species
'Species' without species
- Source :
- Studies in history and philosophy of science. 87
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Biological science uses multiple species concepts. Order can be brought to this diversity if we recognize two key features. First, any given species concept is likely to have a patchwork structure, generated by repeated application of the concept to new domains. We illustrate this by showing how two species concepts (biological and ecological) have been modified from their initial eukaryotic applications to apply to prokaryotes. Second, both within and between patches, distinct species concepts may interact and hybridize. We thus defend a semantic picture of the species concept as a collection of interacting patchwork structures. Thus, although not all uses of the term pick out the same kind of unit in nature, the diversity of uses reflects something more than mere polysemy. We suggest that the emphasis on the use of species to pick out natural units is itself problematic, because that is not the term’s sole function. In particular, species concepts are used to manage inquiry into processes of speciation, even when these processes do not produce clearly delimited species.
- Subjects :
- Cognitive science
Structure (mathematical logic)
0303 health sciences
History
Computer science
media_common.quotation_subject
06 humanities and the arts
15. Life on land
0603 philosophy, ethics and religion
Term (time)
Semantics
03 medical and health sciences
Order (biology)
Open texture
History and Philosophy of Science
060302 philosophy
Genetic algorithm
Polysemy
Function (engineering)
030304 developmental biology
media_common
Diversity (politics)
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00393681
- Volume :
- 87
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Studies in history and philosophy of science
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....7a41e316b03f4f9afbe46327d95eb151