Prologue xxxiii
and universals, and the Renaissance. Are we to think that there was no change or
development in these ideas in that time? I undertook to investigate this gap, expect-
ing no more than a continuous narrative supporting the Received View. The results
were surprising. In most respects, the Received View is incorrect, seriously incom-
plete, or simply false. Effectively every philosophical issue raised about biological
species in the modern period was raised in one form or another about philosophi-
cal, or logical, species during this interregnum. Moreover, the crucial mediate link
between Aristotle and modern biology was not Linnaeus, or even Aristotle’s own
writings. It was, rather, the theologians of the sixteenth century who, following an
increasing rationalism in the Christian intellectual tradition from the tenth century,
attempted to give a naturalistic account of the capacity of Noah’s Ark, and in so
doing introduced the foundation for a basic rank of living kinds.^42 In effect, the spe-
cies problem is a Christian invention, not an Aristotelian one.^43
Further, the Received View tended to ignore the Great Chain of Being and the
universals debates, which are of great importance in the way later writers such as
Cusa deal with the notion of essence and de nition. It is not the case that typology
and essentialism were bound together, and in many ways typology as it was actually
discussed is more in line with Mayr’s “population thinking” than he ever admitted.
Winsor 44 refers to the typological conception as the “method of exemplars,” which
we shall see is a much better characterization.^45
Few truly novel formal conceptual elements of species concepts have arisen
since the eighteenth century. Biologists and philosophers have been dealing from the
same deck of conceptual cards ever since. Of course, many technical concepts are
novel—for example, Templeton’s genetic concept relies upon Mendelian genetics,
and Wu’s genic concept relies on molecular genetics, both of which are much later
additions to the repertoire of biology.^46 It is also open to doubt that ideas that are
merely formally similar are in fact “the same” ideas as later ones. But the similarities
are themselves instructive; if an older debate dealing with formally similar notions
is resolved into a few opposing viewpoints, we may learn from them what to expect
in modern debates.
Despite popular expectation, Darwin and his successors did not add much to the
species debate except to raise in sharp relief problems brought about by the intro-
duction of the notion of speciation and the subsequent mutability of classi cations.
Nevertheless, Darwin acts as a focal point for what follows, and even the formalists
had to address his conceptions. Since the “Modern Synthesis” of 1930–1942, the only
truly novel philosophical ideas about species have been the Individuality Thesis and
the re nement of notions of class inclusion and hierarchies, which themselves rest
(^42) Allen 1949.
(^43) In the rst edition, I suggested the species concept was a neo-Platonist invention. Having further
reviewed the material I now think that, while neo-Platonism was signi cant in the context of Bishop
Wilkins and John Ray, it is not the case that it caused the species concept.
(^44) Winsor 2003.
(^45) See also Amundson [1998]. Challenges to the typological/essentialist account begin, so far as I can
see, with Farber, Platnick and Nelson, and Panchen in the period from 1970 to 1985 (references cited
below).
(^46) Tem plet on 1989, Wu 2001a, Wu 2001b. I am indebted to Kim Sterelny for this point.