The Development of the Philosophy of Species 311
but I prefer to think of theoretical terms evolving like species, at different rates to be
sure, sometimes abruptly, sometimes smoothly. Still, since the terms are occasioned
by the things they refer to, empirically or realistically, they are “the same” in some
relevant sense.^83 As a child, I believed that journalists wrote journals. Recovering
from the shock of finding out, as a teenager, what they really wrote, I nevertheless
continued to use a term that still referred to the same entities as when I was a child.
The properties I ascribed to them had changed because I had learned more. Learning
more meant I could ascribe more accurately the properties journalists actually have,
and would no longer think of the local newspaper hack as if he or she were an essay-
ist on a par with Voltaire or Stephen Jay Gould, but the term denoted “the same”
people as it had before. It isn’t important that these properties were collected under
the term by my language community. A whole community could still be mistaken
about the properties of that profession (as the misguided trust in journalistic integ-
rity and objectivity in some sub-communities evidences). Likewise, scientific terms
can mistakenly carry connotations, such as static existence or timeless denotation,
even if it subsequently is learned that the things referred to carry none of the critical
properties connoted.
The study of the history and theoretical senses of a key term is dependent upon
the reconstruction of the way a discipline has learned about the referents of the term.
It may be that the term never denoted (e.g., “phlogiston”), and it may be that the
consensus of the present meaning of the term is ambiguous, incomplete, or incon-
sistent within its uses or with the data. In these cases, the role of the philosopher
of science is to attempt, with the methods of philosophical analysis, to clarify or
prune the term, or recommend its abandonment. This latter recommendation is, for
example, made by Ereshefsky and others for “species”^84 on the grounds that it has no
unambiguous referents and that other terms cover what is needed, while the implicit
absolute ranking of the term is positively misleading if not outright false.
But what is this method of philosophical analysis that critics bring to bear? Is it
something that only philosophers can exercise? Is it something quite distinct from
the critical methods available to scientists and other theoretical specialists? I think
not. There is nothing magical or sui generis to philosophical analysis beyond it being
the evolved practice of a tradition and community that has addressed abstract topics
over many years. Consequently, to properly address the use of a scientific concept
or term (I treat the two as roughly synonymous), knowledge of the science is a pre-
requisite, and the validity of the philosophical take on species stands or falls on
that knowledge. This being said, there are philosophical concepts, arguments, and
considerations that are not available to the critical scientist, qua scientist (although
they may be available to a philosophically educated scientist, qua philosopher). Of
particular relevance are the resources of metaphysics and formal logic (classes, sets,
individuals, universals, and particulars), and of linguistic philosophy and episte-
mology (natural kinds, sortals, theory-dependent objects). Hence, Michael Ghiselin
in his role as analytic philosopher (although he is a biologist) and David Hull
(^83) I am therefore rejecting the Kuhn-Feyerabend notion of incommensurability, at least for some catego-
rial terms, including species, in favor of a “baptismal” notion of reference. Cf. Hull 1988, 500–502.
(^84) Ereshefsky 1991, 1992, 1999, 2000.