Species

Species Realism 355

In a way, this is similar to the phylogenetic species problem—given that not all

species are monophyletic, and not all terminal clades are species, the specieshood

is a given, not an outcome, of phylospecies conceptions. In the case of phenomenal

accounts (phenospecies), we need to be able to specify the traits that count and those

that do not, like regional variants or dimorphic characters. However, as we have

argued and seen, there are no universal criteria for identifying species in order to

either determine phylospecies or phenospecies.

Therefore, we are owed an account of how we identify species in order to subject

them to explanation. I attempted to do this in the previous section, but some words on

the general issue are due. A specialist identifies species through a bootstrapping pro-

cess of knowing what are species, generally, in the organisms that they have identi-

fied as forming a natural group. Knowing that the nearest relatives for a specimen of,

say, coleoptera, form species by reproductive isolation, or by ecological adaptation,

or some mixture of these, permits the specialist to identify that the novel specimen

forms a species in much the same way. Sometimes the novel specimen is not like

its nearest relatives, as in the whiptail lizards that are parthenogens (Aspidoscelis

uniparens) among a related group of sexual lizards. This sets up an explanatory con-

trast that the specialist must account for (in that case, polyploidy), and revises the

notion of species, but only for that natural group. It does not generalize to, for exam-

ple, all other members of the family Teiidae, of which they are members.^50 Thus the

notion of what counts as a species is relative to the local group in which the organisms

are placed. The inductive generalization about specieshood is limited to that group.

Are Species Forms of Life?

The philosophical ideas and terms of Wittgenstein have played an interesting and
underappreciated role in the species debate: we saw Beckner appeal to family resem-
blance predicates, and Pigliucci revive that, as explanations of specieshood. I would
like to appeal to another Wittgensteinian notion: forms of life (Lebensformen).^51
In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein was discussing our ability to
understand foreign points of view (including other minds) and famously said, “If
a lion could talk, we could not understand him.” A little later he stated, “What has
to be accepted, the given, is—so one could say—forms of life.”^52 For Wittgenstein,
understanding another language-game depends upon shared points of reference in
the form of life.^53 Since we do not share a Lebensform with a lion, his language-game

(^50) So how does the Teilldæist know A. uniparens is a species? Because of the other criteria used to
distinguish the sexual species: behavior, ecological niche, morphology, genetics, and so forth. Recent
claims about “integrative taxonomy” (using an evolutionary species conception) appeal to this also
[Padial and De La Riva 2010, Padial et al. 2010].
(^51) Floyd 2016 presents the history and prior connections of the term in Wittgenstein’s development.
(^52) Wittgenstein 1968, 223, 226. See Hunter 1968 for an analysis of the Lebensform concept as an
“organic” (that is, developmental) notion. While Gier 1980 has argued that Hunter is incorrect in his
biological exegesis of Wittgenstein, and notes that there is also a strong social and linguistic aspect to
Lebensform with respect to humans in Wittgenstein’s work, we are free to interpret the notion organi-
cally as well in the present context, as Wittgenstein’s attitude to biology is not to be trusted.
(^53) “... if language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions
but also (queer as this may sound) in judgements” Wittgenstein 1968, §242, 288.