Species

360 Species

of various kinds, or they may turn out not to be, but in the end, the etymology of
speciesform or appearanceis a guide to the nature of the term in biology.
The ontological turn in philosophy of science over the past century has tended
to overlook the role of empirical constraints on concept formation in the sciences.
In particular, the abandonment of the distinction between observation-language
(O-languages) and theory-language (T-languages) after the collapse of logical posi-
tivism led to a dismissal of “pure” observation. I am not here supposing that uncon-
ditional observation, let alone observation language, is possible, but to deny that
biologists observe in the absence of relevant theory is equally unfeasible. Perhaps
useful and knowledgeable terms like species are an essential element in science,
even if they are neither unitary nor well-defined in theory.

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