De Re Essentialism, Species, and Modal Ambiguity
-
Ross Inman
Abstract
I offer a concise critique of a recurring line of reasoning advanced by Joseph LaPorte and Samir Okasha that all modern species concepts render the view that biological organisms essentially belong to their species empirically untenable. The argument, I claim, trades on a crucial modal ambiguity that collapses the de re/de dicto distinction. Contra their claim that the continued adherence of such a view on behalf of contemporary metaphysicians stems from the latter’s ignorance of developments in modern biology, the modal ambiguity reveals the need to retrain in modal metaphysics.
References
LaPorte, J.1997. “Essential Membership.” Philosophy of Science64:96–112.10.1086/392537Search in Google Scholar
LaPorte, J.2009. Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Okasha, S.2002. “Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and the Question of Essentialism.” Synthese131:191–213.10.1023/A:1015731831011Search in Google Scholar
Plantinga, A.1974. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Wiggins, D.1980. Sameness and Substance. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
- 1
See LaPorte (1997) for the source of this objection to de re biological essentialism, which is then restated and endorsed by Okasha (2002), and defended once more by LaPorte (2009).
- 2
It is important to note the distinction between what I am calling “de re biological essentialism” – essentialism about individual biological organisms – and essentialism about biological kinds. As stated, the topic of this note is the former.
- 3
LaPorte (2009, 57) and Okasha (2002, 205–06).
- 4
See Plantinga (1974, 18–26).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin / Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Perception, Non-Propositional Content and the Justification of Perceptual Judgments
- Structure and Significance in Metaphysics
- De Re Essentialism, Species, and Modal Ambiguity
- How to Think About the Correctness of Theistic Belief
- The Only Probability Is Verbal Probability
- Against Logically Possible World-Relativized Existence
- Sider’s Third Realm
- I Am a Lot of Things: A Pluralistic Account of the Self
- The “Constant” Threat to the Dispositional Essentialist Conception of Laws
- Does Time Flow, at Any Rate?
- About Aboutness
- What Trans-World Causation Could and Could Not Be
- Modal Realism, Counterpart Theory, and Unactualized Possibilities
- The Natures of Types and Tokens: On the Metaphysical Commitments of Non-Reductive Physicalism
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Perception, Non-Propositional Content and the Justification of Perceptual Judgments
- Structure and Significance in Metaphysics
- De Re Essentialism, Species, and Modal Ambiguity
- How to Think About the Correctness of Theistic Belief
- The Only Probability Is Verbal Probability
- Against Logically Possible World-Relativized Existence
- Sider’s Third Realm
- I Am a Lot of Things: A Pluralistic Account of the Self
- The “Constant” Threat to the Dispositional Essentialist Conception of Laws
- Does Time Flow, at Any Rate?
- About Aboutness
- What Trans-World Causation Could and Could Not Be
- Modal Realism, Counterpart Theory, and Unactualized Possibilities
- The Natures of Types and Tokens: On the Metaphysical Commitments of Non-Reductive Physicalism
