INVESTIGADORES
GINNOBILI Santiago
capítulos de libros
Título:
On the Origin of «That Thing You Call “Species”»
Autor/es:
GINNOBILI, SANTIAGO
Libro:
Philosophy and History of Life Sciences
Editorial:
College Publications
Referencias:
Lugar: London; Año: 2013; p. 173 - 184
Resumen:
In The Disorder of Things Dupré argues for a pluralist answer to the debated question of the ontological status of species. One of the premises of his reasoning involves endorsement of radical holism on the issue of the meaning of theoretical terms, i.e., the idea that such meaning depends on all the theoretical contexts in which such a term appears. This thesis does not acknowledge the possibility of a term occurring within a theory and not depending semantically on it. It might be possible to argue for a more moderate holism in which the meaning of theoretical terms does not depend on all the theories in which they occur. To illustrate this point, this paper intends to analyze the relationship between the theoretical term “species” and the theory of natural selection as Darwin conceived it. For this purpose, use is made of the distinction provided by structuralism between terms introduced in a theory and theoretical terms previously available. The thesis of this paper is that “species” is not a term that depends semantically on the theory of natural selection, but rather one previously available. In structuralist language: “species” is Natural Selection-non theoretical.