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Pluralism, Normative Naturalism, and Biological Taxonomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Marc Ereshefsky
Marc Ereshefsky*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Extract

The discipline of biological taxonomy is rife with philosophical controversies. One of them is particularly relevant to the topic of this symposium, namely the question of taxonomic unity. Should biologists aim for a single correct classification of the world's organisms or should they allow a plurality of equally correct classifications?

For those with little or no background in evolutionary biology, the suggestion of taxonomic pluralism might seem odd. Don't introductory biology texts as well as television nature shows suggest that there is a single correct way to sort the world's organisms? They do, but that advertised agreement masks a number of controversies that have raged in biology since Darwin's time. Consider the question of how to sort organisms into species. Currently there are no less than seven prominent definitions of the species category (Ereshefsky 1992a).

Type
Part XII. Unity and Disunity in Physics and Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 382 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to David Baumslag, John Dupre', David Hull, Jim Lennox, Elliott Sober, and Brad Wilson for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. The National Science Foundation provided financial support for writing this paper (NSF Grant SBR-9310624), and the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh provided stimulating and conducive surroundings.

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