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Species: Kinds of Individuals or Individuals of a Kind
6pm on Wednesday 11 July 2007, Linnean Society, London
Olivier Rieppel
MacArthur Curator of Fossil Reptiles and Chair,
Department of Geology, The Field Museum,
Chicago, USA.
The thesis that species, and monophyletic taxa, are individuals (particulars) was argued by Willi Hennig, and was later introduced into the English speaking community of systematists by Michael Ghiselin and David Hull. Ghiselin and Hull presented the view of species as individuals as a disjunctively opposed alternative to the more traditional view of species as classes, sets, or natural kinds. However, an argument can be made that each species is an individual (i.e., a spatio-temporally localized complex whole or integrated system) that instantiates a natural kind. The consequence is that species names, which are sortal terms, function as proper names in some context (e.g., an evolutionary theory employing the phylogenetic species concept), but as general names associated with natural kind terms in other contexts (e.g., conservation biology).
The meeting is open to visitors
Wine will be served after the lecture to members and guests
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