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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/198442
Kinds and Essences: Rescuing the New Biological Essentialism
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After the rise of Darwin’s theory of evolution it seemed that the much-feared ghost
of traditional essentialism had disappeared from biology. However, developments of the last
century in analytic metaphysics (Kripke, Putnam, Wiggins) appear to have resurrected the
Aristotelian monster in various forms. The aim of this paper is to investigate the revival of the
essentialist doctrine as applied to biological species, namely the thesis that organisms belong
to a particular natural kind in virtue of possessing certain essential properties, and examine to
what extent these new biological essentialisms are sustainable. For this purpose, I intend to
analyze these proposals in both their forms, relational essentialism (Okasha, LaPorte) and
intrinsic essentialism (Devitt), and confront them with their main anti-essentialist criticisms.
The answer, I advance, is that natural kind essentialism as applied to biological taxa is, not only
tenable, but theoretically adequate. Yet not in its typical variants. I contend that understood as
HPC kinds (Boyd, Wilson), organisms possess clusters of co-occurring properties that are
caused by various mechanisms which in turn determine the shared similarities that define
membership to species. Such an approach encompasses both the intrinsic and relational
mechanisms that make species members be what they are. However, this theory faces criticisms
regarding circularity and the problem of polymorphism (Ereshefsky & Matthen). I suggest that
reinterpreting the HPC theory as informationally-connected property clusters (Martínez)
solves the objection posing an improved version of the HPC theory and providing what I
believe is a theoretically adequate and explanatorily robust version of biological essentialism.
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Màster en Filosofia Analítica (APhil), Facultat Filosofía, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2021-2022, Director/Tutor: Esa Díaz-León
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KORTABARRIA AREITIO, Markel. Kinds and Essences: Rescuing the New Biological Essentialism. [consulted: 14 of August of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/198442