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Species as Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jun Otsuka
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Abstract

This article characterizes various species concepts in terms of set-theoretic models that license biological inferences and illustrates the logical connections among different species concepts. Species in this construal are abstract models, rather than biological or even tangible entities, and relate to individual organisms via representation, rather than the membership or mereological whole/part relationship. The proposal sheds new light on vexed issues of species and situates them within broader philosophical contexts of model selection, scientific representation, and scientific realism.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1075 - 1086
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of Sydney, Kyoto University, the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, and the 2018 A meeting at Seattle. I thank the audience for helpful comments and discussions. A part of this work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant-in-aid 16K16335.

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