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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Post-Darwinian essentialism (Sober, Hull) shows that evolutionary taxa lack intrinsic essences, yet species remain real, explanatory kinds.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.If species lack intrinsic essences, taxonomy becomes arbitrary: competing phylogenetic definitions carve nature differently with equal validity.
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    • 2.Calling taxa 'real' while denying essences smuggles in realism about abstract historical relations, not concrete natural kinds, obscuring the metaphysics.
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    • 3.Species explanations invoke reproductive isolation and ecological role—properties species contingently possess, not unified by any principled criterion.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Species have stable causal powers (reproduction, niche occupation, gene flow) independent of shared essences, grounding their explanatory role.
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    • 2.Evolutionary lineages persist as historical individuals united by descent, not intrinsic properties—making reality compatible with non-essentialism.
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    • 3.Predictive success of species concepts in ecology and conservation demonstrates real causal structure, even without intrinsic essences.
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