Early Definitions of Species
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Early Definitions of Species Laura van Holstein Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Synonyms Pre-Darwinian species definitions; Species concepts; Species definitions
Definition
from their philosophical origins to Darwin’s time: first, conceptions of the species category or rank (i.e., the entire class of units known as species), and second, early approaches to defining species taxa (specific units within the category, e.g., Homo sapiens or Cavia porcellus). The latter, in particular, has been the subject of recent debate, with scholarly approaches falling into two camps: the conventional “essentialists” and the “nonessentialists.” Finally, the impact of Darwin’s work on species definitions is examined to conclude he did not necessarily revolutionize taxonomy, as is often assumed, but rather altered the analytical framework in which it was conducted and interpreted.
Pre-Darwinian concepts of “species”.
Application of the Concept Introduction The attempt to partition a continuous evolutionary process into discrete units is the essence of the “species problem,” the unresolved question of what, if anything, “species” are. Modern (here defined as post-Darwinian) definitions of species comprise upwards of 30 distinct concepts (Zachos 2016) emphasizing different diagnostic biological features. “Species,” however, was not an exclusively biological concept until around the nineteenth century; it has a long philosophical history with roots in Platonic and Aristotelian thinking. Here, two types of species definitions are traced
The concept of “species” did not have a purely biological meaning for much of its history. The idea of definable types or categories of biological and nonbiological entities alike stretches back to antiquity, with the most well-known works being Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s Categories. Plato and Aristotle sought, in the broadest terms, to classify things by defining their “essences,” and Aristotle referred to “eidos” (species) in both his biological and logical works. Aristotelian philosophy formed the bedrock of much Medieval thought, and “species” continued to be applied to classify biological and nonbiological things alike. According to Wilkins
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. K. Shackelford, V. A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1273-1
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(2009), the first definition of “species” in a specifically biological context was published in 1686 by an English naturalist, John Ray. It remained routinely used to classify nonliving objects until the nineteenth century, however: indeed, Linnaeus classified minerals alongside plants and animals in his Systema Naturae.
Defining the Species Category The term “species” has at least two meanings: species taxa, and the species category to which all species taxa belong. Definitions of species taxa are applied to discern discrete groups in nature, so they describe the boundaries between these groups; the species cat
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