You can manage bookmarks using lists, please log in to your user account for this.
Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Evolutionary Essentialism
Contributor:
Walsh, Denis
imprint:
Oxford University Press, 2006
Published in:The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Language:
English
ISSN:
0007-0882;
1464-3537
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<p>According to Aristotelian essentialism, the nature of an organism is constituted of a particular goal-directed disposition to produce an organism typical of its kind. This paper argues-against the prevailing orthodoxy-that essentialism of this sort is indispensable to evolutionary biology. The most powerful anti-essentialist arguments purport to show that the natures of organisms play no explanatory role in modern synthesis biology. I argue that recent evolutionary developmental biology provides compelling evidence to the contrary. Developmental biology shows that one must appeal to the capacities of organisms to explain what makes adaptive evolution adaptive. Moreover, the specific capacities in question are precisely those that, according to Aristotle, constitute the nature of an organism.</p>