Species Are Individuals

Abstract

For more than a decade, Ghiselin’s (1974, 1981 a,b) “radical solution to the species problem” has been a subject of debate. Some philosophers, such as Hull (1976) and Rosenberg (1985), have greeted it as a great insight and the solution of many problems central to biological sciences, while others, such as Kitts and Kitts (1979, p. 616) found it to fly “in the face of convention.” The present chapter will not deal with the problem of whether species should be considered as “classes,” “natural kinds,” or “individuals” in the context of evolutionary theory in any exhaustive way. It is rather an attempt to investigate the consequences of the species-qua-individual thesis in the process of the objectification of species, both as closed and open systems.