Devitt’s ‘Intrinsic Biological Essentialism’
Devitt’s ‘Intrinsic Biological Essentialism’

Summary/Abstract: This article is about the problem of essentialism of natural and biological kinds, especially species. We will primarily focus on Michael Devitt’s work “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism” (2008). We will try to prove what a good candidate for the essence of the species could be. This article puts the problem of essentialism into the context of biology and, through the usage of examples, attempts to answer that problem. We are going to try to define essentialism and determine what meaning essentialism holds in biology. We will cross-check the definitions of essentialism and compare the essence of various sciences with the suggestions of essences of species. We are going to analyse what Hilary Putnam states about natural kinds, about the so-called ‘hidden structures’, and what the essence of species could be. Using examples from biology, we are going to create a difference between ‘underlying’ and ‘exterior’ characteristics of organisms. We are going to analyse Devitt’s ‘Intrinsic Biological Essentialism’ (2008) and check its advantages and disadvantages. Using examples from biology and using the analogy of examples from chemistry and biology, we will show whether Devitt’s ‘intrinsic biological essentialism’ is valid or not.

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