Metaphvsics And The Origin Of Species Summary

From this point of view that, these criteria show that Ghiselin’s argument is not only biological but also philosophical argument, because there are no biological investigations to answer to the questions. Teehan (1999) support this claim that “Ghiselin's argument is a philosophical one. The question of the individuality of species will not be settled by biologists alone”, then he adds this as a solution: “He himself supports a biological species concept and makes a strong case for this particular answer to the question of the proper definition of "species." However, his main concern is not with the definition of the term, but with the classification of species - and this, he recognizes, is a question of metaphysics.” (Teehan, 1999, pp. 379-380).
Burian (1988) also indicates that Ghiselin’s book which is “Metaphvsics and the Origin of Species” brings an ontological explanation for the species problem. He also states that “Ghiselin begins his argument by developing a variant Aristotelian metaphysics of individuals without reference to any particular biological issues and then employs the results in extensive, relatively free- standing analyses of issues that refer to species in evolution, systematics, cladistics, and the like” (Burian, 1988, p. 1812). Ghiselin endeavors to draw a line between epistemology and ontology, so he cannot avoid to explain his arguments in philosophical approach. Richard M. Burian (1988) emphasizes this point. He also argues that “Ghiselin's approach also opens the door to closer cooperation between philosophers of biology and biologists-cooperation that, if successful, could serve as a model for philosophers and scientists in general” (Burian, 1988, p.
Mayr is describing the species in this way. At this point he asks a crucial question which is “Why are species so important? (Mayr, 1957, p. 1) and then he brings and explains his argument whether what it is. In “Species Concept and Definitions”, Mayr answers the question, he notes that “Species are important because they represent an important level of integration in living nature” (Mayr, 1957, p. 1). Mayr also points out that this situation is a basic point for biology in which there are two important names. One of them is Linnaeus and another one is Darwin. According to Mayr species are placed under these names. Roughly a hundred years after Darwin’s Origin of Species, defenders of the species problem were segregated in two side. Especially, individualistic concept attributes their arguments from Darwinian theory which says “Species were mostly regarded merely as arbitrary divisions of the continuous and ever changing series of individuals found in nature… of course, active taxonomists did not overlook the existence of sharply and distinctly delimited species in nature, but at the existence of those distinct units disagreed with the prevailing theories, it was mentioned as little as possible” ( Du Rietz, 1930 as cited Mayr, 1957, p.5). It is clear that this is a key stone for individualist