Species, essence and explanation

Michael Devitt, 2008 and Devitt, 2010 has argued that species have intrinsic essences. This paper rebuts Devitt’s arguments, but in so doing it shores up the anti-essentialist consensus in two ways that have more general interest. First, species membership can be explanatory even when species have no essences; that is, Tamsin’s membership of the tiger species can explain her stripyness, without this committing us to any further claim about essential properties of tigers. Second, even the views of species that appear most congenial to essentialism—namely phenetic and genotypic cluster accounts—do not entail strong forms of intrinsic essentialism.

► The paper examines Devitt’s intrinsic essentialism, and argues that it fails.
► Species membership can be explanatory even when species do not constitute kinds.
► Phenetic and neo-phenetic species concepts do not entail strong essentialism.