Abstract
The goal of this paper is to encourage a reconfiguration of the discussion about typology in biology away from the metaphysics of essentialism and toward the epistemology of classifying natural phenomena for the purposes of empirical inquiry. First, I briefly review arguments concerning ‘typological thinking’, essentialism, species, and natural kinds, highlighting their predominantly metaphysical nature. Second, I use a distinction between the aims, strategies, and tactics of science to suggest how a shift from metaphysics to epistemology might be accomplished. Typological thinking can be understood as a scientific tactic that involves representing natural phenomena using idealizations and approximations, which facilitates explanation, investigation, and theorizing via abstraction and generalization. Third, a variety of typologies from different areas of biology are introduced to emphasize the diversity of this representational reasoning. One particular example is used to examine how there can be epistemological conflict between typology and evolutionary analysis. This demonstrates that alternative strategies of typological thinking arise due to the divergent explanatory goals of researchers working in different disciplines with disparate methodologies. I conclude with several research questions that emerge from an epistemological reconfiguration of typology.
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Notes
‘Epistemology’ is construed broadly, referring to a multiplicity of epistemic activities associated with scientific inquiry (Giere et al. 2006). It is not intended to capture distinctions between areas of epistemology discussed in philosophical literatures (e.g., the status of causes versus reasons or the origin versus justification of propositions; see Steup 2008 for discussion). The contrast is with ‘metaphysical’ in a similarly broad sense, which includes issues like the nature of properties, modality, or physicalism (see van Inwagen 2007 for discussion). Although there are connections between epistemology and metaphysics, the reconfiguration argued for here is a shift from frequently treated metaphysical questions to neglected epistemological ones.
Hempel distinguished three kinds of type concepts (classificatory, comparative, and quantitative) and attempted to isolate their appropriateness to different epistemological tasks undertaken by scientists, recognizing that their use is guided by epistemic values such as fecundity. These analyses are found in the work of logical empiricists prior to the explosive philosophical discussion about essentialism and systematics in biology (cf. Hull 1965).
The same applies for population thinking, though it is not the focus herein. It may be that specific forms of typological thinking are fundamentally opposed (epistemologically) to population thinking, even in the area where Mayr first forged the distinction (i.e., species). But this would be an outcome of analyzing how these kinds of thinking (epistemology) operate in very specific arenas of investigation, not something that falls out of a general metaphysical claim about evolution.
A natural kind can be understood as a grouping of objects (or properties) that is based on ‘the way things really are’ (i.e., metaphysics), as opposed to being grouped merely for our own practical purposes (‘artificial kinds’). It is often thought that our scientific concepts (i.e., epistemology) should be based on natural rather than artificial kinds.
This strategy is congruent with the initial determination of homologies in comparative anatomy. “The structure of the system is determined by the relations that prevail between its parts, or, in other words, the parts are individuated not on the basis of their intrinsic properties … but strictly by their relational properties” (Rieppel 2006, p. 530).
“Questions about the accommodation of representational and inferential practices to real causal structures in the world are at issue, and these questions are paradigmatically metaphysical” (Boyd 1999, p. 159). Boyd focuses on species but his analysis does not dissect the actual practices of investigators working in systematics.
Or, the resulting ‘essentialism’ is substantially different. Mayr was concerned with ignoring variation of phenotypic properties in establishing species boundaries (i.e., taxonomic essentialism). Boyd’s ‘essentialism’ is about the causal mechanisms used to collect objects together into a natural kind, which includes Mayr’s account of species in terms of the ability to interbreed (Boyd 1999, p. 164ff; cf. Walsh 2006). Philosophically, it seems most accurate to describe Rieppel’s view as essentialist in a different sense rather than non-essentialist, but the label ‘essentialism’ still carries negative connotations so ‘non-essentialist’ might be rhetorically preferable.
This is also is the case for more general discussions of essentialism and natural kinds (Ellis 2001).
A similar conclusion has been reached by philosophers interested in the epistemological roles of idealization and approximation in physical science: “The focus of the debate about realism has centered on developing ways of articulating exactly how these [idealized] models retain a degree of abstraction while bearing on reality in some significant way. …However … it is apparent that the successful use of models does not involve refinements to a unique idealized representation of some phenomenon or group of properties, but rather a proliferation of structures, each of which his used for different purposes. Indeed in many cases we do not have the requisite information to determine the degree of approximation that the model bears to the real system. … [the] problem of approximation and idealization is not only a philosophical problem but … also a difficulty that exists within scientific practice. …the question of whether a model corresponds accurately to reality must be recast in a way that is more appropriate to the way in which models actually function within the practice that we, as philosophers, are trying to model” (Morrison 2005, pp. 169–171).
“The basic goal of comparative anatomy is to determine regularities of structural organization that enable a classification and understanding of the ordered diversity of form” (Shubin and Alberch 1986, 377). Rob Wilson discusses taxonomies of parts in his account of homeostatic property cluster natural kinds (Wilson 1999, 2005). Biologists and philosophers have long discussed the epistemology of decomposing systems into parts (Kauffman 1971; Wagner and Laubichler 2001; Wimsatt 1974; Winther 2006). I return to this below in Sect. 7.
These considerations can naturally lead beyond biology into other domains, such as particle typologies in physics and differences in how various kinds of physical entities are represented.
I am running roughshod over nuances in discussions about scientific realism (e.g., different forms of anti-realism like instrumentalism and constructive empiricism), but these are not necessary for the present discussion.
The sociological mechanisms might be seen as a means to the end of pursuing the classification, explanation, etc.
Although different versions of anti-realism are not making a metaphysical claim by holding that the aim of science is empirical adequacy, the denial of any necessary metaphysical consequences of scientific theorizing is addressed to metaphysical questions about realism. If one adopts a purely pragmatic approach to the aims of science (e.g., successful manipulation of nature), then the metaphysical questions can be skirted (but in a contentious way). Approaching scientific reasoning through strategies or tactics does not commit one in advance to some version of a realist, anti-realist, or purely pragmatic understanding of the aims of science.
I am not making the claim that all discussion of aims in science is metaphysical. Rather, the aims of science are the locus for debates about metaphysical questions surrounding scientific realism.
Brigandt (this issue) discusses how ‘epistemic goals/aims/purposes/demands’ can differ across biological disciplines even when focused on similar phenomena (e.g., species). Because of his emphasis on disciplinary and methodological differences, Brigandt’s terminology correlates best with my ‘tactics’ (and to a lesser degree with ‘strategies’), in part because the “aim” of science I am examining is supposed to hold across different disciplines and different areas of science. In general, metaphysical questions about aims focus on ‘science’ as a unit inclusive of all areas of science, whereas epistemological questions about aims zero in on specific areas of science and their distinctive practices, thereby being more relevant to ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’, as articulated above. Another example would be ‘heuristics’, which most naturally map to my strategies because they are often applicable across multiple areas of science (e.g., reductive research heuristics—see Wimsatt 1980). The details of how these heuristics are applied in a particular disciplinary context would then move us into the domain of tactics.
It should be stressed again that my epistemological reconfiguration of typology is compatible with metaphysical inquiry into science. Some questions, such as the ‘objectivity’ of typologies, are fruitful points of intersection for coordinated epistemological and metaphysical inquiry.
Similar domain categorizations can also be utilized for RNA molecules (Stadler et al. 2001).
“The shortcomings of a classification based on chronological age are obvious to every worker in this field, for enormous variations may occur in embryos even though all eggs in a setting are place in the incubator at the same time” (Hamburger and Hamilton 1951, p. 49).
Waters (2000) has argued that gene individuation in molecular genetics involves a mixture of structure (features of the DNA molecule) and function (what the translated protein does).
Nersessian describes ‘generic modeling’ in the process of concept formation in terms of the “representation express[ing] what is common to many systems” (Nersessian 2005, p. 139). Typologies are formed out of features common to many systems with explicit knowledge that these systems differ in a variety of other features.
My use of idealization and abstraction differs slightly from the detailed framework put forward by Martin Jones (Jones 2005). For Jones idealization is a form of misrepresentation whereas abstraction is a form of omission and the two are seen as contrasting strategies used in formulating models and laws. Although there is clearly something right about this characterization (that is also reflected in my usage), here I am using idealization and approximation as local forms of reasoning used in particular investigative contexts that contribute to more global forms, abstraction and generalization, which span across multiple investigative contexts (e.g., in theory formation). The extent of congruence between our perspectives remains a question for further study, but it should be noted that Jones’s analysis is very much in the spirit required for an epistemological reconfiguration of typology in biology.
This does not mean that typologies cannot eventually be jettisoned as inappropriate. In the context of using developmental sequences for reconstructing phylogeny, Alberch (1985) argued that developmental sequences understood as temporal stages were inadequate and needed to be replaced with an understanding of developmental sequences as causally connected events. The task of coordinating typologies may involve the rejection or modification of existing typologies, as well as the creation of new ones.
More generally, why are most character states bipartite or tripartite? A plausible answer is in terms of the pragmatic need of systematists to routinely and reliably score characters for phylogenetic analyses (epistemology), not that nature usually divides itself in dichotomies and trichotomies (metaphysics).
“The proper model description of a complex system depends on both the context of the problem and the question one wants to ask. … The art of modeling is to choose the proper degree of detail” (Schuster 2005, pp. 12–13).
Comparative anatomy uses structural partitioning frames to produce anatomical parts, functional morphology classifies parts in terms of their activities (process partitioning), and developmental biology’s concern with causation during ontogeny leads to partitioning ‘cause-parts’ from ‘outcome-parts’ (process partitioning) (For full details, see Winther 2006, pp. 479–494). This analysis could be applied to several of above-mentioned typology exemplars. Winther also discusses temporal periodization, although I think normal stages are not best understood as ‘cause-parts’ and ‘outcome parts’. Winther holds that ‘compositional biology’ uses part/whole units in a way different from ‘formal biology’, which use mathematics to model quantitative relations among terms that represent relevant biological variables. This distinction is congruent with the recognition that the formation of typologies (understood as a form of representational reasoning) includes the strategy of decomposing a system into parts (as often seen in ‘compositional biology’) but is not exhausted by it. Further questions include whether typologies are formed from single or multiple partitioning frames and how the use of different kinds of partitioning frames can be both a necessity and an obstacle for multi-disciplinary explanations.
This is a less pessimistic conclusion about the synthesis of evolution and development than that offered by Amundson (2005), but it is based on a more expansive (and epistemological) conception of typological thinking. Amundson construes typology more metaphysically than epistemologically (e.g., Amundson 2005, chap. 11).
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Acknowledgments
Ingo Brigandt, Laura Nuño de la Rosa García, Ric Otte, Francisco Vergara-Silva, and Rasmus Winther gave me stimulating criticism and numerous suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper, all of which dramatically improved the final version. Their assistance should not be interpreted as an endorsement of my argument.
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Love, A.C. Typology Reconfigured: From the Metaphysics of Essentialism to the Epistemology of Representation. Acta Biotheor 57, 51–75 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-008-9059-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-008-9059-4