Type Specimens and Reference

Abstract

AbstractIn “Individualism, Type Specimens, and the Scrutability of Species Membership”, Levine alleges the following paradox: “qua organism, the type specimen belongs to its respective species contingently, while qua type specimen, it belongs necessarily”. One major concern of this chapter is to argue that the latter necessity, “Levine’s Thesis”, is false. This argument is based straightforwardly on the words of biologists themselves. There have been previous responses to Levine’s paper by LaPorte, Haber, Witteveen, and Brzozowski, which have found the matter much more complicated. My other major concern is to show that these responses have gone awry because of mistakes about language: we should not use a theory of reference to assess Levine’s Thesis; the causal theory of reference does not imply Levine’s Thesis; we should not make any inferences about species identity, and hence about Levine’s Thesis, from decisions about nomenclature. In sum, the engaging debate about Levine’s thesis has been misguided.