Cladistics

Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8

10.1111/j.1096-0031.2009.00266.x

Species and kinds: a critique of RieppelÕs ‘‘one of a kind’’ account of

species
Thomas A.C. Reydon
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Center for Philosophy and Ethics of Science (ZEWW), Im Moore 21, Hannover D-30167, Germany
Accepted 22 April 2009

Abstract

A major issue in philosophical debates on the species problem concerns the opposition between two seemingly incompatible views
of the metaphysics of species: the view that species are individuals and the view that species are natural kinds. In two recent papers in
this journal, Olivier Rieppel suggested that this opposition is much less deep than it seems at first sight. Rieppel used a recently
developed philosophical account of natural kindhood, namely Richard BoydÕs ‘‘homeostatic property cluster’’ theory, to argue that
every species taxon can be conceived of as an individual that constitutes the single member of its own specific natural kind. In this
paper I criticize RieppelÕs approach and argue that it does not deliver what it is supposed to, namely an account of species as kinds
about which generalized statements can be made.
 The Willi Hennig Society 2009.

Introduction Richard BoydÕs ‘‘homeostatic property cluster’’ theory

One of the main issues arising in the context of the
species problem concerns the opposition between two
seemingly incompatible views of the metaphysical
nature of species. On the one hand there is the
traditional view that species are natural kinds of
organisms. On the other hand there is the much more
recent view that species are individuals, that is, concrete,
particular entities that have organisms as their principal
constituent parts. Commonly, these views of species are
thought of as fundamentally incompatible: either species
are natural kinds, or they are individuals, but they
certainly arenÕt both.
In two recent papers in this journal, Rieppel (2007a,
2008; see also Rieppel, 2009) suggested that this oppo-
sition is much less deep than it seems at first sight.
Rieppel suggested that species names such as Panthera
tigris should be conceived of as denoting both individ-
uals and natural kinds. Rieppel used a recently devel-
oped philosophical account of natural kindhood,
Corresponding author:
E-mail address: reydon@ww.uni-hannover.de
(henceforth HPC theory), to develop his account of
species as natural kinds. However, as I argue in the
present paper, RieppelÕs approach does not yield what it
is intended to deliver, namely an account of species as
natural kinds over which inferences can be made that
convey knowledge about the member organisms of
species. My aim in this paper is not to criticize HPC
theory in general, or to question its applicability to the
case of species, but only to point to some problems with
the particular way in which Rieppel used HPC theory to
construct an account of species as natural kinds. (To
avoid any misunderstanding of my position, I should
emphasize that I think there may well be good ways to
conceive of species as natural kinds under HPC
theory—I just do not think that RieppelÕs ‘‘one of a
kind’’ approach is one of these.)
Rieppel on species
The species problem encompasses a number of
different questions, including which are the relevant
criteria to use when ranking taxa as species, and whether

 The Willi Hennig Society 2009

2 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
a criterion of monophyly should be imposed on species
taxa. At the heart of the problem, however, lies the
metaphysical question concerning what species are. Are
they merely groupings of organisms constructed by us
for various purposes and in relation to our various
interests, or are they real entities that exist objectively
‘‘out there’’ in nature? And if species are real entities, are
they best conceived of as natural kinds of organisms, in
the same way as the chemical elements are thought of as
natural kinds of atoms, or should they be conceived of
as concrete material entities of which organisms are the
basic constituent parts? Both philosophers and biolo-
gists have long been concerned with this issue, and all
the aforementioned positions have been advocated in
the ongoing debate on the topic (for overviews see e.g.
Stamos, 2003; Reydon, 2005; Ereshefsky, 2007).
In the context of the present paper, one aspect of the
discussion on the nature of species is particularly
important. According to a commonly accepted view in
philosophy, things can belong to either of two meta-
physical categories: any given thing is either a concrete
particular (that is, an individual), or a collection (a set,
class or kind) of things. Analysis of a particular case
may show that some things have been allocated to the
wrong metaphysical category, but it is not very likely
that we find that something belongs in both categories.
In recent history, biological species have been discussed
as a case in which things were allocated to the wrong
category: species have traditionally been counted as
natural kinds of organisms, until it was suggested in the
1960s–1970s that they are better conceived of as
concrete particulars than as natural kinds. Credit for
the suggestion is usually placed with Ghiselin (1966,
1974), who proposed the idea, and Hull (1976, 1978),
who propagated it; however, the idea is also found in
earlier works by Ernst Mayr and Willi Hennig.
Ghiselin and Hull observed that traditional philo-
sophical accounts of natural kinds did not fit the role of
species in biology on at least two counts. First, natural
kinds are traditionally linked to essentialism, that is, the
claim that every natural kind is associated with a kind
essence (an intrinsic microstructure, a set of intrinsic
properties, etc.). This essence explains the observable
properties of all the kindÕs members, in the sense that an
entityÕs kind essence causally underlies their observable
properties. In addition, possession of a particular kind
essence constitutes a necessary and sufficient condition
for membership of the kind associated with this essence:
all and only the members of a particular natural kind
instantiate this kindÕs essence. In the case of species,
however, it has become clear that there are no species
essences in the aforementioned sense. On the second
count, theories of natural kinds usually link natural
kinds to laws of nature: natural kinds are supposed to be
those kinds that feature in laws of nature; conversely,
laws of nature are supposed to be those regularities that
apply across natural kinds. But biological research has
shown that there are no laws of nature that pertain to
particular species, at least not in the sense in which laws
of nature are generally conceived. This situation, Ghis-
elin and Hull argued, was precisely what was to be
expected when species were not kinds at all, but
spatiotemporally limited entities—that is, individuals.
As individuals with organisms as their constituent parts,
species are just not the sort of thing that have kind
essences (species could still have individual essences,
though) or that feature in statements of laws of nature.
Moreover, this view of species fits better with what
biology tells us about species (that species have unique
origins, undergo evolutionary change, etc.) than does
the natural kinds view.
Commonly, the metaphysical views that species are
individuals and that species are natural kinds are
thought of as fundamentally incompatible. After all,
individuals are spatiotemporally limited, concrete enti-
ties that can feature in processes of change over time,
while natural kinds are spatiotemporally unlimited,
abstract entities that cannot undergo any change over
time. (Of course, new instances of a natural kind can
come into being, and old instances can go out of
existence, but this does not involve the change of the
natural kind itself, as kinds are defined intensionally in
contrast to sets, which are defined extensionally.) Hence,
if biological species are indeed individuals, they cannot
be natural kinds. At present, most biologists and
philosophers of biology opt for the individuals view of
species.
Rieppel (2007a, 2008) also subscribed to the individ-
uals view of species; as he put it: ‘‘On grounds of
spatiotemporal boundedness, any biological entity at
any level of complexity subject to evolutionary processes
is an individual’’ (Rieppel, 2007a; p. 373). But, Rieppel
added, there are good reasons also to conceive of species
as natural kinds. For one, species names are commonly
featured in predicative statements in biological reason-
ing (Rieppel, 2005; pp. 473–474; Rieppel, 2006; p. 194;
Rieppel, 2007a; p. 374ff.; Rieppel, 2007b; pp. 357–358;
Rieppel, 2008; p. 599). We can identify a particular
organism as a Panthera tigris, attribute a particular
predicate (the predicate of being a Panthera tigris) to it,
and in so doing make a statement that conveys some
knowledge about it. After all, when we know that an
organism is a Panthera tigris, we can reliably infer that it
will very probably exhibit numerous properties and
behaviours that organisms of that species typically
exhibit: ‘‘token tigers inherit the largest upper canines
amongst all living cats from their parents […]. It is such
causally efficacious properties that render generaliza-
tions across tigers […] possible, and it is by virtue of
these shared, causally efficacious properties that tigers
[…] are tokens of natural kinds’’ (Rieppel, 2007b;
p. 357; also Rieppel, 2006; p. 194). An important
 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
epistemic role of species names in biological reasoning,
then, is to function in generalizations about the prop-
erties and behaviours of the organisms that belong to
the species denoted by the species names that feature in
these generalizations—and this is an epistemic role that
is typically performed by natural kind terms. In addi-
tion, Rieppel (2005, pp. 469–470; Rieppel, 2006, 2008)
maintained, it must be possible for species names to
change their extensions in taxonomic revisions. If new
data become available that compel us to exclude a group
of organisms from a species in which it was included
before (or the other way around), the extension of the
species name changes. But if species names are proper
names of individuals, Rieppel argued, such a change of
extension isnÕt possible; hence species names need also to
be conceived of as referring to kinds. There seems, then,
to be a need to come up with an account of species as
natural kinds to accommodate the epistemic roles of
species names in biological reasoning.
Rieppel found the required account of natural kinds
in BoydÕs HPC theory, which I discuss in more detail in
the next section. According to Rieppel, a species can be
conceived of as a spatiotemporally located system (an
individual) that instantiates a particular natural kind,
with the proviso that every species-as-system instantiates
its own specific natural kind (Rieppel, 2007a, 2008). On
this view, the particular system that is denoted by the
name Panthera tigris, for example, is the one single
member of the natural kind that is also called Panthera
tigris. In RieppelÕs own words: ‘‘Species are best viewed
as spatiotemporally located (i.e., historical) and causally
integrated open or closed processual systems that also
instantiate a homeostatic property cluster natural kind.
[…] Set theory allows for singleton sets; why should
biology not allow for historical natural kinds that are
uniquely instantiated, such that a species becomes ‘‘one
of its kind’’ […]?’’ (Rieppel, 2008; p. 601; emphasis
added; see also Rieppel, 2007a; p. 380). Rieppel, how-
ever, immediately qualified this statement by adding that
‘‘[i]f that is deemed unacceptable, take the parts of a
species to be members in transient historical kinds’’
(Rieppel, 2008, p. 601), thus suggesting that he is not
committed to the strict view that species are kinds with
precisely one single member each. (An anonymous
reviewer pointed out that RieppelÕs writings can also
be interpreted in a charitable manner as not necessarily
implying the position that every species-kind has just
one single member. Of course, if Rieppel intended such a
charitable interpretation, his repeated talk of species as
being one of a kind is profoundly misleading. Never-
theless, in this paper I examine both strict and charitable
interpretations of RieppelÕs work.)
One may wonder, though, whether this approach
yields a useful account of species as natural kinds. In
what follows, I consider three different ways of reading
RieppelÕs position, and argue that on two of these
3
readings it does not yield a useful account of species as
natural kinds, while on the third reading the account is
not novel (rather, it is precisely the account that Boyd
proposed), and is internally not consistent in that it
conflicts with RieppelÕs assertion that species are
uniquely instantiated natural kinds. But in order to be
able to assess the usefulness of RieppelÕs account of
species as natural kinds, two issues need to be clarified
first.
Two questions
The first of these questions concerns the precise
nature of the individuals that, on RieppelÕs account,
constitute the sole members of species as natural kinds.
As, in philosophy, there are different ways of conceiving
of individuality, it is important to achieve clarity about
what exactly species-as-individuals are on RieppelÕs
account.
RieppelÕs suggestion is that species-as-individuals are
‘‘spatiotemporally located (i.e., historical) and causally
integrated open or closed processual systems’’ (quoted
above; for an elaboration of this view, see Rieppel,
2009). In this formulation, two common ways of
conceiving of individuals—as causally integrated sys-
tems or as historical entities—seem to be conflated. (A
recent extensive discussion of these different ways of
thinking about individuality, paying specific attention to
the case of species, can be found in Reydon, 2008). On
the former view, a species is thought of as a spatially
(but not temporally) extended population or metapop-
ulation, that is, as a population-level system of organ-
isms that are parts of the system because they stand in
causal relations with other parts (organisms) of the
system. On this view, of which the most prominent
representative is MayrÕs biological species concept, a
species basically is a breeding population of organisms
(that are integrated into a whole—an individual—by
means of reproductive relations) that participates as a
whole in evolutionary processes. On the latter view, a
species is a spatially and temporally extended (historical)
entity that is composed of organisms that stand in the
same ancestor-descendant lineage. On this view, a
species basically is a branch on the Tree of Life,
delimited on one end by a speciation event and on the
other end by a speciation or extinction event. While,
from RieppelÕs formulation, it is not immediately clear
which conception of individuality is meant, from other
passages in his writings it can be inferred that the
historical notion of individuality is the relevant one (e.g.
Rieppel, 2007a; p. 375; Rieppel, 2007b; p. 357). Rieppel
wrote, for example, that what makes an object a
historical entity ‘‘is the fact that it has a beginning and
an end in time, the fact that its parts can be arranged in
a spatiotemporal series, that adjacent parts in that series
4 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
are similar […], and that succeeding parts are causally
connected’’ (Rieppel, 2007a, p. 380). As this is precisely
the case for species, on RieppelÕs view species-as-
individuals are conceived of as historical individuals.
(The distinction between the two kinds of individual is
often framed metaphysically as a distinction between
three-dimensional objects that extend in the three spatial
dimensions, and four-dimensional objects that also
extend in the temporal dimension; see Reydon, 2008
for details.)
By conceiving of species as historical individuals,
Rieppel places emphasis on the fact that species are
unique individuals: every species has a unique evolu-
tionary origin in a particular historical speciation event
and, as such, is a unique individual distinct from all
other species. This emphasis on the uniqueness of
species is what leads Rieppel to claim that every
species-as-individual instantiates its own specific natural
kind. One—comparatively strict—way to reconstruct
RieppelÕs argument for this ‘‘one of a kind’’ view of
species is the following. Immediately following the
preceding quotation, Rieppel stated that ‘‘[t]o call such
an entity an individual […] means that it is one of its
kind’’ (Rieppel, 2007a, p. 380; emphasis added). Riep-
pelÕs reasoning, then, rests on the observation that
historical individuals are unique entities (as each has its
own unique spatiotemporal points of origin and end), so
that there can be no two identical historical individuals:
no two historical individuals can have exactly the same
properties. But as there can be no two identical
historical individuals, there can be no kinds that contain
more than one historical individual—kinds, after all,
encompass entities that have the same properties.
Therefore every historical individual must be the sole
member of its own kind.
However, this argument does not hold. What lies at
its basis seems to be the assumption that all natural
kinds contain only member entities that are identical in
every respect (as, for example, electrons are usually
thought of as identical in all their properties). If this
were so, then indeed a natural kind could not encompass
multiple unique entities. But there are at least two
reasons for which the validity of this assumption in the
particular context of RieppelÕs argument should be
doubted. First, if the assumption holds, it holds only for
the most basic natural kinds. If one recognizes that
entities typically are members of multiple natural kinds
that form a hierarchical system, as many philosophers
do, and Rieppel does too, then only the most basic
natural kinds in the hierarchy (presumably the kinds of
elementary particles) will consist of completely identical
member entities. The member entities of higher-level
kinds are the same in some, but not all respects—that is,
higher-level natural kinds can contain non-identical
entities. And as species presumably are not kinds on the
most fundamental level of biological organization, it is
to be expected that the identity assumption will not hold
for them. Furthermore, there is no good reason to
assume the assumption necessarily holds for all natural
kinds on the most basic level, as neither of the two major
theories of natural kindhood (traditional essentialism
and HPC theory) specifically requires the members of a
natural kind to be identical. On the traditional essen-
tialist view, for example, all member entities of a
particular natural kind are the same in that they all
share the same set of properties that are necessary and
sufficient for kind membership. Things of one kind do
not need to be the same in each and every way; they need
to be the same only in their essential properties. And, as
will be explicated in the next section, the HPC view of
natural kinds (which Rieppel explicitly endorsed) is even
less strict in its requirements for kind membership than
is traditional essentialism. To conceive of species taxa as
historical individuals, then, does not imply that every
species taxon must be the sole member of its own
natural kind.
But there is also a less strict—and perhaps more
charitable—way to reconstruct RieppelÕs argument. As
anonymous reviewers pointed out, RieppelÕs concern
does not seem to be with kinds the members of which
are identical in every respect, but with kinds the
members of which just have some properties in common.
But on this weaker reconstruction, it remains unclear in
what way conceiving of entities that have a beginning
and an end in time, the parts of which can be arranged
in a spatiotemporal series, of which adjacent parts in
that series are similar, and succeeding parts of which are
causally connected as individuals would mean that they
are one of their kinds. If historical individuals are
unique in the weak sense that they have at least one or a
few unique properties (that they can have many prop-
erties in common with other historical individuals, as
long as they donÕt share all their properties with others),
this doesnÕt imply that every historical individual is to be
allocated to its own natural kind. A charitable reading
of RieppelÕs writings, then, would involve simply
accepting that species as individuals are ‘‘one of a kind’’
while acknowledging that Rieppel didnÕt provide com-
pelling arguments to support this claim.
While the above discussion already provides reasons
to doubt the feasibility of RieppelÕs account of species as
natural kinds, an additional—and stronger—argument
can be made, which I develop in the remainder of this
paper. In what follows, for the sake of the argument I
shall simply accept RieppelÕs claim that every species-as-
individual instantiates its own specific natural kind and
show that, even if this claim were correct, still RieppelÕs
account of species as natural kinds would not do the
work he wants it to do. For if RieppelÕs claim were
correct, it would entail a second question: if every
species-level natural kind indeed is uniquely instantiated,
how are meaningful generalizations over these natural
 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
kinds possible? After all, if a species-level natural kind
such as Panthera tigris has one single member entity (the
historical entity that is also called Panthera tigris), then
any ‘‘generalization’’ over the kind will convey infor-
mation about precisely one single entity, namely the
historical entity in question, or at most about the
temporal stages from which this historical entity is made
up. It would therefore not be a generalization at all, but
a statement that tells us something about a concrete,
particular entity (a species-as-individual with organisms
as its constituent parts) or about its several temporal
stages. But what is required from an account of species
as natural kinds is an explication of how generalizations
that convey knowledge about the individual member
organisms of a species are possible. RieppelÕs account of
species as natural kinds does not deliver this. In order to
get the problem clearly in focus, I shall first give a brief
overview of HPC theory (which, after all, constitutes the
basis of RieppelÕs account) and then develop my
argument further.
HPC theory and RieppelÕs ‘‘one of a kind’’ account of
species
Homeostatic property cluster theory was developed
by the philosopher Richard Boyd in a series of papers
published from the late 1980s onward. It was intended
as an alternative to traditional essentialist theories of
natural kindhood, and attempted to take seriously the
epistemic roles that kinds play in the special sciences,
regardless of whether or not they could be made to fit
the essentialist picture of natural kinds. HPC theory
starts from the recognition that most kinds that feature
in scientific reasoning are not groupings of things with
exactly the same (microstructural, causal, etc.) proper-
ties, but groups of things that bear resemblances to each
other without being precisely the same. In addition,
scientific kinds group together things that are similar for
a reason, that is, that exhibit largely similar properties
due to largely the same causes (Boyd, 1999, pp. 142–
144). Accordingly, kinds should not be defined by means
of separately necessary and jointly sufficient essential
properties that all and only the members of the kind
exhibit without exception, but by (i) the cluster of
properties found to cluster together regularly (but not
without exceptions) in entities in the world, in combi-
nation with (ii) the set of causal factors (Boyd speaks of
‘‘homeostatic mechanisms’’) that underlie this clustering
of properties. Because for any given natural kind there
is no set of properties unique to the members of that
kind, the property cluster can be only one part of the
kindÕs definition. Accordingly, HPC theory includes the
set of underlying causal factors in the definition and
assumes the combination of the two to define a kind
uniquely: a kind is uniquely defined by the properties
5
that are found to cluster together repeatedly plus the
underlying factors that cause this clustering.
In order to do justice to the messy state of affairs in
the world, in which entities are hardly ever exactly alike
and the properties of things may change in time, HPC
theory conceives of the property clusters and the sets of
underlying causal factors that, in combination, define
natural kinds in an open-ended manner: no property is
necessarily unique to one property cluster, no causal
factor is necessarily unique to one set of causal factors,
the property cluster of a kind may come to include new
properties and present properties may cease to be
members, causal factors may begin or cease to operate,
and there are no ‘‘core sets’’ of properties or underlying
causal factors that all and only members of the
corresponding kind exhibit or are affected by. This
yields an account of natural kinds that is sufficiently
flexible—or, in RieppelÕs terminology, ‘‘appropriately
weak’’ (Rieppel, 2006; p. 195; Rieppel, 2007b; p. 357;
Rieppel, 2009)—to accommodate all the various kinds
that feature in the special sciences, such as biology, as
well as the traditionally recognized natural kinds. In
particular, it yields an account that allows for natural
kinds with fuzzy boundaries (where it may be unclear
for some putative members of a given kind, whether or
not they actually belong to the kind in question) and in
which the clustering of properties is often imperfect. In
this way, HPC theory promises to be able to accommo-
date the case of biological species.
In the light of the considerations presented in this
paper, it is important to note that HPC theory begins
from empiricist considerations. HPC theory accounts
for cases in which we notice that ‘‘[t]here is a family (F)
of properties that are contingently clustered in nature in
the sense that they co-occur in an important number of
cases’’ (Boyd, 1999; p. 143). We can then attach a kind
term to this phenomenon of repeated clustering—the
phenomenon of repeated co-occurrence of entities with
largely similar properties—and assume that the cluster-
ing is due to the operation of particular causal factors in
nature. We can move on to investigate the causal
structure of nature to see whether the causal factors
underlying the kind can be uncovered. If we succeed, we
have obtained a natural kind that can be investigated
further, over which we can gain new knowledge, and
over which we can make generalized statements. In the
case of species of organisms, this seems to be exactly
what happens. We have noticed the repeated co-occur-
rence of particular traits in a large number of organisms,
and we have found causal factors that underwrite these
clusterings (common descent, largely faithful copying of
genetic material, and ontogeny in a largely stable
environment—see Boyd, 1999; p. 167; Millikan, 2000;
pp. 19–20; Rieppel, 2007a; p. 378). Accordingly, a
number of authors have suggested that biological
species are to be thought of as natural kinds in the
6 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
sense of HPC theory (Boyd, 1999; Griffiths, 1999;
Wilson, 1999, 2005; pp. 110–111; Millikan, 2000; Keller
et al., 2003; Rieppel, 2005, 2007a,b, 2008; Brigandt,
2009; Wilson et al., 2009).
With respect to RieppelÕs account, the question
arises as to what exactly are the entities in which we
observe the above-mentioned repeated co-occurrence
of particular properties—that is, which are the entities
over which we formulate generalizations by means of
natural kind terms. As already mentioned, there are
three different ways of reading RieppelÕs position.
First, RieppelÕs statement that species are uniquely
instantiated natural kinds can be taken literally. On
this reading, a species as natural kind includes a
spatiotemporally extended species-individual (a branch
of the Tree of Life) as its sole member—it is thus a
natural kind encompassing a single four-dimensional
entity (see Reydon, 2008). Second, one can emphasize
RieppelÕs statement (quoted earlier) that a species-
individual has parts that can be thought of as
members in a transient historical kind. On this
reading, a species as natural kind includes multiple
member entities, each of which is a population-level
entity that constitutes the species-individual at a
particular time. It is thus a natural kind encompassing
a multitude of three-dimensional entities, each being
the unique instantiation of the kind at one particular
time. Third, one could emphasize RieppelÕs use of
BoydÕs HPC theory of kinds, and examine which
homoeostatic mechanisms are supposed to support
species as HPC natural kinds. In the case of BoydÕs
(1999) own account of species, and the accounts of
most other authors who follow Boyd in this respect
(including those authors listed in the previous para-
graph), the relevant homeostatic mechanisms operate
on and between individual organisms, thus causing the
individual member organisms of a species to be
similar to one another, and leading to an account of
species as natural kinds with individual organisms as
their members. (In MillikanÕs account, for example,
the relevant mechanisms comprise the ‘‘copying’’ of
descendant organisms from their ancestors and the
development of descendant organisms in largely the
same environment as that in which their ancestors
developed.)
This third reading seems the most natural account of
species as natural kinds. The repeated co-occurrence of
certain traits in which we are interested, after all, occurs
in distinct organisms of the same species and the
generalized knowledge statements that hold over the
kinds that Boyd (1999), Millikan (2000) and others
wrote about are generalizations over the properties of
the organisms that are counted as members of the same
kind. Indeed, Rieppel acknowledged this: ‘‘[w]hat Boyd
[…] argued was that taking species as HPC natural kinds
provides a basis for inductive generalizations about the
species, its properties and propensities. Theoretically
relevant generalizations can then be made about the
‘‘nature’’ of a species, i.e., about the way of life that is
pursued by its parts (the individual organisms that make
up the species)’’ (Rieppel, 2008; p. 600; emphasis
added). While in this quotation the ‘‘its’’ in ‘‘its
properties’’ refers to ‘‘species’’, it is clear that this does
not mean the properties that can be attributed to a
species as a spatially or spatiotemporally extended
individual (such as the number of organisms of which
it is composed, the geographical range over which it is
currently spread, the speciation event in which it
originated, etc.). Rather, the properties over which
theoretically relevant generalizations can be made are
those of individual organisms, namely the properties
that members of the species tend to exhibit with respect
to their particular way of life. Elsewhere, Rieppel (2005,
pp. 480–481, Rieppel, 2009) suggested that the relevant
mechanisms are those that operate to maintain organ-
ism-level properties (e.g. genetic and developmental
constraints, developmental modularity, stabilizing selec-
tion, population structure), leading to the impression
that for him, too, species should be thought of as HPC
natural kinds of organisms. However, such a conceptu-
alization of species as natural kinds would not be novel
and, more importantly, would conflict deeply with
RieppelÕs claim that every species is one of its kind.
Natural kinds of organisms, after all, are not typically
uniquely instantiated—rather, at any time, a natural
kind of organism is instantiated as many times as it has
living member organisms at that time.
The third reading of RieppelÕs position, explicated
above, can therefore be rejected as inadequate to what
Rieppel intended. But while the first and second
readings can be thought of as ‘‘one of a kind’’ accounts,
they fail to meet RieppelÕs intentions on another count.
Recall that an account of species as natural kinds was
supposed to specify how reference to species names in
biological reasoning could perform the epistemic role of
supporting generalizations about the properties and
behaviours of the organisms that belong to the species
denoted by the names that feature in these generaliza-
tions. But on the first and second readings of RieppelÕs
position, no such account is forthcoming. On the first
reading, a species as natural kind has merely one
instantiation. HPC theory was intended to explain the
repeated co-occurrence of properties in an important
number of cases. While it may be debated exactly how
large the number of cases of property co-occurrence
would need to be to count as an ‘‘important number’’, it
seems clear at least that the number should be larger
than one. A natural kind that consisted of precisely a
single member entity therefore could not be conceptu-
alized as a natural kind under HPC theory, as it would
not encompass a number of repeated co-occurrences of
the same properties in distinct members of the kind.
 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
Moreover, it is not possible to generalize over a kind
that has just one instance—that is, the generalization
that all members of a given kind, K, have the same
properties is trivial and uninteresting if K has just a
single member. On the second reading, the situation is
somewhat better, as here a species as natural kind has
multiple sequential instantiations—one at a time. But
these instantiations arenÕt organisms: they are popula-
tion-level entities that constitute the tips of branches on
the Tree of Life that are extant at a particular time. The
generalizations that can be made over such natural kind
thus are generalizations not about the properties of
organisms, but about the properties of these population-
level entities.
RieppelÕs (2007a, p. 380) statement that historical
entities are entities whose ‘‘parts can be arranged in a
spatiotemporal series […] adjacent parts in that series
are similar’’ and that this ‘‘means that it is one of its
kind’’ (ibid., emphasis added) strongly suggests that the
second reading of RieppelÕs position explicated here
should be taken as the correct one. It is a reading
according to which every species is uniquely instantiated
at every point in time, and that at least logically allows
generalizations (over the set of entities that sequentially
instantiate the species through time). But the problem
with this reading is that these generalizations arenÕt
about organisms.
What was sought after is an account of kinds at the
organizational level of individual organisms (that is,
kinds of organisms), but what was achieved on both the
first and second readings of RieppelÕs position was an
account of kinds at the higher level of species as kinds of
supraorganismal systems.
Conclusion
I have argued that RieppelÕs account of species as
HPC natural kinds does not do the work that he
wants it to do, as it does not yield kinds over which
generalized knowledge statements that convey infor-
mation about the properties of organisms can be
made. But RieppelÕs account faces still other difficul-
ties. Consider, for example, RieppelÕs suggestion that
biological species should be thought of as both
individuals and natural kinds. If this suggestion were
correct (for reasons of space I shall not assess its
correctness here), which of the numerous available
definitions of ‘‘species’’ (or ‘‘species concepts’’) would
be the appropriate one? The available thirty-odd main
definitions of the notion of species can be divided into
definitions that conceptualize species as individuals
and those that conceptualize species as classes or
kinds (for a list of the main species definitions see e.g.
Mayden, 1997). Definitions that conceptualize species
simultaneously as both individuals and classes ⁄ kinds
7
are non-existent. This means that if RieppelÕs account
of species were accepted, a definition of species would
need to be elaborated that unified an individuals view
of species with a natural kind view of species. As, on
RieppelÕs account, species-as-individuals are conceived
of as unique historical individuals, a phylogenetic
species definition seems called for (as pointed out to
me by an anonymous reviewer). Thus the challenge
would be to explore the possibility of wedding a
phylogenetic view of species to a useful view of species
as kinds. At least one attempt in this direction has
been made, but much remains to be done before an
acceptable notion of species as HPC natural kinds
that are also historical individuals is achieved. (Grif-
fiths (1999) has given the most extensive elaboration
of this idea; GriffithsÕ account was criticized by
Reydon (2006)).
This issue is related to a more fundamental philo-
sophical question: in which respects are the views of
species as natural kinds and as individuals compatible
and incompatible? Rieppel (2007a, 2009) repeatedly
suggested that the views of species as individuals and
as natural kinds are not mutually exclusive, referring
to a number of other authors who made the same
suggestion. What philosophers usually mean when
asserting this is that from an epistemological point of
view the two views are compatible, in the sense that
reference to species names in biological reasoning can
function to denote kinds or individuals. Most authors
who endorse the compatibility of the two views also
do not hold that the two views as metaphysical
statements are compatible—that species are both
individuals and natural kinds. Similarly, in earlier
work Rieppel (2003: 184) admitted that a species
taxon cannot be both an individual and a natural
kind, as individuals and kinds metaphysically are
different kinds of thing. But, Rieppel went on to say,
the real question is whether the same collection of
entities can constitute both the extension of a kind
term and the constituent parts of a larger individ-
ual—and this is clearly possible. This, then, indicates
how Rieppel conceives of the compatibility of the two
views of species: he thinks of them as incompatible on
the level of metaphysics (a species is either an
individual or a natural kind, but cannot be both),
but compatible on the epistemological level (a species
name can function to refer to both an individual and a
kind, where the parts that constitute the individual
also constitute the members of the associated kind). A
good definition of ‘‘species’’ should therefore be able
to wed the two epistemological views of species
together, but is not compelled also to bridge the
different metaphysical views.
The considerations presented here do not imply that
HPC theory is fundamentally inapplicable to the case
of species. At first sight, it may seem that any
8 T.A.C. Reydon / Cladistics 25 (2009) 1–8
conception of species as natural kinds (be it from the
viewpoint of traditional essentialism or under HPC
theory) is squarely opposed to the fact that species are
subject to evolutionary change: while natural kinds are
usually thought of as entities that do not change in
time, one of the hallmarks of biological species is that
they do change. However, as explicated in the
previous section, HPC theory offers a view of natural
kinds that is more flexible than the traditional view.
From the perspective of HPC theory, natural kinds
can undergo change, as their defining factors (the
property clusters and sets of underlying causal factors)
are essentially open-ended. Thus, conceived of as HPC
natural kinds species can evolve, and there is nothing
in HPC theory (or in RieppelÕs application of HPC
theory to the case of species, for that matter) that is
incompatible with evolutionary theory. An account of
species taxa as HPC kinds of organisms might thus
still be feasible. While, on RieppelÕs account, a species-
level HPC natural kind has only one single member (a
system composed of organisms, be it a spatially
extended population or a spatiotemporally extended
historical entity), a number of authors have offered
accounts of species-level HPC natural kinds as kinds
with individual organisms as their members (Boyd,
1999; Griffiths, 1999; Wilson, 1999, 2005; pp. 110–111;
Millikan, 2000; Keller et al., 2003; Brigandt, 2009;
Wilson et al., 2009). In addition, the species category
might be conceived of as an HPC natural kind with
the various individual species taxa as its members.
This latter idea has also recently been developed
(Wilson, 2005; p. 111; Wilson et al., 2009). The
merits of these applications of HPC theory to
the case of species still remain to be evaluated, and
I must leave their evaluation for elsewhere. My aim,
after all, was only to show that RieppelÕs particular
application of HPC theory was not a fruitful one—it
was not to offer a general assessment of whether HPC
theory might be fruitfully applied to the species
problem.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers who made
helpful comments on previous versions of this paper.
Research for this paper was conducted with support
from the German Research Council (Deutsche Fors-
chungsgemeinschaft, grants RE 2613 ⁄ 1-1 and RE
2613 ⁄ 1-2).
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