THE SPECIES PROBLEM

AND ITS LOGIC

Inescapable Ambiguity and Framework-relativity

< a research monograph >

Steven James Bartlett

The "species problem" refers to the long-standing difficulty of biologists to formulate a definition of species that is at once univocal (able to stand on its own as a unique and adequate account of what the term 'species' means or should mean), comprehensive (supporting an inclusive and systematic taxonomic account of all biological organisms), and persuasive (attracting the acceptance of the majority of biologists). For more than half a century, taxonomists in biology have been unable to develop such a definition. Instead, there are now more than two dozen competing definitions, with no end in sight.

This monograph explains why this has been the case, and why, from a logical and mathematical point of view, it could not be otherwise.

The reasons for this frustrating state of affairs should be of fundamental interest not only to taxonomists, no matter what their area of specialization in science, but to computer scientists who study machine and human pattern recognition, to psychologists whose focus is purely the human variety of pattern recognition, to philosophers of science who have been concerned with the study of natural kinds, and to epistemologists and philosophers generally who have debated for centuries about the reality or non-existence of extra-mental objects.

The Species Problem and Its Logic is the first work of its kind to encompass and discuss all of these concerns within a single theoretically neutral and, as the author shows, a theoretically compelling framework that cannot not be accepted without self-referential inconsistency.

To download a PDF copy of The Species Problem and Its Logic (473KB), click here.

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