Forthcoming
Critical Notes

On Lineages and Individuality: About Linajes: Esas cosas que evolucionan by Gustavo Caponi

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  • Ariel Jonathan Roffé
Ariel Jonathan Roffé
Centro de Estudios de Filosofía e Historia de la Ciencia - Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Quilmes, Argentina / Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina / Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.e1245

Published 2025-08-27

Keywords

  • Linajes,
  • Individualismo taxonómico,
  • Especies,
  • Caracteres,
  • Árbol de la vida
  • Lineages,
  • Taxonomic Individualism,
  • Species,
  • Tree of Life
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Abstract

The book Linajes: Esas cosas que evolucionan by Gustavo Caponi has the overarching goal of defending the thesis of taxonomic individualism, according to which biological taxa should be thought of as individuals and not as natural classes. That is, terms such as Panthera leo are proper names that designate particular entities (lineages) that have parts, rather than terms that designate natural classes that have instances. To this end, he embarks on a series of tasks of different kinds, ranging from the search for definitions of terms such as “species”, “lineage”, and “reproduction” to clarify the content of the thesis, to the defense of this thesis against common objections. In the present critical note, I give a brief introduction to the individuality thesis and then focus on and criticize four aspects of the book’s content. These are (1) the constant search for definitions as antithetical to the metatheoretical spirit that Caponi claims to adopt; (2) his defense of the image of the tree of life against phenomena such as hybridization and symbiogenesis, which would require the use of networks; (3) his original idea according to which lineages have a temporal but not a spatial location; and (4) his assimilation of adaptations (as explananda of the theory of natural selection) with the characters used in contemporary systematics.

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