I argue for accepting a pluralist approach to species, while rejecting the realism about species espoused by P. Kitcher and a number of other philosophers of biology. I develop an alternative view of species concepts as divisions of organisms into groups for study which are relative to the systematic explanatory interests of biologists at a particular time. I also show how this conception resolves a number of difficult puzzles which plague the application of particular species concepts.

P. B. Downing; VII.—Subjunctive Conditionals, Time Order, and Causation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 125–140.

P. F. Strawson; I—The Presidential Address: Grammar and Philosophy1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 June 1970, Pages 1–20, https.

What does the law demand when it requires citizens to conform to standards of reasonableness? I propose and defend the view that the law should demand that citizens conform their behavior to some actual conduct in society. I contrast this idea against what might be called the ``empty vessel'' view of reasonableness, where the standard is understood to function like an empty vessel in the law, allowing courts to use various norms and moral judgments to determine what seems reasonable in (...) the circumstances. The empty vessel account is the more common approach for understanding reasonableness, but it leaves obscure whether and how assessments about appropriate conduct connect with facts about citizens' actual conduct. I argue for a ``binocular'' view that focuses our attention on actual practices and thereby establishes how these standards provide a stable guide to conduct and support the rule of law. (shrink)

Richard Alexander explains human uniqueness by postulating that at some point an ancestral species became 'ecological dominant' and the external forces of natural selection were replaced by within-species, intergroup competition. It is argued that this transition probably took place in archaic Homo sapiens (Homo heidelbergensis) and not in Homo erectus. Homo erectus was an ecological very flexible species, however.

(2008). EDITOR'S CORNER. Educational Studies: Vol. 44, SPECIAL ISSUE: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL REFORM WITHIN A FOUCAULTIAN FRAMEWORK, pp. 1-2.