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Genes as natural kinds: Against mind-dependence and contextualism

There is a well-established trend in the debates in philosophy of biology to argue that our philosophical accounts need to stay close to actual scientific practice (see for instance Waters, forthcoming, Ankeny et al. (2011), Kendig (2016)). This approach, it is often argued, leads us to a more pluralistic and contextual approach that takes into consideration the complexity of the actual scientific practice and the fact that, depending on their interests, scientists might end up with different theories, concepts or even results. In this paper I examine this approach as it is applied in the case of biological classification, specifically classification into genes. Thomas Reydon (2016) proposed that classifications into genes provide a good example how classifications in natural sciences, and not only in human ones, are embedded in matrices of investigative contexts, epistemic aims, institutions and other elements. Different ways in which genes are allocated to kinds, according to him, depend on investigative contexts and are thus fundamentally mind-dependent, even though there are still some natural boundaries that limit the delineation of gene kinds. I will argue that, even though classification 68 ISHPSSB Book of Abstracts into genes has proved to be especially problematic leading to different types of “gene skepticism”, that Reydon’s conclusion is overly pessimistic when it comes to the possibility of an objective classification of the genome. I criticize the strategy of taking concepts that are in use in scientific practice, and equating them with natural kinds without establishing that such concepts fulfil some minimal conditions for natural kindness. The concept of gene was originally introduced as a vague notion for a unit of inheritance and it has changed substantially with development of molecular biology. Its “heterogeneous reference potential” (Kitcher 1982, p. 357) has led some to conclude that we should treat genes in a contextual, pluralist and pragmatic manner (see, for instance, Fogle 1990). The question, however, is why we should consider such a problematic concept to be a natural kind. I take it that there are two options available: 1. if the concept of gene is hopelessly problematic, then we should give up on it as a candidate for natural kind, and endorse, along with Kitcher (1982), that there is no molecular biology of the gene, but only of genetic material ; 2. search for an improvement of the gene concept that has the potential of playing a role of natural kind in molecular biology (see Baetu 2010). I argue that the second approach is more promising, and that regardless of the vast complexity of goings on at the molecular level there is a firm ground upon which to anchor the delineation of genes. That is, by referring to the fact that natural selection acts to fix important genomic segments and various additional molecular machinery involved in producing functional macromolecules.

Genes, natural kinds, mind-dependence

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