Essence in the Age of Evolution

Reviews / Votes

"This exciting book defends a controversial position: biological natural kind essentialism with a neo-Aristotelian twist. It makes an interesting, novel contribution to the metaphysics of natural kinds and is a great example of what work in scientifically-informed metaphysics, or the metaphysics of science, should look like." - Tuomas E. Tahko, University of Helsinki

"Christopher Austin's Essence in the Age of Evolution has the ambitious and provocative aim of recovering the debate about essence by proposing a novel, neo-Aristotelian theory of 'biological natural kind essentialism', grounded in current research in evolutionary developmental biology. Christopher Austin embodies a trend of contemporary essentialism that shares with philosophers such as Denis Walsh (see his 'Evolutionary essentialism' (2006) in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57: 425-448) a reaffirmation of Aristotle's heritage and the idea that evolutionary biology has already proved anti-essentialism wrong. This book ...shows how philosophers are undertaking new and empirically-informed approaches to ancient philosophical problems...Austin's book is conceived primarily as a contribution towards overcoming the dichotomy between evolution and essentialism. His intention to demystify essence is perhaps the aspect that makes this work unique."

- Silvia Basanta Martinez, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences