Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and

Biomedical Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc

Finding Ernst Mayr’s Plato

Jack Powers
Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Many biologists have accepted Ernst Mayr’s claim that evolutionary biology undermined an essentialist
Received 16 August 2011 or typological view of species that had its roots in Platonic philosophy. However, Mayr has been accused
Received in revised form 23 August 2013 of failing to support with textual evidence his attributions to Plato of these sorts of views about biology.
Available online 14 October 2013
Contemporary work in history and philosophy of biology often seems to take onboard Mayr’s account of
Plato’s view of species. This paper seeks to provide a critical account of putative inconsistencies between
Keywords: an evolutionary view of species and Platonic philosophy with renewed attention to the Platonic texts in
Plato
light of recent Plato scholarship; I argue that claims that Plato held an essentialist view of species incon-
Ernst Mayr
Essentialism
sistent with evolutionary biology are inadequately supported by textual evidence. If Mayr’s essentialist
Typological thinking thesis fails, one might think that the intuition that Platonic philosophy is in tension with Darwinian evo-
Teleology lution could nonetheless be accounted for by Plato’s apparent privileging of a certain sort of teleological
Louis Agassiz explanation, a thesis that Mayr suggests in his 1959 paper on Louis Agassiz. However, this thesis also
faces difficulties. Ernst Mayr’s Plato is more likely to be found in the writings of anti-evolutionary 19th
century biologists like Mayr’s frequent target, Agassiz, than in a cautious reading of the Platonic dialogues
themselves. Interlocutors in discussions of the history of biological thought and classificatory methods in
biology should be cautious in ascribing views about biology to Plato and using terms like ‘‘Platonic
essentialism.’’
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When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

1. Why beat a dead Horse?
In relaying a narrative of the rise of their discipline, evolution-
ary biologists commonly characterize Darwin’s account of
evolution by natural selection as a revolution that overthrew
long-standing ideas about the biological world inherited from
the ancient Greeks.1,2 Often the narrative suggests that the
establishment of evolutionary thought undermined ‘‘essentialism’’
or ‘‘typological thinking’’ that purportedly has its roots in Platonic
philosophy. Ernst Mayr’s account is archetypal:
Without questioning the importance of Plato for the history of
philosophy, I must say that for biology he was a disaster. His
inappropriate concepts influenced biology adversely for centu-
ries . . . First [among the deleterious concepts], essential-
ism . . . .(Mayr, 1982, p. 87)
Mayr claims further that Darwin, ‘‘replaced typological thinking
with population thinking.’’
Typological thinking no doubt had its roots in the earliest efforts
of primitive man to classify the bewildering diversity of nature
into categories. The eidos of Plato is the formal philosophical
codification of this form of thinking. According to it there are
a limited number of fixed, unchangeable ‘ideas’ underlying the
observed variety, with the eidos (idea) being the only thing that
is fixed and real while the observed variety has no more reality
than the shadows of an object on a cave wall, as it is stated in
Plato’s allegory. The discontinuities between these natural
‘ideas’ (types), it was believed, account for the frequencies of
gaps in nature . . . Since there is no graduation between types,
gradual evolution is basically a logical impossibility for the

E-mail address: power344@umn.edu

1
See Hodge & Radick (2003) for a critique of the notion that there was a unified Greek philosophy of nature to which Darwin was responding.
2
A similar view was developed by John Dewey in 1909. See Hodge & Radick (2003) and Dewey & Hickman (2007).

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 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723 715

typologist. Evolution, if it occurs at all, has to proceed in steps or
jumps . . . For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the var-
iation an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average)
is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of
looking at nature could be more different (Mayr, 1976, pp. 27–
28).3,4
‘‘Platonism,’’ ‘‘typological thinking,’’ and ‘‘essentialism’’ continue to
be terms of derision in biological theorizing, and labeling disfavored
projects as essentialist is a common rhetorical tactic. As Love (2009)
puts it,
‘Typological thinking’ is not something you want to get caught
doing in evolutionary biology. It involves committing the cardi-
nal sin of ignoring variation and a tacit appeal to essentialism,
which is metaphysically incompatible with population thinking,
the very foundation of understanding life from an evolutionary
perspective (Mayr, 1959b; cf. Ghiselin, 1997). Or so one version
of the story goes (p. 52).
But with the reintegration of developmental and evolutionary biol-
ogy, evo–devo, ‘‘typological thinking’’ has enjoyed new attention.
Attempts are ongoing to reconstruct defensible forms of epistemo-
logical practices endogenous to developmental biology that make
use of idealizations and exemplars in biological explanation (e.g.,
the vertebrate limb), and focus less on or abstract away from vari-
ation (Love, 2009, p. 51). These attempts often take pains to quaran-
tine such epistemological practices from objectionable ‘‘Platonic’’ or
‘‘essentialist’’ metaphysics. Mayr’s characterization of the views of
Plato and their putative inconsistency with gradual evolution thus
lurks in the background of these renewed debates. Further, treat-
ments of Plato in other areas of the history and philosophy of biol-
ogy often seem to accept a picture of Plato consonant with Mayr’s
whereby, e.g., ‘‘the true beings are immaterial Forms’’ and ‘‘Plato
looked above to the Form Horse.’’ (Hodge & Radick, 2003, p. 249)5,6
Criticisms of Mayr’s view of Plato have not been lacking. Winsor
(2006) has labeled Mayr’s characterization of pre-Darwinian biolo-
gists and systematists as engaging in essentialist projects as ‘‘a fic-
tion.’’7 Sober (1980) points out some of the ways that essentialism is
not undermined by evolutionary biology. David Kitts has accused
Mayr of failing to carefully identify and document with textual evi-
dence those aspects of the Platonic view putatively inconsistent with
Darwinian evolutionary thinking about species.8 In his analysis of
the Platonic dialogues, Kitts failed to find a ‘‘consistent and unambig-
uous’’ view of plant and animal kinds as unchanging entities imbued
with essential properties (Kitts, 1987, pp. 326–327).
Plato does offer via the characters of his dialogues conjectures
of and suggestions about forms of plants and animals in some
works. However, I will argue any stronger conclusion of the sort
that Plato is committed to a view of forms that is at odds with evo-
lutionary biology faces difficulties illuminated by recent Plato
scholarship. While we may be entitled to say that statements made
by characters in Platonic dialogues are suggestive of essentialism
and typological thinking of the sort that Mayr attributes to Plato,
we are not clearly well-supported in saying that Plato held such
views.
Another case for Plato’s philosophy being in tension with the
explanatory standards of evolutionary biology can be made with
respect to Plato’s putative privileging of teleological explanation
(in the sense of explaining the natural world as the result of plan-
ning on the part of an intelligent agent).9 However, I will argue that
that there is a plausible interpretation of Plato’s teleological de-
mands that renders such tension only apparent.
One might reasonably wonder why investigating whether there
is tension between Plato’s philosophy and Darwinian evolution is a
worthwhile thing to do. Even if there were such tension, surely it
would be silly to fault Plato for a lack of prescience about a theory
that would not be fully articulated until the 19th and 20th centu-
ries. But it seems as though Plato has been so faulted.10 I follow
Grene in thinking it important ‘‘both for the sake of historical accu-
racy and out of respect for the transcendent thinkers of our tradition,
to pay serious attention to the works (and words) of those philoso-
phers who are all too glibly cited as having done this or that to sci-
ence, or religion, or what you will, in this case, to biology.’’ (1989, p.
69) Plato’s view of nature and terms like ‘‘Platonic essentialism’’ con-
tinue to show up in discussions of the history of biological thought
and classification in biology. This essay is intended to sound a cau-
tionary note for workers in these areas; Plato’s views on species
and nature generally are less obvious than the picture received from
Mayr implies.
I will suggest that Mayr’s Plato is easier to find in the writings of
evolutionary theory’s most formidable 19th century bogeyman,
Louis Agassiz, than in a critical reading of the Platonic dialogues.
I will close with a few general comments about the Platonic dia-
logues and claims about entailment relationships among Darwin-
ian evolution and certain views in philosophy and theology.
2. The essential properties of Ernst Mayr’s Plato
Essentialism about biological species is a view putatively held
by Plato whereby being a member of a species entails the posses-
sion of the properties or features that constitute the essence of that
species, what it is to be a member of that species. These are prop-
erties that (1) all and only members of that species have, that (2)
explain why they are members of that species, and that (3) allow
us to differentiate members from non-members. We might refer
to these three requirements of essential properties respectively
as the all and only requirement, the explanatory requirement,
and the diagnostic requirement.11,12 Mayr often appears to identify

3
Mayr offers here a questionable interpretation of the allegory of the cave. On a standard view, the shadows on the cave wall are images of (e.g., art and poetry representing)
the various natural objects and artifacts. The variety found in nature, according to the allegory, is thus more real than the shadows on the cave wall (Republic, 514–539).
4
Mayr often uses ‘‘essentialist’’ and ‘‘typologist’’ (and their cognates) synonymously. Plato’s eidos is associated with both. See Winsor (2006).
5
These quotations are suggestive of popular views about forms accepted among both scholars and lay-readers of Plato, but neither is uncontested. The first quotation is
consonant with claims about forms as presented in, e.g., the Timaeus, but as we will see, it is not clear if or in what sense Plato endorsed the view presented there. The second
quotation makes controversial assumptions about what Plato took to be the scope and location of forms; see Harte (2008).
6
See also, for example, Amundson (1998)’s characterization of ‘‘Platonic Idealism.’’
7
But the debate about the degree to which key pre-Darwinian systematists were or were not involved in essentialist projects continues. See Stamos (2005).
8
In reply, Mayr (1988) cites Popper’s (1945) treatment of Plato. Grene (1989) is among those unimpressed by Popper’s treatment. Klosko (1996) is also critical.
9
There are other ways in which ‘‘teleology’’ has been used in biology; On one sense of ‘‘teleology’’ (where purposes are given by natural selection), it is correct to say that
Darwin was a teleologist (Lennox, 1993).
10
See, for example, Mayr (1959a, p. 173) where one reason for the respective successes of Darwin and Wallace and the failures of 19th century German zoologists is their
differential acceptance of the ‘‘lofty fallacies’’ about the nature of species found in Plato’s philosophy, where the ‘‘lofty fallacies’’ seem to be a cluster of views that Mayr sees as
antithetical to common descent.
11
As Sober (1980, p. 354) notes, a disjunctive list of the spatiotemporal locations of all the members of a species would satisfy the all and only requirement, but would fail to
vindicate essentialism because such a list would fail to satisfy the explanatory requirement.
12
Essentialism about species as traditionally construed is said to have looked for properties intrinsic to member organisms, typically morphological character states. See Wilson,
Barker, & Brigandt (2007).
716 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
the Platonic eidos and idea with these sorts of essences.13 The reason
a horse is a horse is because of Horse (where Horse is the form or es-
sence of that species). The problem for this essentialist view is said
to arise once we realize, per Darwin, that species change over time.
Species change (into other species), but essences (or forms) don’t
change (Love, 2009, p. 54; Mayr, 1976, pp. 27–28; 1982, p. 87). Thus,
so the argument goes, essentialism is incompatible with gradual
evolution.
Typological thinking is said to be the closely related error of tak-
ing these essences, idealizations, or ‘‘types’’ to be real, and mini-
mizing the significance or denying the reality of variation found
in nature among members of species. Mayr’s ‘‘population thinking’’
treats idealizations as abstractions describing the statistical norms
of the real variation among species but denies reality to such ide-
alizations. Variation is central to the Darwinian evolutionary ac-
count (as the heritable variation that makes possible differential
survival and reproduction), but taken as unreal or illusory on the
typological account (Love, 2009, p. 54; Mayr, 1976, pp. 27–28;
1982, p. 87).
Ascribing essentialist or typological views (and their putative
consequences) to Plato commits one to at least the following two
claims. The first is that Plato thought that there were forms (what-
ever these turn out to be) or essences for the different species of
plants and animals. The second is that the Platonic view entails
that such forms are inconsistent with at least certain sorts of
changes or variation in the particulars to which the relevant form
corresponds. In the following sections, I will ask how well these
ascriptions are supported by Platonic texts and recent scholars’
interpretations thereof. But first I will consider two competing
hypotheses for interpreting the relevant textual evidence.
3. Reading Socratic dialogues: two views about a puzzle
That Socrates seems to advance a claim is not necessarily reason
to ascribe the view implicit in the claim to either the character Soc-
rates or to Plato. There is an apparent tension between what the
character Socrates says he does in the Apology and what we see
him do in certain other dialogues, notably the Republic and the Pha-
edo (Peterson, 2008, p. xv). According to the Apology (29d–32d), the
Socratic project is primarily one of examining others’ beliefs and
the entailments thereof with respect to living well through a meth-
od of question and answer. This behavior is modeled in e.g., the Eu-
thyphro, where Socrates examines Euthyphro’s beliefs and
commitments about piety and shows them to be inconsistent.
The Socrates of the Apology disavows having knowledge of any-
thing of much importance (other than knowledge of his own igno-
rance) (21b). In the Republic and the Phaedo, however, we have a
Socrates apparently articulating and endorsing (unusual) views
about the nature of the best state, forms, life after death, etc., and
leaving these views largely unexamined. It is a puzzle why Socrates
behaves so differently in different dialogues, and engages in behav-
ior that seems in tension with his own account of what he does as a
matter of course in the Apology (Peterson, 2011, pp. 1–3).
On the account offered by Gregory Vlastos as fundamental to
his interpretation of Plato,
to make sense of so drastic a departure from what Plato had put
into his portrayals of Socrates from the Apology to the Gorgias,
we must hypothesize a profound change in Plato himself. If
we believe that in any given dialogue Plato allows the persona
of Socrates only what he (Plato) at that time considers true,
we must suppose that when that persona discards [dialectical
question and answer] as the right method to search for the
13
See, for example, Mayr (1959a, pp. 172–173) where Agassiz’s views on species are said to be an ‘‘unequivocal interpretation of zoological classification in terms of Plato’s
Ideas.’’
truth, this occurs only because Plato himself has now lost faith
in that method. (Vlastos, 1991, p. 117)
On this sort of reading, Socrates says what Plato thought at the time
of the writing of a given dialogue. Any tensions between dialogues
are a result of the development of Plato’s thought over the course of
his career. The take home message for Plato interpretation is that on
this sort of reading Plato ‘‘owns’’ whatever doctrinal statements is-
sue from the mouth of Socrates. I will refer to this sort of interpre-
tation as Plato-centered (Peterson, 2011).
Sandra Peterson (2011) offers a different and original hypothe-
sis about the puzzle. On her view, Socrates, throughout the diverse
dialogues, even when he seems to offer rather outlandish positive
views, is engaging in just the sort of examination of others that he
claims to in the Apology. For Peterson,
examination is itself a multi-stage activity. Its first step is
revealing the interlocutor. Socrates’ awareness of what is
appropriate to reveal his interlocutors occasions Socrates’ dif-
ferent speaking styles, tailored to different interlocutors in dif-
ferent dialogues. With certain interlocutors Socrates appears to
be recommending teachings of which he is certain. With them
he appears to be teaching in those very areas of which he dis-
claims knowledge in the Apology. That is because Socrates as
depicted realizes that appearing to enunciate doctrine, and
observing his interlocutor’s receptivity to it, is the best way of
revealing for certain interlocutors their beliefs and inclinations
that need to be examined. Revealing a receptive interlocutor,
Socrates thereby enacts the first stage of examination. So in
the doctrinal dialogues we still see Socrates living the single-
minded life of examination that he attributes to himself in the
Apology. (Peterson, 2011, p. 5)
A reading of Plato’s Socratic dialogues that takes up this character-
ization of the Socratic project will not tend to see apparent cases of
Socrates advancing doctrinal positions as clear evidence that these
positions were held by Plato (or the character Socrates). On this
view, it is plausible that it is the interlocutors rather than Socrates
or Plato that ‘‘own’’ the commitments issuing from Socrates’ mouth.
I will refer to this sort of interpretation as interlocutor-centered
(Peterson, 2011).
Vlastos’ Plato-centered methodology is a traditional and widely
accepted one. However, Peterson offers a cogent and extensive
argument for her view (2011). Without taking a strong position
on this methodological debate, I will only claim that conclusions
drawn from Plato-centered readings often need additional support
in the form of reasons for rejecting an interlocutor-centered
reading of the relevant passages. I will attempt to highlight
places where the choice of one or the other of these interpretive
hypotheses has important implications for reading passages
from the texts relevant to the evaluation of Mayr’s characterization
of Plato.
4. What are forms?
Given that Mayr’s account of the putative inconsistency of evo-
lutionary biology and Platonic philosophy rests in part on a set of
claims about Platonic forms, the question of what forms are is a
natural place to begin.
Socrates in certain dialogues produces arguments to defeat pro-
posed definitions without committing himself to the idea that
the things to be defined are to be found in an eternal, unchang-
ing, and ontologically pure realm. In other dialogues definition
 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723 717

takes more of a backseat, and Socrates does commit himself to 2) A form is different from any particular sensible instantiation
that metaphysical view. The metaphysical view is the Theory of of it because the form has properties that no sensible thing
Forms (Dancy, 2004, p. 4). can have (74a–b).
3) Sensible things undergo change and forms are completely
As Dancy points out, the flavor of some Socratic talk of an eidos
unchanging (78c–e).
or idea seems to suggest a rather commonplace notion of
4) The form of beauty is what makes beautiful things beautiful
definition. Elsewhere the eidos has appeared to many to be onto-
and cannot be identified with bright colors, symmetrical
logically inflated, connoting a denizen of a ‘‘Platonic heaven,’’ a
shapes, etc. (100c–d) (Irwin, 1999, p. 151).
world beyond our everyday experience (Harte, 2008, p. 206).
One way that these two apparent sorts of forms have been trea-
In these passages of the Phaedo, many interpreters have thought
ted is via a distinction introduced by Aristotle in the Metaphysics
that Plato endorses a view of forms that begins to sound mysteri-
between Socratic forms and Platonic forms. For Aristotle, Platonic
ous.15 One might have some trouble even imagining with respect to
forms were a response to Socrates’ search for definitions for
a form of beauty what sort of thing could be as divorced from sen-
terms in ethics. The claim is that such Socratic definitions could
sory perception or description in terms of sensible properties as
not apply to sensible things because sensible things change, so
these latter four constraints seem to suggest, or what sort of con-
the definitions must be of non-sensible and immutable things,
vincing evidence we might have of the immutability of such a thing.
Platonic forms (Metaphysics 987a32-b10, 1078b12-1079a4,
This picture of the forms as mysterious is reinforced by the famous
1086a37-b11; Irwin, 1999, p. 143). For now it is enough to intro-
allegory of the cave and analogy of the line in Books VI–VII of the
duce Aristotle’s distinction. I will save evaluation of claims about
Republic. There we find suggestions of forms as entities, the objects
forms and changes in the particulars to which they correspond
of true knowledge, only accessible by a select few who have passed
for Section 6.
through successive stages of intellectual development and left be-
As an example of a more minimal ‘‘Socratic’’ characterization of
hind the distractions of the senses.
forms, Irwin interprets the Euthyphro (5d–7d) as offering four con-
But Peterson (2011) argues that we should not be too quick to
straints on an adequate form (eidos) or idea of piety.
give Socrates or Plato ownership, in either the Phaedo or the Repub-
lic, of any grandiose claims about forms or who has access to them.
1) There is one eidos for all pious things.
Rather, in the Phaedo, Socrates is charged with convincing Cebes
2) It must be a useful paradigm for deciding whether a thing is
and Simmias by way of ‘‘law-court-style persuasive defense’’ of
a member of the class of pious things.
the reasonableness of not fearing death; the object is persuasion,
3) It must be describable without reference to other disputed
not truth-seeking or an exposition of Socrates’ views, and Socrates
terms.
is therefore entitled to enlist in his persuasive speech any premises
4) It must be explanatory of why all pious things are pious.
that Cebes and Simmias already hold or are prepared to give assent
(Irwin, 1999, p. 145)
to, regardless of the reasonableness of these premises (2011, pp.
172–177).
Notice that the first and second constraints together are sugges-
For example, with respect to the claim about entities that are
tive of the all and only condition traditionally associated with
graspable by intellect alone at 65d–66a, Socrates, at 65c, elicits
essentialism, the second is an instance of the ‘‘diagnostic’’ condi-
Simmias’ assent to the claim, on the authority of the poets, that
tion, and the fourth is an instance of the explanatory condition.
the senses are deceptive. Although Simmias’ assent is eager, it is
On a Plato-centered reading, this is some evidence for the charge
far from clear that the character Socrates, or Plato for that matter,
that Plato held, at least at some point in his career, views about
endorses this premise.16 After gaining assent to the claim that the
ethical terms that we might now well-characterize as essentialist,
‘‘Just itself’’ and other forms are known, and assuming that the
but not necessarily for the charge that he held an essentialist view
senses and the intellect are the only two ways of gaining knowledge,
of biological species. Although one might worry about the third
the claim that these forms are known by the intellect rather than the
constraint if it were applied generally (since it is plausible on pain
senses follows by eliminative inference. But there is a case to be
of infinite regress that definitions must eventually run-out), there
made against any strong supposition that either Plato or Socrates en-
is nothing apparent about it or the other three constraints here that
dorses the premises on which this inference is based.
implies ‘‘an eternal, unchanging, and ontologically pure realm’’ or
It is not clear that Socrates or other characters in the dialogues
the denial of the importance of the this-worldly which Mayr attri-
always use eidos in what might be called the ‘‘technical sense,’’ i.e.,
butes to Plato.
referring to either ‘‘Socratic definitions’’ or reified non-material
In contrast, in the Phaedo, we get a picture that has been inter-
‘‘Platonic’’ entities. Peterson argues that we can often best under-
preted as more consonant with what the Plato literature often re-
stand the use of ‘‘eidos’’ or other apparent form-talk (e.g., ‘‘itself
fers to as the Platonic theory of forms (or, more dramatically, the
by itself’’) as mere qualification, a way to specify what it is that
Theory of Forms).14 Here, on Irwin’s interpretation, Plato has Socra-
the character wishes to discuss, as in the claim, ‘‘I want to discuss
tes say that,
shampoo itself, not pet shampoo or medicinal shampoo.’’ (Peter-
son, 2008, p. 383) This interpretation is deflationary with respect
1) Forms are grasped by the intellect rather than the senses to ascriptions of grand metaphysical commitments to either the
(65d–66a). character Socrates or to Plato.17 Referring to a passage in the Repub-

14
Peterson (2008), on the basis of the heterogeneous characterizations of forms in the various dialogues, wants to resist language (i.e., ‘‘the Platonic theory of forms’’) that
‘‘suggests that there is one determinate, recurrent collection of principles about forms.’’(p. 386) See also Annas (1981) for arguments in favor of caution in the use of such
language.
15
Vlastos (1969) sees Plato as here introducing what he calls the ‘‘full-blown theory of Plato’s Middle Period’’ where forms are ‘‘immutable, incorporeal, divine’’ and ‘‘cannot be
known by sense experience, but only by ‘recollection.’’’ (pp. 298–299)
16
Peterson diagnoses the eagerness of Simmias and Cebes to accept premises suggesting that the ‘‘true philosopher’’ denies the body and the senses as resulting from their
Pythagorean sympathies, sympathies that Socrates is free to exploit in making his persuasive speech (2011, pp. 172–183).
17
For instance, Peterson (2008) argues that interpreting Socrates as using eidos in the non-technical sense in some potentially confounding arguments in the Parmenides makes
clearer the strength of Socrates’ refutation of Zeno early in the dialogue and relieves us of having to say ‘‘that Socrates invokes a non-helpful and gratuitous new technical theory.’’
(p. 388)
718 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
lic where Socrates is often interpreted as introducing forms in a tech-
nical sense, Peterson says that,
the word ‘‘forms’’ (eidon) at 476a is not inevitably a technical
term. An ordinary speaker could agree to what Socrates says.
The literal meaning of eidos is ‘‘that which is seen’’ or ‘‘appear-
ance.’’ It is what is presented to the viewer. Similarly for idea,
which occurs at 479a. ‘‘Aspect’’ seems to me an approximate
equivalent in English. Proposing to have a conversation about
an aspect of things seems to me a natural and ordinary thing
to do. The use of a phrase such as ‘‘the beautiful itself’’ or ‘‘the
beautiful by itself’’ is a natural way to start a conversation about
a specific aspect of something. One might naturally in conversa-
tion want to focus on a single aspect such as beauty that many
beautiful things share. Similarly, there is no reason to take
‘‘share’’ (476d) to be some mysterious technical term. To say
in ordinary discussion that several things share beauty is simply
to say that they are all beautiful. (2011, pp. 127–128)18
In addition to Peterson’s interpretation of the eidos as a non-techni-
cal attention-focusing device, we have seen a distinction between
two rough sorts of characterizations of forms (as technical terms)
with respective sets of constraints, with the second characterization
(the so-called Platonic theory of forms) seemingly entailing greater
metaphysical and epistemological commitments, but we don’t yet
have picture of what forms are.
What forms are is one of the fundamental questions in Plato
scholarship. One view is that forms are theoretical entities in the
sense that they have explanatory roles to play, as in the fourth con-
straint on forms in each of the sets of characterizations offered
above (Harte, pp. 193–194). Whether these theoretical entities
should be understood as more ordinary (‘‘Socratic’’) definitions or
as peculiar and mysterious (‘‘Platonic’’) beings is contested. I will
proceed with a characterization of forms of the sort that Socrates
offers in the Phaedo at (75c–d) as ‘‘the things on which we put as
a seal this mark ‘what is,’ and about which we ask and answer in
our questions and answers.’’ That is, we should proceed by think-
ing of forms as explanatory definitions (as sets of properties) that
are the answers to questions about what things are.19
Whether it is reasonable to read Plato as being committed to
forms being anything more than this will hopefully become clearer
as we proceed, but I hope to have already destabilized the notion
that he is so committed on the basis of certain interpretations of
famous passages in, e.g., the Phaedo and the Republic; these inter-
pretations are not uncontested. Notice that there is no apparent
tension between a characterization of forms as explanatory defini-
tions and an evolutionary view of species. If there are, for Plato,
forms of plants and animal species, then whatever properties we
use to answer questions about what these things are (including
properties derived from our best evolutionary theories) could plau-
sibly be incorporated into the relevant form.20
5. Is there a zoo in the realm of the intelligible?
It is apparently necessary for the conclusions that Mayr draws
about Plato that Plato thought there were forms of animals. As Kit-
ts notes, ‘‘there is scarcely a claim about the forms that has not
been subject to intense debate among classicists and philoso-
phers.’’ Kitts agrees with Cornford that Plato never answers the
18
Vlastos (1969) see this participation or sharing relationship between forms and things that instantiate them, at least in the Phaedo, as more complicated and less easily
characterized, a ‘‘one-way ontological dependence relation’’ of which Plato ‘‘has yet to reach a clear-cut conception.’’ (p. 301)
19
I see this characterization as consonant with Irwin’s view of forms as objective explanatory properties (1999, p. 149).
20
If our best evolutionary theorizing tells us that species are differentiated on the basis of relational properties like phylogeny or interbreeding capacity, the resulting view
might well be a non-traditional sort of ‘‘relational essentialism’’ about species. See Griffiths (1999), Okasha (2002), and LaPorte (2004).
21
As Harte (pp. 200–201) notes, the scope of forms may also be tied to a distinction between objects of contemplation that require rational inquiry for understanding and those
that do not. The need to attend to this interpretive possibility is echoed by Kitts (1987, p. 324) on the basis of claims made by Socrates in the Republic at 523.
question of ‘‘the extent of the world of forms.’’ (Cornford, 1957,
p. 9; Kitts, 1987, p. 324)
On one view, there are forms for each group of things to which
we give a common name. ‘‘We are in the habit, I take it, of positing
a single idea or form in the case of the various multiplicities to
which we give the same name.’’ (Republic 596a) Socrates’ state-
ment is often taken as evidence on a Plato-centered reading that
Plato wanted to posit forms for a wide range of objects, presumably
including the kinds of plants and animals, since we give members
of these kinds a common name. However, Smith (1917) proposes
that the passage should be interpreted rather as a claim about
there being a one-to-one relationship between a form and the
group of particular things to which it applies; i.e., if there is a form
of X, there is just one form of X. Read in this way, 596a does not
make a claim about how broadly forms are posited, or what forms
there are (Harte, 2008, p. 200).21
On an interlocutor-centered reading of 596a, even if the passage
does entail a claim about the scope of forms, it is not clear that Soc-
rates or Plato owns the claim. Immediately preceding the above
passage at 595c Socrates and Glaucon explicitly enter into a ques-
tion and answer mode of discourse. Socrates solicits assent to the
procedure and his interlocutor grants it. In Alcibiades I (113a–b),
Socrates and Alcibiades agree that it is the answerer who has pos-
session of the answers in such discussions (Petersen, 2011, p. 8).
On a Plato-centered reading, seemingly supporting the view
that Plato is not strongly committed to positing forms for all things
to which we give a common name, Socrates in the Parmenides is
skeptical about forms of mud and dirt. More salient here, Socrates
is ambivalent on the question of whether or not there is a form for
human beings (Parmenides, 130c).
On a Plato-centered reading, supporting an interpretation of
Plato as positing forms for artifacts, animals, and objects generally,
the allegory of the cave in Book VII of the Republic has the puppe-
teers ‘‘carrying all kinds of artifacts.’’ Among these are ‘‘statues of
people and other animals.’’ (514b–c) Socrates later says that,
‘‘The visible realm should be likened to the prison dwelling and
the light inside to the power of the sun.’’ (517b) If we are to anal-
ogize in this way, and the sun outside of the cave is the form of the
good, it seems to suggest, following the analogy, that visible arti-
facts and objects (including plants and animals) also have forms.
In Book X of the Republic, Socrates seems to say that there is a form
of bed and a form of table. That there are forms for such common
classes of artifacts suggests a more global scope for forms. Socrates,
after referencing forms for beds and tables, analogizes the creation
of ‘‘all the plants that grow from the earth [and] all animals’’ to the
creation of beds and tables.
On a Plato-centered reading, a few further considerations give
some evidence that Plato was inclined to posit forms for a wide
range of objects, including biological kinds. First, in the Philebus
at 17e, Socrates says that, ‘‘every investigation should search for
the one and many. For when you have mastered these things in
this way, then you have acquired expertise there, and when you
have grasped the unity of any other things there are, you have be-
come wise about that.’’ If the various species are, for Plato, rightly
considered objects of investigation and expertise, such talk of
searching for the one and many of ‘‘other things there are’’ suggests
that Plato thinks there is a particular unifying eidos for the various
species. In the Apology at 25b, Socrates suggests that there is exper-
 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
tise of horses and ‘‘all other animals.’’ And finally, a passage in the
Meno also seems suggestive of essential properties for bees. Meno
and Socrates take it as a matter of course that Meno would be able
to tell Socrates ‘‘in which [bees] are all the same and do not differ
from one another.’’ (72b)
However suggestive these passages might be, drawing strong
conclusions about Plato’s views from their content arguably re-
quires the rejection of an interlocutor-centered interpretation
and the reasoned acceptance of a Plato-centered interpretation
for the relevant passages. Whether and how this can be done for
these passages are interesting questions. Peterson argues that we
should see the doctrinal statements in at least the above passages
from the Republic as reflecting the views of Socrates’ interlocutors
rather than the character of Socrates or Plato (Peterson, 2011, pp.
147–165).
If Plato has commitment to forms of plant and animal species,
the creation story of the Timaeus seems a natural place to look
for it. In Timaeus’s account, we find a distinction between the cre-
ated world of becoming and the eternal world of being (forms).
Timeaus introduces the demiurge as architect and creator of the
world of becoming. The demiurge takes as his templates for sensi-
ble things in the world of becoming the unchanging forms of the
world of being (28b–31b). Perhaps in some tension with the sup-
position that Plato thinks that there is simply one form for each
type of animal and plant, the Timaeus provides us with reason to
entertain the idea that Plato posited a single form for all biological
entities, Living Thing, a complex form that (somehow) encom-
passes the forms of all the animals (92c).22
There is of course the controversial question of to what extent
Plato endorsed the story offered by Timaeus. Given that Plato put
the story in the mouth of a character other than Socrates we might
think on a Plato-centered interpretation that Plato wanted to dis-
tance himself from the account.23,24 However, Timaeus is careful
to offer, at Socrates’ suggestion, a prayer to the gods and goddesses
that his speech does not go too far astray. Our attribution of any
commitment on Plato’s part to statements made by Timaeus should
additionally be tempered by Timaeus’ characterization of what
Johansen calls ‘‘the standards of cosmological argument.’’ (Johansen,
pp. 470–471) Again, in Timaeus’s account, he introduces a distinc-
tion between the created world of becoming (in part, likenesses of
forms) and the eternal world of being (forms). Timaeus seeks to pro-
vide an account of the principles governing the former (Johansen,
2008, pp. 463–467). Timaeus says that, ‘‘The accounts are of the
same kind as the very things of which they are interpreters.’’
(29b–c) According to Johansen,
From this principle, it follows that if this account is of being, and
being is ‘‘stable and certain and transparent to rationality,’’ the
account should have the same or related attributes; whereas if
the account is of a likeness, then the account should be
likely . . . likelihood for accounts of likeness is both the maxi-
mum and minimum to which they should aspire. (2008, p. 471)
Accounts of being are to be approached through dialectic, as a
search for that which is ‘‘stable, certain, and transparent to rational-
ity.’’ Accounts of becoming are, on the contrary, are merely likely
opinions whose standard is not transparency to reason, but the
22
Sellars (1959) interprets Living Thing as whole whose parts are the forms of particular animals. Seeing Living Thing as a complex form that contains simpler forms seems
broadly consonant with the definition by division activity that we see (or see referenced) in the Sophist, Republic, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Protagoras, and Meno. Peterson (2011, p. 213)
draws attention to these episodes.
23
Johansen (2008, p. 3) thinks it plausible that Plato put the creation story of the Timaeus in the mouth of a character other than Socrates in order to preserve coherence across
the dialogues; the Socrates of the Apology disavows having done natural philosophy at 19c.
24
However, Lennox (1985) is among those who see the Timaeus as fulfilling ‘‘the fondest wishes of the Socrates of Phaedo 97–99,’’ i.e., wishes for teleological explanations (p.
208).
25
See Sober (1980) for objections to Mayr’s account for its failure to distinguish local from global essentialism and problematic language with respect to ‘‘reality’’ and
‘‘abstraction.’’ (pp. 350–355)
26
I interpret Mayr as using ‘‘typologist’’ synonymously with ‘‘essentialist’’ here. See Winsor (2006).
719
acceptance of wise men suited by ‘‘nature, education, and experi-
ence’’ to thoughtfully consider cosmology (Johansen, 472; 20a–b).
Thus, even if we take it that Plato did endorse the creation story
of the Timaeus, and the account of forms there and their relationship
to plants and animals, we should be careful about what we take that
endorsement to mean; perhaps at most the endorsement consists of
granting the story the epistemic status of ‘‘likely.’’ The story is a defea-
sible account acceptable to those who have made a serious study.
We have seen here that although characters in Plato’s dialogues
do make comments suggesting forms (at least as explanatory def-
initions) for plants and animals, any attempt to give Plato owner-
ship of these remarks faces challenges. (And we should keep in
mind the possibility that some of the some uses of form-talk in
the treated passages may also be interpreted as non-technical
attention-focusing markers. Where this is the correct interpreta-
tion, the claim that Plato thought there were forms of plants and
animals seems trivial.) It is not obvious that Plato consistently
thought there are (technical sense) forms of plants and animals,
and it is also unclear what such a belief on Plato’s part might entail.
In the following section I explore some of the ways that one might
think that evolution is in tension with at least certain interpreta-
tions of Platonic form-based essentialism about species.
6. How hard is it to make evolution a problem for Plato?
Assuming that Plato did hold a view of biological species that
could be well-described as essentialist, we can still ask if and
how such a view is undermined by or inconsistent with gradual
evolution. I am proceeding here with an intuitive sense of what
it would mean for Plato’s views to be inconsistent with evolution-
ary biology; the question is roughly whether Plato believes some-
thing (e.g., about forms of plants and animals) that entails
(logically implies) that species are immutable.25
Mayr claimed that evolution undermined essentialism in biol-
ogy because it showed species to be dynamic and temporary phe-
nomenon rather than static. ‘‘[G]radual evolution is basically a
logical impossibility for the typologist.’’ (Mayr, 1959b, p. 2)26 How-
ever, Sober points out that the transmutation of elements does not
seem to undermine essentialism in chemistry. That nitrogen can
be changed into oxygen does not mean that there are not essential
properties of nitrogen and oxygen. Similarly, that Homo sapiens
evolved from an ancestral hominid species does not necessarily
mean that the two species do not each have essential properties.
While some historical essentialists (e.g. Agassiz) did advance static
doctrines of species, others (e.g. the later Linnaeus) accepted that
new species at least occasionally arose from other species (Sober,
1980, pp. 355–356).
Does Plato’s putative essentialism of biological kinds fall prey to
this stasis objection? There is indication in the Timaeus that Plato
entertained the idea that biological kinds (of some sort) could
emerge from other kinds. At 77b, Timaeus says that domestic
plants came to be by the action of the art of agriculture upon wild
plants; ‘‘But at first the only kinds were wild ones, older than our
cultivated kinds.’’ Whether the wild and domesticated plants are
different varieties, different species, different higher-order kinds,
or variations of the same higher order-kind (or whether Plato made
720 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
any such distinctions here) is unclear, but in any case, the remarks
are suggestive of transmutation. Further, the eugenics program as
given in the Republic (459–461e) suggests that Plato was aware of
the changes that could be induced in population lineages through
artificial selection. The breeding ‘‘lottery’’ is meant to improve the
guardians of Callipolis through the same process that improved the
lineages of Glaucon’s hunting dogs and fighting birds; only the
‘‘best’’ men and women are to be paired and allowed to have
offspring.27
Against attributing a stasis view to Plato, on a Plato-centered
interpretation, it sometimes seems to be a necessary property of
the world of becoming (which includes plants and animals) that
it be able to become worse. In Book III of the Republic at 381b, Soc-
rates says that those things that are most good are least susceptible
to change, but this seems to suggest that even good things (in the
world of becoming) are somewhat susceptible to change. Socrates
seems to think that the degeneracy of just cities (and presumably
analogous soul types) is inevitable (Republic Book VIII, 546). In light
of these considerations, I hesitate to say that Plato rejected the idea
that kinds could emerge from other kinds; as I see it, we cannot say
with any certainty that his (purportedly essentialist) view is sub-
ject to the stasis objection to essentialism.
If the stasis objection fails, Sober says that a more plausible
view of the undermining of essentialism by evolutionary biology
is the one advanced by Hull (1965). It is a consequence of grad-
ual evolution that species boundaries are vague. Essentialism
holds that there are essential properties endemic to each species.
The essentialist requirement is thus seen as inconsistent with
the continuities of biological entities. But given vague species
boundaries, this requirement on species seems as implausible
as demanding a specific number of hairs to delineate baldness
from non-baldness. Sober says that the force is taken out of
Hull’s argument when one considers that historical pre-Darwin-
ian essentialists were aware of line-drawing (sorites) problems.
E.g., Aristotle acknowledges the problem in History of Animals
(5888b4 ff.), but nonetheless maintains his (per Sober) essential-
ist view. Sober sees this as a coherent position. There is nothing
to prevent the essentialist from maintaining that there are vague
properties essential to a given species. Sober does concede to
Hull however that essentialism has historically been associated
with a theory of definition in which vagueness is forbidden (So-
ber, 1980, p. 356). Gradual evolution would present a serious
difficulty to biological essentialism wedded to a vagueness-pro-
scribing theory of definition.
Does Plato likely subscribe to a theory of definition that pro-
scribes vagueness in a way susceptible to Hull’s argument? There
are some reasons to think so. The Meno is in part an exploration
of what Plato takes to be an adequate definition. At 73d, Socrates
wants to add an additional qualifier to Meno’s definition of justice,
suggesting that Socrates wanted more specificity. In the Euthyphro,
Socrates’ questioning has the consequence of specifying Euthy-
phro’s definition of piety; Euthyphro begins by claiming that the
pious is what is loved by the gods, and then must specify that
the pious is what is loved by all the gods.
Although Definitions was probably not written by Plato, the def-
initions therein were plausibly the sort of definitions pursued by at
the Academy (perhaps as subjects for debate) under Plato’s direc-
tion and subsequently. In Definitions, ‘‘definition’’ is defined as
‘‘something said, comprised of genus and differentia.’’ (414d) It is
not clear to me how much this sort of definition would admit of
27
Also suggestive here are Socrates’ remarks on variation among the population of Callipolis; ‘‘For the most part, you will produce children like yourselves, but, because you are
all related, a silver child will occasionally be born from a golden parent, and vice versa, and all the others from each other.’’ (Republic 414a–b)
28
See Lennox (1980) for a treatment of Aristotle’s reservations about definition by dichotomous division.
29
See, e.g., Phaedo 97c for the link between intelligence and benevolence.
the vagueness of properties that gradual evolution would seem-
ingly require of an essentialist definition of species, or what the ex-
act relation is between the definitions in Definitions and the forms
found in the dialogues.
With these qualifications in place, however, in Definitions the
only species defined is man: ‘‘wingless, two-footed, flat-fingerna-
iled animal; the only being capable of acquiring rational knowl-
edge.’’ (415a)28 The focus on particular and at least somewhat
well-specified biological character states suggests that Plato (or
at least his students) did aspire to exclude vagueness from species
definitions. Since it is possible that other beings may someday
evolve the capacity for rational knowledge, it appears that the
truth of evolution undermines this particular essentialist definition
(though perhaps the deities were already a counter-example to
this definition during Plato’s time) if we take it that what is
wanted is a species definition that is necessarily rather than con-
ditionally true. It is plausible then on a Plato-centered reading
(and assuming that Definitions can tell us something about the de-
gree of specificity sought in Platonic species definitions) that
Hull’s argument has shown how a putatively Platonic essentialist
view of the nature of species is incompatible with Darwinian evo-
lutionary thought about the gradual evolution of species. Making
this case stronger seems to require at least giving textual evidence
for Plato’s having ownership of the moves towards specificity of
definitional properties evidenced in the Meno and Euthyphro and
historical evidence for associating the content of Definitions with
Plato.
Mayr’s argument for tension between gradual evolution and
Plato’s essentialism probably fails. The stasis argument plausibly
succeeds in highlighting a tension between a stasis-committed
essentialism and evolution, but there are reasons against thinking
that Plato held a view that is susceptible. Hull’s vagueness argu-
ment seemingly succeeds in giving a reason for thinking that
essentialism along with a theory of definition that proscribes
vagueness is incompatible with gradual evolution. There are some
reasons to think that Plato might have held this sort of view of def-
inition, but the case is rather weak in the absence of further work.
7. But what about the teleology?
There is another contender for making sense of the intuition
that there is a tension between modern evolutionary biology and
Plato’s philosophy. There is an apparent preference, e.g. in the Pha-
edo (95e–105c), on Plato’s part for teleological explanation in the
sense of explaining the features of the natural world in terms of
the plan of a benevolent intelligent agent.29 Lennox (1985) says
that,
Plato puts forward two models of explanation which he clearly
feels are preferable to those put forward by the ‘natural inves-
tigators.’ One of these types of explanation is teleological in nat-
ure . . . there is a persistent exploration of a model of skillful
craftsmanship, a major theme of the Gorgias, Cratylus, Republic
X, Timaeus, Statesman, Sophist, and Philebus. (p. 196)
Even if attributing a considered view to Plato about teleology being
a necessary part of all good explanations is perhaps premature, it is
clear that this mode of explanation is a recurring feature of his
thought. Mayr argues that Agassiz bases his anti-evolutionary views
in part on belief in a Platonic ‘‘rational plan of the universe.’’ (1959a,
p.168)
 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
If everything in the world follows an underlying plan, it
becomes the task of the naturalist to discover the a priori prin-
ciples of this plan. An empirical approach toward an establish-
ment of general principles would be a disorderly and futile
method in a rational world. (p. 169)
Mayr does not specify what he has in mind with respect to ‘‘empir-
ical’’ and ‘‘a priori’’ here. I have difficulty seeing how the belief in a
(divine) rational plan for the natural world leads inevitably to an
anti-empirical approach. Mayr acknowledges that Agassiz did
worthwhile work, work that appears to me empirical in the mini-
mal sense of drawing conclusions about the way nature operates
(with no immediate recourse to supernatural explanation) based
on careful observation (1959a, p. 168). And Agassiz’s contemporary,
Asa Gray, held Christian beliefs in divine creation that were appar-
ently no barrier to his spending his career poring over dried plants
(and finally drawing evolutionary conclusions) rather than search-
ing for a priori principles (Dupree, 1988).
Still, one might think that Mayr is correct insofar as evolution-
ary explanations might not even be the kind of explanation that
would satisfy Plato. Turning again to Socrates’ autobiographical
digression in the Phaedo, if the case can be made that Plato rejected
natural-science-type explanations (like evolution by natural selec-
tion), key textual evidence seems likely to be found in this passage.
As Vlastos puts it,
The importance of this passage could hardly be exaggerated: as
much is to be learned from it about Plato’s metaphysics, episte-
mology, and philosophy of science as from any other text of
equal length in his corpus. But it is also one of the most perplex-
ing. Scholars who have not confessed its difficulty have evi-
denced this difficulty just the same in the wild diversity of
the interpretations they have put on it. (1969, p. 291)
Indeed, this passage of the Phaedo offers one of Plato’s most exten-
sive treatments of causation, but there is considerable disagreement
about what should be made of this treatment. For our purposes, I
will make use of David Sedley’s influential interpretation that reads
‘‘cause’’ in these passages as ‘‘thing responsible.’’ (1998) At 96a–
102a, the character Socrates gives an account of the development
of his own views about causes. Socrates says that in his youth, he
was interested in ‘‘that wisdom which they call natural science.’’
As an example of this sort of wisdom, Socrates gives the belief that
the cause of a man’s growth is food and drink, because ‘‘food adds
flesh to flesh and bones to bones.’’ (96d) The cause of growth here,
the thing responsible, is flesh.
But Socrates says that he ‘‘has no natural aptitude for that kind
of investigation.’’ (96c) Socrates claims to be confused by the
apparent contradictions common to these sorts of causal claims.
For example, if flesh is the cause of growth, then flesh is also the
cause of shrinking (e.g., of the food when flesh is removed from
the food through eating), the opposite of growth (Sedley, 1998, p.
119). Flesh, it seems, for Socrates, is not correlated in the right
way with growth for flesh to be the cause of growth. Sedley labels
this sort of causation as ‘‘spurious cause.’’ These causes left Socra-
tes in confusion because they are the sorts of things liable to bring
about results that are in some sense opposites, e.g., growing and
shrinking. Socrates, on Sedley’s view, apparently sees claims that
a thing causes opposite results as highly problematic (pp. 117–118).
Although this passage has led many to think that Socrates (and
Plato, on a Plato-centered interpretation) rejected natural science
in toto, there are some considerations that should lead us to cau-
tion in drawing that conclusion. First, on one plausible interpreta-
30
Though Sedley himself seems to reject the view that Socrates is merely criticizing a certain way of speaking about causation; for Sedley, for Socrates, ‘‘the aim of causal
inquiry is to identify the thing responsible, no matter under what description.’’ (p. 122)
721
tion, Socrates does not commit himself to the rejection of natural
causes per se, but only points out a flaw in a certain locution used
by some natural philosophers with pretenses of providing an ade-
quate causal story.30 E.g., for Socrates, when Anaxagoras says that
‘‘air and ether and water and many other strange things’’ are the
cause of the world being as it is, there is reason to doubt that we
thereby have an adequate etiological account. Famously, Socrates
says that such accounts are as absurd as saying that the reason that
he is in prison (rather than escaping) is bones and sinews. The absur-
dity is apparent once we realize that bones and sinews are just as
compatible with escaping as they are with staying in prison (98c–
99c). Similarly, air, ether, etc. are compatible with the world being
other than how it is, and so cannot explain the actual state of the
world. This does not seem to be an unreasonable criticism of a cer-
tain sort of causal claim, and it does not obviously commit one to
the rejection of natural sciences; one might think that this sort of
criticism might lead to more adequate explanatory standards for
natural sciences.
Although Socrates characterizes ‘‘that wisdom that they call
natural science’’ as offering this sort of problematic causal lan-
guage, the mapping of this sort of causal locution and Socrates’
objection to it onto our modern conception of natural science is
not straightforward, and it is far from clear that evolution by nat-
ural selection, properly described, is subject to this criticism. In the
Apology at 19c, Socrates, speaking of ‘‘studying things in the sky
and below the earth,’’ says, ‘‘I do not speak in contempt of such
knowledge if someone is wise in these things.’’ It is not transparent
on the basis of textual evidence that the Socrates of either the Apol-
ogy or the Phaedo was committed to the rejection of natural
science.
But even if Plato did not reject the sorts of explanations offered
by what we now call natural science, perhaps Plato thought that
this sort of explanation was not complete. Maybe, for Plato, even
if we have an adequate account of some feature of the world in
terms of natural causes, a complete explanation also requires a tel-
eological component.
Assuming that Plato was committed to considering the inclu-
sion of a teleological component as necessary for a complete expla-
nation, there are long-recognized philosophical reasons for
thinking that such a requirement is not clearly incompatible with
the truth of any particular naturalistic explanation, including evo-
lution by natural selection. The reason for this, in short, as Des-
cartes was wont to point out, is that we do not have access to
the mind of God (Descartes and Cottingham 1985, p. 202). In a
more recent instantiation of this general point, Sober (2007) con-
cludes that intelligent design theory fails to be a serious scientific
alternative to evolution by natural selection because the former
(without making substantial assumptions about the intentions of
God and the nature of divine action) has no clear observational pre-
dictions that differ from those of the latter. As Sober has it, ‘‘Taken
alone, the statement that an intelligent designer made the verte-
brate eye does not have observational consequences other than
the entailment that vertebrates have eyes.’’ (p. 5) Because we do
not know the intentions or modes of action of the Creator we can-
not know what kind of world such a being would create or how
they would do it. Therefore, it is perfectly coherent to claim, for
example, that evolution by natural selection is the workmanship
of a demiurge whose intentions were, as the Timaeus would have
it, aimed at what is best (30a–b). The additional teleological layer
of this explanation is, on contemporary notions of science, extra-
scientific to be sure. But the explanatory strategy is not impugned
by incoherence, and if proponents of this sort of dual-level expla-
722 J. Powers / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013) 714–723
nation have independent philosophical or theological reasons to
posit such a creator, then supernatural teleological additions to
naturalistic explanations may be quite reasonable.
We have seen that Plato did not obviously reject what we now
think of as natural science, and that the alleged teleological com-
mitments of Plato are not obviously incongruous with belief in
Darwinian evolution. But there is at least one belief about biology
that is straightforwardly inconsistent with a belief in Darwinian
evolution. This is the belief, held by Louis Agassiz, that species
were each specially created immutably in their present form. In
the next section, I will suggest that Ernst Mayr attributes anti-evo-
lutionary beliefs to Plato in part on the basis of associating Plato
with Agassiz.31
8. Plato and Agassiz: guilt by association
Louis Agassiz held views that were explicitly anti-evolutionary
and specifically (at least for long periods of his career) believed
that species were immutable and specially created (Lurie, 1959).
Mayr diagnoses Agassiz’s resistance to evolution on the basis of
ways of thinking that Mayr takes to have their ultimate origin in
Plato. Here are two revealing quotations from Agassiz that Mayr
uses to support his thesis:
Natural History must, in good time, become an analysis of the
thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the
animal and vegetable kingdoms. (Agassiz, 1857, p. 135; Mayr,
1959a, p. 171)
As the community of characters among the beings belonging to
these different categories arises from the intellectual connec-
tion which shows them to be categories of thought, they cannot
be the result of a gradual, material differentiation of the objects
themselves. (Agassiz, 1860, p. 143; Mayr, 1959a, p 173)
Agassiz’s ‘‘categories of thought’’ does at least superficially sound
much like popular conceptions of Platonic forms. In the second quo-
tation, Agassiz marshals a conception of biological entities as cate-
gories of thought in an argument against Darwinian evolution. One
can see how easy it would be to conclude that Plato’s eidos is inher-
ently anti-evolutionary. Further, Agassiz, as in the first quotation,
interpreted the world as a product of a divine plan, and Plato’s writ-
ings also suggest a strong interest in interpreting the world in this
way. Given that Agassiz was a convinced anti-evolutionist, and his
thought bears strong apparent resemblance to Plato’s with respect
to its idealistic elements and its teleology, it is perhaps unsurprising
that Mayr interpreted Plato as he did. But it is rash to judge the
thinkers of the past based upon the views of their interpreters or
those who held apparently similar views. I will close now by mak-
ing a few general remarks about the Platonic dialogues and claims
about the entailment relations between various metaphysical views
and the theory of evolution by natural selection.
9. Losing Ernst Mayr’s Plato
Plato wrote fictional dialogues with strong dramatic elements
about philosophical themes. Discerning the considered philosoph-
ical positions of the authors of such works on the basis of the
words and deeds of the characters in them is difficult. Plato’s dia-
logues are widely interpreted as being centrally about ethics, how
to live the best life. Even in the case of the long cosmological
monologue in the Timaeus, the project is often seen by scholars
31
Mayr claims that Popper was influential in his reading of Plato. See Klosko (1996) for an assessment of Popper’s treatment of Plato.
32
See, e.g., Lennox (1985, p. 218) and Johansen (2008, Introduction).
33
See, e.g., McGrath (2011) and Ruse (2009).
34
See Pigliucci (2003) and Love (2009).
as more edificatory than scientific.32 In cases where the dialogues
deal with more metaphysical topics, i.e. forms, it is notoriously diffi-
cult to pin Plato down to a recurrent and consistent view. My own
view is that it is more reasonable to read such passages as explora-
tions of philosophical ideas and their consequences rather than trea-
tises arguing for them. This sort of reading is amenable to
appreciating what Grene (1989) has called ‘‘the inexhaustible rich-
ness and deep pluralism of Plato’s thought,’’ and also amenable to
the avoidance of an unwarranted conflation of what Plato wrote with
‘‘some very general tendency that gets called ‘Platonism’ or specific
doctrines of specific members of the neo-Platonic tradition.’’ (p. 69)
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is about bio-
logical organisms and their histories, not philosophical ethics, reli-
gion, or metaphysics, though interpretations of his theory have
been used to argue for a wide variety of views about all three.
Throughout the history of the science, prominent evolutionary
biologists have held wildly diverse positions on the meaning of
evolution for philosophy and religion.33 This heterogeneity suggests
that if there are any necessary connections between certain meta-
physical, ethical, or religious views and Darwinian evolution, those
connections are not apparent in any consensus-generating way to
those most familiar with the science. It appears that the only sorts
of beliefs that are obviously inconsistent with evolution by natural
selection are beliefs about biology. Louis Agassiz held clearly and
explicitly anti-evolutionary views in biology and philosophical views
that recall popular interpretations of Platonic philosophy. But the
fact that these sets of beliefs resided in the same infamous 19th cen-
tury biologist ought not unduly influence our interpretations of the
ancient philosopher, or lead us to believe that what Plato wrote is
foundational to the recalcitrance of some biologists at the dawn of
the evolutionary era.
Ernst Mayr’s case for seeing Plato as a philosopher who held
views that are strongly at odds with evolutionary biology looks
suspect at best. First, there is relatively little consensus among Pla-
to scholars about the meaning of much of Plato’s work, as the volu-
minous Plato literature attests. Second, even if we could say with
some certainty what Plato thought or meant in his dialogues, there
are reasons to deny that putatively Platonic views like certain vari-
eties of essentialism and teleology entail any straight-forward
inconsistency with the core elements of Darwin’s theory.
Mayr’s essentialism narrative continues to echo through discus-
sions of both the history of biological thought and current attempts
to conceptualize important biological kind terms (e.g.,‘‘species’’
and ‘‘vertebrate limb’’).34 But for the reasons presented here, I think
it time that interlocutors in these discussions, biologists and those of
us in science studies, exercise more caution with respect to glib ref-
erences to Plato’s view of nature and idiomatic deployment of ‘‘Pla-
tonic essentialism.’’
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lee Shepski, Clerk Shaw, Sandra Peterson, Alan Love,
Greg Radick, and two anonymous reviewers for encouragement
and helpful comments.
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