Abstract
In this chapter, I reflect on the genealogical entanglements of species and population as the reigning figure for the human. I consider how species/population emerged at the nexus of eighteenth-century natural history and political economy. I then argue that this emergence informs both the ways that political economy provides the bio-logic of capitalism and the ways that the “human species” makes this bio-logic make sense as the dominant calculus through which we partition and participate in the world.
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Notes
- 1.
For the distinctions between Linnaeus’ and Buffon’s theories of species, especially with respect to the natural history of humans, see Philip Sloan. 1995. “The Gaze of Natural History.” In Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, edited by Christopher Fox, Roy Porter, and Robert Wokler, 112–151. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- 2.
On Foucault and “police,” see Ed Cohen 2009. A Body Worth Defending: Immunity, Biopolitics and the Apotheosis of the Modern Body. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 93–98.
- 3.
For an overview of the debates see the entry on “species” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/ (Accessed April 2, 2011). For an extended treatment of the positions, see David Stamos. 2003 The Species Problem: Biological Species, Ontology, and the Metaphysics of Biology. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. On humans as a species, see John Dupré. 2002. Humans and Other Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 4.
See also Sloan, Phillip. 1987 “From Logical Universals to Historical Individuals: Buffon’s Idea of Biological Species.” In Histoire du Concept d’Éspece dans les Sciences de la Vie, edited by Scott Atran, 101–139. Paris: Foundation Singer-Polignac.; Balme, D.M. 1962. “Genos and Eidos in Aristotle’s Biology.” The Classical Quarterly. N.S. 12 (1): 81–98; Grene, Marjorie. 1974. “Is Genus to Species as Matter to Form? Aristotle and Taxonomy.” Synthese 28 (1): 51–69; and John Mouracade, ed. 2007. Aristotle on Life. Kelowna, B.B.: Academic Printing and Publishing.
- 5.
For a recent reflection on the contemporary implications of human species-being, see Michael Dillon and Luis Lobo-Guerrero. 2009. “The Biopolitical Imaginary of Species-being.” Theory, Culture, and Society 26 (1): 1–23.
- 6.
For my extended elaboration how “the body” becomes a proper metonym for the person, Cohen. 2009. A Body Worth Defending.
- 7.
The full title of Linnaeus’ text was Systema naturae sive regna tria natura: that is, The System of Nature or the Three Kingdoms of Nature—meaning mineral, plant, and animal.
- 8.
If we consider that this reproductive valence introduces the possibility for conceiving the individual and population as “related” through production and reproduction, then we understand better why Foucault claims that sexuality exists at and as the interface “the anatomo-politics of the human body” and “the biopolitics of populations,” the former focused on “the body as machine” and the latter on “the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes.” Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality: An introduction, Volume I. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon, 139.
- 9.
This criteria also founds Buffon’s critique of Linnaeus’ more expansive use of species to include inanimate as well as animate being. The quote continues: “it is clear that this denomination must only extend to animals and plant and it is by an abuse of terms or ideas that the taxonomers [nomenclateurs] use it to designate different sorts of minerals” (Comte de Buffon 1753, 386).
- 10.
On Buffon and race: Nicholas Hudson. 1996. “From ‘Nation’ to ‘Race’: The Origin of Racial Classification in Eighteenth-Century Thought.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 29 (3): 247–264; Sloan, Phillip R. 1973. “The Idea of Racial Degeneration in Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 3: 293–321; Curran, Andrew. 2009. “Rethinking Race History: The Role of the Albino in French Enlightenment Life Sciences.” History and Theory 48 (3): 151–179.
- 11.
Special is the adjectival form of species.
- 12.
Linnaeus developed his famous binomial nomenclature precisely to facilitate his students’ ability to discern the plants on which cows, pigs, and sheep feed and thereby to improve animal husbandry (Lisbet Koener. 1999. Linnaeus: Nature and Nation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 101–104).
- 13.
Smith cites Buffon in his very first publication, “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review.” The Works of Adam Smith. Vol. 5 London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1811. 567–584. On the letter see: Jeffrey Lomonaco. 2002. “Adam Smith’s “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review.” Journal of the History of Ideas 63 (4): 659–676.
- 14.
Malthus is a “Newtonian” for whom empirical data (supposedly) provides the ground for theoretical formulation. He critiques Godwin and Condorcet as Cartesians who seek to make the data fit the theory. Waltzer, Arthur. 1987. “Logic and Rhetoric in Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 73(1): 1–17; Winch, Donald. 1996. “Malthus versus Condorcet Revisited.” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 3 (1): 44–60; and I. B. Cohen. “Newton and the Social Sciences.” In Philip Mirowski, ed. Natural Images in Economic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- 15.
David McNally argues that it was precisely Malthus’ Newtonianism that enabled his theory of population to be taken up as “natural law.” See McNally, David. 1990. Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism: A Reinterpretation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- 16.
On Darwin’s relation to Malthus, see Young, Robert. 1985. Darwin’s Metaphor: Nature’s Place in Victorian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Vorzimmer, Peter. 1969. “Darwin, Malthus and the theory of natural selection,” Journal of the History of Ideas 30 (4): 527–542; Herbert, Sandra. 1971. “Darwin, Malthus and selection,” Journal of the History of Biology, 4 (2): 209–217; Bowler, Peter. 1976. “Malthus, Darwin and the Struggle for Survival.” Journal of the History of Ideas 37(4): 631–650; Ariew, André. 2007. “Under the Influence of Malthus’ Law of Population Growth: Darwin Eschews the Statistical Techniques of Adolphe Quetelet.” Studies of History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Science 38(1): 1–19.
In 1839 after reading Malthus, Darwin cites the Essay in the following in his Notebook E:‘And since the world began, the causes of population & depopulation have been probably as constant as any of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted.’—this applies to one species—I would apply it not only to population & depopulation, but extermination & production of new forms.—their number & correlations. (3; http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=CUL-DAR124.-&keywords=e+notebook&pageseq=1. Accessed April 1, 2016)
- 17.
“Darwin’s solution for the multiplication of species and his discovery of a theory of common descent were accompanied by a number of other conceptual shifts. The most important one was his abandonment of essentialism in favor of gradualism and population thinking” (Mayr 1989, 176).
- 18.
See Darwin’s (1859) demurral in On the Origin of Species:“From these remarks it will be seen that I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences is also applied arbitrarily, and for mere convenience sake.” (52)
Needless to say, as with all things Darwin, there is much controversy about Darwin’s position on “species.” For a detailed summary of the history of the arguments and an attempt at resolving them, see Stamos, David. 2007. Darwin and the Nature of Species. Albany: SUNY Press.
- 19.
For a survey of non-Malthusian theories of evolution, see Todes, Daniel. 1989. Darwin without Malthus: the Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought. New York: Oxford University Press; Sapp, Jan. 1997. Evolution by Association: A History of Symbiosis. New York: Oxford.
- 20.
As early as 1842 in his “First Pencil Sketch of the Species Theory,” Darwin writes the following series of notes to himself:But considering the enormous geometrical power of increase in every organism and as every country, in ordinary cases, must be stocked to the full extent, reflection will show that this is the case. Malthus on man—in animals no moral restraint […] the pressure is always ready … a thousand wedges are being forced into the economy of nature. This requires much reflection; study Malthus and calculate rates of increase and remember the resistance—only periodical. … In the course of a thousand generations infinitesimally small differences must invariably tell. (Quote in Young 1985. Darwin’s Metaphors. 41. For facsimile of the original see http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=image&itemID=CUL-DAR6.1-13&pageseq=1, Accessed April 1, 2016)
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The text is a revised version of a previous online publication appeared in e-misférica 10.1 (winter 2013). I thank the editor for permission to reproduce this text.
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Cohen, E. (2018). Human Tendencies. In: Meloni, M., Cromby, J., Fitzgerald, D., Lloyd, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_37
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