Original sentence: A counterpoint to the nominalist views in regard to species, was raised by Michael Ghiselin who argued that an individual species is not a type, but rather an actual individual, an actual entity.If viewed as an entity, a species would exist regardless of whether or not people have observed it and whether or not it has been given a name.In this view, the kinds of things that people have given names to, do not reflect any underlying reality.It then follows that species do not exist outside the mind, because species are just named abstractions.Some philosophical variants of Nominalism propose that species are just names that people have assigned to groups of creatures but where the lines between species get drawn does not reflect any fundamental underlying biological cut-off point
Edited sentence: A useful counterpoint to the nominalist view, in regard to species, was raised by Michael Ghiselin who argued that an individual species is not a type, but rather an actual individual, an actual entity.As an entity, a species exists quite regardless of whether or not people have observed it and whether or not it has been given a name based on traits shared by the organisms in the species.If the nominalist view is correct, then kinds of things that people have given names to, do not reflect any underlying reality.It would then follow that species do not exist outside the mind, because species are just named abstractions.Nominalism proposes that species are just names that people have assigned to groups of creatures but where the lines between species get drawn does not reflect any fundamental underlying biological cut-off point.This can be a troubling idea, particularly to a biologist who studies species