ABSTRACT
Biodiversity is an ambiguous concept. Its basic ambiguity results from the circumstance that it refers to both facts and values. This ambiguity can be traced back to the given fact that the concept of biodiversity was coined in the context of conservation biology to draw attention to species loss. Secondary ambiguities ground in its reference to different kinds of facts and values. These ambiguities bring about that lifeworldly as well as scientific discussions of biodiversity issues are fairly susceptible to semantic and evaluative confusions (cf. e.g. Takacs 1996; Callicott, Crowder and Mumford 1999; Sarkar 2005).
