2010-03-19
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Where are new categories needed?
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Nathan WildmanTilburg University University of Glasgow
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The 'Essentialism' section is a bit of a mess: there are papers on
Feminist essentialism, natural kind essentialism, individual object
essentialism, historical papers about Locke, and discussions about
cultural essentialism. Would it be possible to make some sub-categories
to distinguish between these various forms of essentialism? In
particular, it might be beneficial to demarcate the 'fundamental'
essentialisms from the other sorts (and then maybe to further demarcate
the metaphysical essentialisms by type), e.g. have as a broad selection
of categories
Metaphysical/Scientific Essentialism Feminist Essentialism Aesthetic Essentialism Psychological Essentialism Political/Cultural Essentialism
These
could then have subsequent sub-categories which focus upon particular
debates (unless of course there isn't enough papers within each
category to require sub-categories).
I make this
suggestion for a pair of reasons. First, if I'm going to look for papers concerning Feminist
Epistemology and gender essentialism, I'm going to be pretty confused
when I come up with articles about mereological essentialism. Second, the Essentialism category already has 221 papers, which is way more than it really should (compare it to its sibling category, Origins Essentialism, which has 12). Many of the papers could be shunted off into their respective sub-categories, rendering the category into something a bit easier to handle (and more in line with the categorization project guidelines).
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