Online research in philosophy

Many realists on kinds deem it highly controversial to consider artefact kinds real kinds on a par with natural ones. There is a built-in tendency in realism to conceive of artefact kinds as merely a conventional classification used for practical purposes. One can individuate three main different approaches characterizing real kinds and accordingly three different types of arguments against viewing artefact kinds as real kinds: the metaphysical, the epistemological and the semantic arguments. The aim of this contribution is to undermine the thesis that it is possible to trace a clear distinction between artefacts and natural kinds in each of these approaches. As a consequence there are no metaphysical, epistemological and semantic bases for claiming that artefact kinds as opposed to natural ones are not real kinds.

In addition to being one of the world's most influential philosophers, Aristotle can also be credited with the creation of both the science of biology and the philosophy of biology. He was the first thinker to treat the investigations of the living world as a distinct inquiry with its own special concepts and principles. This book focuses on a seminal event in the history of biology - Aristotle's delineation of a special branch of theoretical knowledge devoted to the systematic investigation of animals. Aristotle approached the creation of zoology with the tools of subtle and systematic philosophies of nature and of science that were then carefully tailored to the investigation of animals. The papers collected in this volume, written by a pre-eminent figure in the field of Aristotle's philosophy and biology, examine Aristotle's approach to biological inquiry and explanation, his concepts of matter, form and kind, and his teleology.

Realist accounts of natural kinds rely on an account of causation where the relata of causal relations are real and discrete. These views about natural kinds entail very different accounts of causation. In particular, the necessity of the causal relation given the instantiation of the properties of natural kinds is more robust in the fundamental sciences (e.g. physics and chemistry) than it is in the life sciences (e.g. biology and the medical sciences). In this paper, I wish to argue that there is a difference in kind between the putative natural kinds of the fundamental sciences and those of the life sciences, such that a uniform account of causation cannot capture both. The upshot is that we must either reject the claim that the kinds of the life sciences are genuine natural kinds, or accept that there are different kinds of causal relations involving the relata of natural kinds. I accept the latter. I reject the objection that the true causal relations that relate macro-level kinds are to be found by “going down a level” to causal relation at the fundamental kind, because the relevant causal mechanisms are not at the fundamental level. Since, autonomous mechanistic accounts of causal relations at the macro-level can be provided (e.g. in Biology and medicine), I argue that realism about the natural kinds of the life sciences is justified. I address the problem of negative causation as a counterexample to the positive account of causation that is entailed by realism about natural kinds in the life sciences. I argue that an acceptance of realist accounts of two different kinds of natural kind makes a uniform analysis of causation look unpromising. (277 words).

I defend a view of the species category, pluralistic realism, which is designed to do justice to the insights of many different groups of systematists. After arguing that species are sets and not individuals, I proceed to outline briefly some defects of the biological species concept. I draw the general moral that similar shortcomings arise for other popular views of the nature of species. These shortcomings arise because the legitimate interests of biology are diverse, and these diverse interests are reflected in different legitimate approaches to the classification of organisms. In the final section, I show briefly how the pluralistic approach can help to illuminate some areas of biological and philosophical dispute.

This paper examines whether structural realism entails an anti-realist thesis about natural kinds. Structural Realism is the view that the scientific realist can only support a realist claim about the structure of reality rather than its objects. Ladyman (1998) (2002) & French & Ladyman (2003) motivate the claim that ontic structural realism eliminates ‘objects’ as a distinct ontological category, thereby eliminating any possibility of a metaphysical account of individual objects. This is empirically motivated by fundamental physics. Those inclined towards realism about the rest of the sciences (chemistry, biology, the medical sciences, economics and so on) might think the appeal of structural realism as a general metaphysics for all of the sciences limited. Nevertheless, recent literature argues that mature special sciences e.g. economics, can be equally described by mathematical/syntactic models making the appeal of structural realism a more general one for the metaphysics of all of the sciences. {Ross (2006)}. Given a commitment to ontic structural realism, if natural kinds are kinds of “object”, then anti-realism about natural kinds should follow. However, I examine two realist theses about natural kinds and argue that a commitment to structural realism is not straightforwardly inconsistent with either.

There are a number of “realism” issues in biology, issues about what “exists,” what is “real,” what is “objective.”[1] In general, realism issues tend to be confused and the biological ones are no exception. We shall see that the interesting “realism” issues in biology are best seen as ones over which kinds “carve nature at its joints,” which ones are “natural kinds.” And that seeing them as “realism” issues has caused unclarity and confusion.

In thinking about Aristotle in relation to the idea of natural kinds it is useful to begin with his definition of nature or what is natural, and then to consider his discussion of biological kinds or ?????. In recent philosophy, there is a tendency to contrast natural kinds with linguistic or conventional kinds, but we do not find that contrast in Aristotle. Instead, he distinguishes natural beings from artifacts, and that contrast, in turn, draws upon his theory of causation or explanation. Natural beings, animals and plants for example, have an internal origin of motion and change whereas the origin of motion and change of artifacts is external. (Phys. ii, 1 192b 8-23) The origin of motion, or efficient cause, is one of Aristotle’s four causes; it is grouped by Aristotle with the formal and final causes and contrasted with the material cause. To call something natural in Aristotle’s parlance, then, is to locate its causal or explanatory principles within the thing itself.[1] In the Parts of Animals, Aristotle emphasizes and explains the importance of the final cause in relation to understanding animals, although the material cause also plays a secondary role. Animal parts, like other instruments, are “for the sake of” a goal or end, and Aristotle identifies that end with an action or activity that is central to the life of the animal. Aristotle illustrates this point with an artifact: “For sawing is not for the sake of the saw, but the saw for sawing; for sawing is a certain use. So the body too is in a way for the sake of the soul, and the parts are for the sake of the functions in relation to which each of them has naturally developed.” (P.A. 645b 17-20) For example, eyes naturally develop for the sake of seeing, and it is for the sake of that activity that Aristotle thinks we should explain the development of eyes in animals. Unlike the artifact (the saw), however, the parts of animals have an internal teleological principle because the activity of seeing (the final cause) is just one of the life activities of the animal itself. In contrast, the shaping of the saw’s parts for the sake of sawing is accomplished by an external agent, who must be mentioned in an explanation of its creation and its purpose. Combining Aristotle’s notion of a natural being with his understanding of the “for the sake of which”, or final cause, a picture of animals (and their functional parts) emerges..

Stars are conspicuously absent from reflections on natural kinds and scientific classifications, with gold, tiger, jade, and water getting all the philosophical attention. This is too bad for, as this paper will demonstrate, interesting philosophical lessons can be drawn from stellar taxonomy as regards two central, on-going debates about natural kinds, to wit, the monism/pluralism debate and the realism/antirealism debate. I’ll show in particular that stellar kinds will not please the essentialist monist, nor for that matter will it please the pluralist embracing promiscuous realism à la Dupré.

The question of moral realism—whether our ethical beliefs rest on some objective foundation—is one that mattered as much to Aristotle as it does to us today, and his writings on this topic continue to provide inspiration for the contemporary debate. This volume of essays expands the fruitful conversation among scholars of ancient philosophy and contemporary ethical theorists on this question and related issues such as the virtues, justice, and Aristotle’s theory of tragedy.The distinguished contributors to this volume enrich and clarify both Aristotle’s views and the contemporary debates. This book makes an important contribution to both topics, and it will be essential reading for all philosophers and classicists with an interest in moral philosophy and Greek ethics.

when it is actually heating water; an object is perceptible only when it is actually being 1 perceived-- and so on. But, it is part of the notion of a causal power that it exists whether or not it is active. In order to respond to this challenge Aristotle draws a distinction between two ways of being a power; when it is active the power exists actually; when it is inactive it exists potentially. Contemporary writers have noted that we need a way of understanding powers that includes their present but inactive existence (Harre 1970,p. 84), although Aristotle’s ontological response to this difficulty might seem wrong-headed or unnecessary. One objectionable aspect to his solution is the inherently teleological relationship between being x potentially and being x actually. Second, Aristotle does not draw an ontological distinction between those powers that operate with reason (e.g. crafts like housebuilding or arts like medicine), and those that do not. He does provide different conditions of realization for the two kinds of powers, but those conditions are variants within the same ontology of causal powers. In this regard, Aristotle offers one possible realist framework of causal powers that sees human action (and hence the social sciences) on a continuum with the physical sciences rather than as categorically (ontologically) different from them, and therefore requiring an entirely different explanatory framework. It is important to note, however, that Aristotle’s paradigmatic physical science is biology and his framework for understanding natural living beings (organisms) is teleological. Perhaps a better way to put this is that Aristotle’s understanding of the physical sciences (e.g. chemistry) is entirely different from ours, and it is a good question how relevant Aristotle’s unified framework of causal powers is given current conceptions of the physical sciences, and the centrality of physics and chemistry as models of the physical sciences. The common theme that unites both of these aspects of Aristotle’s ontology of causal powers is the central presence of teleology..