Natural kinds and natural kind terms
Philosophy Compass 3 (4):789-802 (2008)
| Abstract | The aim of this article is to illustrate how a belief in the existence of kinds may be justified for the particular case of natural kinds: particularly noteworthy in this respect is the weight borne by scientific natural kinds (e.g., physical, chemical, and biological kinds) in (i) inductive arguments; (ii) the laws of nature; and (iii) causal explanations. It is argued that biological taxa are properly viewed as kinds as well, despite the fact that they have been by some alleged to be individuals. Since it turns out that the arguments associated with the standard Kripke/Putnam semantics for natural kind terms only establish the non-descriptiveness of natural kind terms and not their rigidity, the door is open to analyze these terms as denoting traditional predicate-extensions. Finally, special issues raised by physical and chemical kinds are considered briefly, in particular impurities, isotopes and the threat of incommensurability. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesChristian Nimtz (2004). Two-Dimensionalism and Natural Kind Terms. Synthese 138 (1):125-48.
Louis C. Charland (2002). The Natural Kind Status of Emotion. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (4):511-37.
J. Brown (1998). Natural Kind Terms and Recognitional Capacities. Mind 107 (426):275-303.
Ingo Brigandt (2009). Natural Kinds in Evolution and Systematics: Metaphysical and Epistemological Considerations. Acta Biotheoretica 57:77-97.
Mohan Matthen (1984). Ostension, Names and Natural Kind Terms. Dialogue 23 (01):44-58.
Asa Maria Wikforss (2005). Naming Natural Kinds. Synthese 145 (1):65-87.
Corine Besson (2010). Rigidity, Natural Kind Terms, and Metasemantics. In Helen Beebee & Nigel Sabbarton-Leary (eds.), The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds. Routledge.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads143 ( #2,846 of 549,084 )Recent downloads (6 months)13 ( #5,011 of 549,084 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
