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How to Fix Kind Membership: A Problem for HPC Theory and a Solution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Thomas A. C. Reydon
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Abstract

Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recognized natural kinds are supposed to do in “standard” scientific explanations. Breaking down this categorical distinction between traditional natural kinds and other kinds of kinds, I argue, delivers two goods: It provides us with a view of natural kindhood that does justice to the epistemic roles of kinds in scientific explanations. And it allows us to solve a problem that HPC theory, currently one of the more popular accounts of natural kindhood, confronts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 2009 , pp. 724 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Research for this article was supported by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grants RE 2613/1-1 and RE 2613/1-2).

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