Natural kinds and freaks of nature

Philosophy of Science 49 (1):67-90 (1982)
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Abstract

Essentialism--understood as the doctrine that there are natural kinds--can be sustained with respect to the most fundamental physical entities of the world, as I elsewhere argue. In this paper I take up the question of the existence of natural kinds among complex structures built out of these elementary ones. I consider a number of objections to essentialism, in particular Locke's puzzle about the existence of borderline cases. A number of recent attempts to justify biological taxonomy are critically examined. I conclude that theory partially justifies such taxonomies but supports only a weaker form of essentialism

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Evan Fales
University of Iowa

References found in this work

Meaning and reference.Hilary Putnam - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (19):699-711.
Evolution, population thinking, and essentialism.Elliott Sober - 1980 - Philosophy of Science 47 (3):350-383.
A matter of individuality.David L. Hull - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (3):335-360.
Is semantics possible?Hilary Putnam - 1970 - Metaphilosophy 1 (3):187–201.
The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis.David L. Hull - 1964 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 15 (60):314-326.

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