Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms
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Koslicki, K. (2008). Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms. Philosophy Compass, 3(4), 789-802. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00157.x
Link to Related Item
http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00157.x
Abstract
Description
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.
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http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
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© 2008 K. Koslicki et al. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.
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Language
en