scholarly journals Two approaches to natural kinds

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith K. Crane
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Scientific Kinds ◽  
Science Approach ◽  
Inductive Inferences ◽  
Philosophical Questions

AbstractPhilosophical treatments of natural kinds are embedded in two distinct projects. I call these the philosophy of science approach and the philosophy of language approach. Each is characterized by its own set of philosophical questions, concerns, and assumptions. The kinds studied in the philosophy of science approach are projectible categories that can ground inductive inferences and scientific explanation. The kinds studied in the philosophy of language approach are the referential objects of a special linguistic category—natural kind terms—thought to refer directly. Philosophers may hope for a unified account addresses both sets of concerns. This paper argues that this cannot be done successfully. No single account can satisfy both the semantic objectives of the philosophy of language approach and the explanatory projects of the philosophy of science approach. After analyzing where the tensions arise, I make recommendations about assumptions and projects that are best abandoned, those that should be retained, and those that should go their separate ways. I also recommend adopting the disambiguating terminology of “scientific kinds” and “natural kinds” for the different notions of kinds developed in these different approaches.

Natural Kinds

Philosophy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bird
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Weather System ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Philosophical Questions

It appears to us that things in the natural world divide into different kinds. The most obvious examples come from biology. Cats are clearly distinct from mice; while both kinds show variation, all the cats are more similar to one another than they are to any mouse. We see different kinds of tree and different kinds of lichen. These are kinds that are apparent to any reasonably careful observer. Other kinds seem to be revealed by science. The chemical revolution gave us new ideas about what it is to be a chemical element, and in the subsequent decades many dozens of these different basic chemical kinds were revealed. The following century uncovered a multiplicity of different kinds of fundamental physical particle. While at a different set of scales, geologists distinguish different kinds of rock, meteorologists distinguish different kinds of weather system, and astronomers distinguish different kinds of galaxy. The philosophical questions that natural kinds generate can themselves be categorized into three types as they relate to metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. (It should be noted nonetheless that discussion of these questions quite rightly overlaps these fields. Consequently, works listed in this article may be relevant to further sections in addition to the ones they are listed under.) Here are examples of the philosophical questions surrounding natural kinds. Does the world itself genuinely have a structure of objective natural kinds, so that there are natural divisions of things by kinds? And do our actual natural classifications match those kinds? Or are what we take to be kinds merely the product of a particular non-objective perspective? How does a natural kind (or belonging to a natural kind) differ from other natural properties? In virtue of what do things group themselves into kinds? How is kind membership determined—for example, by necessary and sufficient conditions or by something else? Do, indeed, natural kinds have essences? Are there entities that are the natural kinds? Do our natural kind terms refer to such entities rather as names refer to objects? Is there a non-trivial way of spelling out the idea of rigid designation for natural kinds terms? Do the semantics of natural kind terms vindicate essentialism about kinds? Does what we discover about kinds in the special sciences (e.g., concerning chemical substances and biological species) support or undermine philosophical conceptions of kinds?

scholarly journals Being Sceptical about Kripkean A Posteriori Necessities and Natural Kinds

2021 ◽  
Vol - (6) ◽  
pp. 98-117
Author(s):  
Dmytro Sepetyi
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Theoretical Identity ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Specific Sense ◽  
Trivial Consequence

The article discusses Saul Kripke’s influential theories of a posteriori necessary truths and natural kinds. With respect to the statements of identity involving proper names, it is argued that although their truth is a posteriori and necessary in the specific sense of counterfactual invariance, this is of no significance for substantial philosophical issues beyond the philosophy of language, because this counterfactual invariance is a trivial consequence of the use of proper names as rigid designators. The case is made that the expansion of the realm of necessary a posteriori truths to the statements of theoretical identity that involve “natural kind terms”, as well as the Kripkean essentialist theory of natural kinds, have no weighty argumentative support and fit badly both with science and language practice. This sets the stage for the development of an appropriately sophisticated “descriptivist” account of meaning and reference that would be better suited for a widened range of Kripke-Putnam style thought experiments. The general outlines of such a descriptivist account are provided.

scholarly journals The Psychology of Natural Kind Terms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Foster-Hanson ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

Draft of chapter to appear in: The Psychology of Natural Kinds Terms. In S.T. Biggs, & H. Geirsson (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Linguistic Reference. London: Routledge.

What Are Natural Kinds?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Soames
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Actual World ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
General Term ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
World State ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Ontological Question

This chapter approaches the ontological question, “What are natural kinds?” through another, partially linguistic, question. “What must natural kinds be like if the conventional wisdom about natural kind terms is correct?” Although answering this question will not tell us everything we want to know, it will, be useful in narrowing the range of feasible ontological alternatives. The chapter summarizes the contemporary linguistic wisdom and then tests different proposals about kinds against it. It takes simple natural kind terms—like “green,” “gold,” “water,” “tiger,” and “light”—to be Millian terms that rigidly designate properties typically determined by a reference-fixing stipulation to the effect that the general term is to designate whatever property provides the explanation of why, at actual world-state, all, or nearly all, the samples of items associated with the term by speakers who introduce it have the observational properties they do.

scholarly journals Social Kinds, Reference, and Meta-Ontological Revisionism

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Michel-Antoine Xhignesse
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Social World ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
First Order ◽  
Epistemic Humility ◽  
Substantial Error ◽  
Social Kinds ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Default Position

AbstractJulian Dodd has characterized the default position in metaphysics as meta-ontologically realist: the answers to first-order ontological questions are thought to be entirely independent of the things we say and think about the entities at issue. Consequently, folk ontologies are liable to substantial error. But while this epistemic humility is commendable where the ontology of natural kinds is concerned, it seems misplaced with respect to social kinds since their ontology is dependent upon the human social world. Using art and art-kinds as paradigmatic examples of social kinds, I argue that meta-ontological realism sets conditions that are too strict to apply to social kinds. Nevertheless, I argue that we should not be too quick to embrace the conclusion that our folk theories of social kinds cannot err substantially. By modelling the reference of social kind-terms on that of natural kind-terms, it becomes clear that in both cases, our sole epistemic privilege lies in our ability to pinpoint the subject of our inquiries.

Ostension, Names and Natural Kind Terms

Dialogue ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohan Matthen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Recent Issue ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
Theory Of Descriptions

It seems to be a part of the oral and written tradition of contemporary philosophy that Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam have resurrected a kind of Aristotelianism about natural kinds by reference to purely semantic ideas. Thus in a recent issue of the Journal of Philosophy, M. R. Ayers writes that according to Kripke and Putnam: “The names ‘gold’, ‘tiger’ etc. have their meaning … by being the name of, or, more technically, by ‘rigidly designating’, a natural kind.” And in the immediately following pages he suggests that the view Kripke and Putnam arrive at is “not at all unlike Aristotelian doctrine”, but arrived at from “the rather special point of view of a concern with modal logic, and against the background of Russell's theory of descriptions, the modern obsession with proper names, and so forth”. Presumably what Ayers is alleging here is that something like the Aristotelian position on substance, species, essential properties and so forth is or is intended to be the outcome of the Kripke-Putnam investigations.

Understanding

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Grimm ◽  
Michael Hannon
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Science Understanding

Understanding is a kind of cognitive accomplishment, and the objects of understanding—from people, to languages, to scientific theories, to logical proofs—are strikingly varied. As this variety suggests, debates about the nature and value of understanding occur across philosophy. In the philosophy of science, understanding is typically taken to be one of the main goods at which scientific inquiry aims; it is therefore intimately related to issues concerning scientific explanation and to debates about what it is that makes scientific inquiry distinctive. In epistemology, the interest lies in characterizing what kind of cognitive accomplishment understanding is, exactly, and how (if at all) it differs from other cognitive accomplishments such as knowledge and wisdom. In the philosophy of language, a central concern is characterizing what is involved in understanding (or grasping) linguistic items like words, sentences, or languages as a whole; similar questions about what is involved in our understanding or grasp of concepts are crucial to the philosophy of mind. Debates in additional areas will be discussed in this article, but one overarching question is whether the sort of understanding we have of scientific theories, languages, people, and the like are similar in name alone or whether they share certain essential traits. For example, one common thought is that across all of these areas understanding involves the discernment of structure of some kind. It is also commonly thought that to achieve understanding this structure must not be discerned in just any old way, but that it must be “seen” or “grasped.” Just how to understand the metaphors of “seeing” and “grasping” has been a central issue in work on understanding across disciplines.

scholarly journals Experimental Philosophy and the Philosophy of Language: A Defence of the Ambiguity Thesis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Katharine Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Natural Kind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences

<p>In this thesis I employ the experimental method to inform three important debates within the philosophy of language. These three debates can loosely be characterised as the following: Strawsonianism vs. Russellianism about the meaning of definite descriptions (Chapter 2), Millianism vs. Descriptivism about the meaning of proper names (Chapter 3), and Internalism vs. Externalism about natural kind terms (Chapter 4). To investigate these debates I use surveys to test the intuitions of ordinary language users, that is, non-philosophers, about the meaning of various terms and phrases in natural language. This included New Zealand undergraduate students, students in China, and participants in the US in order to investigate any cross-cultural differences. The results of these three studies indicate substantial variation in the intuitions held among ordinary language users. I use this variation to defend an ambiguity thesis. According to this thesis, some terms and phrases as they occur in natural language (specifically, proper names, natural kind terms, and definite descriptions) have multiple meanings associated them. No one disambiguation is correct outside of a context of utterance. If the ambiguity thesis is accepted, various philosophical puzzles disappear. I will also address a number of objections that face the general program of this thesis.</p>

scholarly journals Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms: Myth and Reality

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 911-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sören Häggqvist ◽  
Åsa Wikforss
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

scholarly journals Natural kind terms again

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Panu Raatikainen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

AbstractThe new externalist picture of natural kind terms due to Kripke, Putnam, and others has become quite popular in philosophy. Many philosophers of science have remained sceptical. Häggqvist and Wikforss have recently criticised this view severely. They contend it depends essentially on a micro-essentialist view of natural kinds that is widely rejected among philosophers of science, and that a scientifically reasonable metaphysics entails the resurrection of some version of descriptivism. It is argued in this paper that the situation is not quite as dark for the new theory of reference as many critics suggest. There are several distinct questions here which should not be conflated and ought to be dealt with one by one. Descriptivism remains arguably problematic.

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