Natural Kinds

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The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds

Author : Helen Beebee
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136975764
Total Pages : 509 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (369 download)

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Book Synopsis The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds by : Helen Beebee

Download or read book The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds written by Helen Beebee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-05-05 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essentialism--roughly, the view that natural kinds have discrete essences, generating truths that are necessary but knowable only a posteriori--is an increasingly popular view in the metaphysics of science. At the same time, philosophers of language have been subjecting Kripke’s views about the existence and scope of the necessary a posteriori to rigorous analysis and criticism. Essentialists typically appeal to Kripkean semantics to motivate their radical extension of the realm of the necessary a posteriori; but they rarely attempt to provide any semantic arguments for this extension, or engage with the critical work being done by philosophers of language. This collection brings authors on both sides together in one volume, thus helping the reader to see the connections between views in philosophy of language on the one hand and the metaphysics of science on the other. The result is a book that will have a significant impact on the debate about essentialism, encouraging essentialists to engage with debates about the semantic presuppositions that underpin their position, and, encouraging philosophers of language to engage with the metaphysical presuppositions enshrined in Kripkean semantics.

Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice

Author : Catherine Kendig
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317215427
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (172 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice by : Catherine Kendig

Download or read book Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice written by Catherine Kendig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Natural Categories and Human Kinds

Author : Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107244595
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Categories and Human Kinds by : Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Download or read book Natural Categories and Human Kinds written by Muhammad Ali Khalidi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-16 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences.

Carving Nature at Its Joints

Author : Joseph Keim Campbell
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262297906
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Carving Nature at Its Joints by : Joseph Keim Campbell

Download or read book Carving Nature at Its Joints written by Joseph Keim Campbell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflections on the metaphysics and epistemology of classification from a distinguished group of philosophers. Contemporary discussions of the success of science often invoke an ancient metaphor from Plato's Phaedrus: successful theories should "carve nature at its joints." But is nature really "jointed"? Are there natural kinds of things around which our theories cut? The essays in this volume offer reflections by a distinguished group of philosophers on a series of intertwined issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of classification. The contributors consider such topics as the relevance of natural kinds in inductive inference; the role of natural kinds in natural laws; the nature of fundamental properties; the naturalness of boundaries; the metaphysics and epistemology of biological kinds; and the relevance of biological kinds to certain questions in ethics. Carving Nature at Its Joints offers both breadth and thematic unity, providing a sampling of state-of-the-art work in contemporary analytic philosophy that will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students concerned with classification.

Natural Kinds and Genesis

Author : Stewart Umphrey
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498531423
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds and Genesis by : Stewart Umphrey

Download or read book Natural Kinds and Genesis written by Stewart Umphrey and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities, Stewart Umphrey raises and answers two questions: What is it to be a natural kind? And are there in fact any natural kinds? First, using the everyday understanding of things, he argues that natural kinds may be understood as classes or as types, and that the members or tokens of such kinds are individual continuants. A continuant is essentially a being-in-becoming, a material thing which changes and yet remains the same, in virtue of its nature or essence, as long as it exists. In the primary sense of the term, then, a natural kind is a class whose members closely resemble one another substantially, in virtue of their essences. Alternatively, it is a type whose tokens exemplify it in virtue of their essences. To answer the second question, one must make use of relevant scientific theories as well. Umphrey agrees with scientific essentialists that there are natural kinds, but he argues that most of the chemical, physical, and biological kinds posited in current theories are not natural kinds in the primary sense of the term. The natural-kinds realism he affirms is thus quite restricted: it requires the existence of enduring things which closely resemble one another in virtue of their essences, and such things exist, apparently, only if they have come into being, or emerged, in the course of symmetry-breaking events. Natural Kinds and Genesis will be of interest to philosophers of science and to those interested in the metaphysics of natural kinds and their members.

Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change

Author : Joseph LaPorte
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107320402
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change by : Joseph LaPorte

Download or read book Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change written by Joseph LaPorte and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the received tradition, the language used to to refer to natural kinds in scientific discourse remains stable even as theories about these kinds are refined. In this illuminating book, Joseph LaPorte argues that scientists do not discover that sentences about natural kinds, like 'Whales are mammals, not fish', are true rather than false. Instead, scientists find that these sentences were vague in the language of earlier speakers and they refine the meanings of the relevant natural-kind terms to make the sentences true. Hence, scientists change the meaning of these terms, This conclusions prompts LaPorte to examine the consequences of this change in meaning for the issue of incommensurability and for the progress of science. This book will appeal to students and professional in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of language.

Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds

Author : Stephen P. Schwartz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds by : Stephen P. Schwartz

Download or read book Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds written by Stephen P. Schwartz and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Essence in the Age of Evolution

Author : Christopher J. Austin
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351240838
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (512 download)

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Book Synopsis Essence in the Age of Evolution by : Christopher J. Austin

Download or read book Essence in the Age of Evolution written by Christopher J. Austin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a novel defence of a highly contested philosophical position: biological natural kind essentialism. This theory is routinely and explicitly rejected for its purported inability to be explicated in the context of contemporary biological science, and its supposed incompatibility with the process and progress of evolution by natural selection. Christopher J. Austin challenges these objections, and in conjunction with contemporary scientific advancements within the field of evolutionary-developmental biology, the book utilises a contemporary neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of "dispositional properties", or causal powers, to provide a theory of essentialism centred on the developmental architecture of organisms and its role in the evolutionary process. By defending a novel theory of Aristotelian biological natural kind essentialism, Essence in the Age of Evolution represents the fresh and exciting union of cutting-edge philosophical insight and scientific knowledge.

Classifying Psychopathology

Author : Harold Kincaid
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262322447
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Classifying Psychopathology by : Harold Kincaid

Download or read book Classifying Psychopathology written by Harold Kincaid and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars question the extent to which current psychiatric classification systems are inadequate for diagnosis, treatment, and research of mental disorders and offer suggestions for improvement. In this volume, leading philosophers of psychiatry examine psychiatric classification systems, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), asking whether current systems are sufficient for effective diagnosis, treatment, and research. Doing so, they take up the question of whether mental disorders are natural kinds, grounded in something in the outside world. Psychiatric categories based on natural kinds should group phenomena in such a way that they are subject to the same type of causal explanations and respond similarly to the same type of causal interventions. When these categories do not evince such groupings, there is reason to revise existing classifications. The contributors all question current psychiatric classifications systems and the assumptions on which they are based. They differ, however, as to why and to what extent the categories are inadequate and how to address the problem. Topics discussed include taxometric methods for identifying natural kinds, the error and bias inherent in DSM categories, and the complexities involved in classifying such specific mental disorders as “oppositional defiance disorder” and pathological gambling. Contributors George Graham, Nick Haslam, Allan Horwitz, Harold Kincaid, Dominic Murphy, Jeffrey Poland, Nancy Nyquist Potter, Don Ross, Dan Stein, Jacqueline Sullivan, Serife Tekin, Peter Zachar

The Nature of Classification

Author : J. Wilkins
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137318120
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (373 download)

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Book Synopsis The Nature of Classification by : J. Wilkins

Download or read book The Nature of Classification written by J. Wilkins and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discussing the generally ignored issue of the classification of natural objects in the philosophy of science, this book focuses on knowledge and social relations, and offers a way to understand classification as a necessary aspect of doing science.

Natural Kinds

Author : Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009020552
Total Pages : 140 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds by : Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Download or read book Natural Kinds written by Muhammad Ali Khalidi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of scientific taxonomy is to come up with classification schemes that conform to nature's own. This Element surveys existing philosophical accounts of natural kinds, defends a naturalist alternative, and applies it to case studies in a diverse set of sciences. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds

Author : P. Magnus
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137271256
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds by : P. Magnus

Download or read book Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds written by P. Magnus and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice

Author : Catherine Kendig
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317215435
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (172 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice by : Catherine Kendig

Download or read book Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice written by Catherine Kendig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Natural Kinds, Laws of Nature and Scientific Methodology

Author : Peter J. Riggs
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401586071
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Kinds, Laws of Nature and Scientific Methodology by : Peter J. Riggs

Download or read book Natural Kinds, Laws of Nature and Scientific Methodology written by Peter J. Riggs and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australia and New Zealand boast an active community of scholars working in the field of history, philosophy and social studies of science. 'Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science' aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for their work. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. In each volume, a majority of the contributors is from Australia or New Zealand. CQntributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out, however, and are indeed actively encouraged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. Earlier volumes in the series have been welcomed for significantly advancing the discussion of the topics they have dealt with. The present volume will I believe be greeted equally enthusiastically by readers in many parts of the world. R. W. Home General Editor Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Vll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The stimulus to assemble this collection of essays grew from a number of interesting seminars conducted during the academic years 1991-92, under the auspices of the Victorian Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science (which is centred at the Bundoora campus of La Trobe University in the outer suburbs of Melbourne). Some of the seminar presentations to the Victorian Centre for HPS and other articles awaiting pUblication have been made available as part of the Pre-print Series of the Victorian Centre.

Knowledge and its Place in Nature

Author : Hilary Kornblith
Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 0191529842
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Knowledge and its Place in Nature by : Hilary Kornblith

Download or read book Knowledge and its Place in Nature written by Hilary Kornblith and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2002-08-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers have traditionally used conceptual analysis to investigate knowledge. Hilary Kornblith argues that this is misguided: it is not the concept of knowledge that we should be investigating, but knowledge itself, a robust natural phenomenon, suitable for scientific study. Cognitive ethologists not only attribute intentional states to non-human animals, they also speak of such animals as having knowledge; and this talk of knowledge does causal and explanatory work within their theories. The account of knowledge which emerges from this literature is a version of reliabilism: knowledge is reliably produced true belief. This account of knowledge is not meant merely to provide an elucidation of an important scientific category. Rather, Kornblith argues that knowledge, in this very sense, is what philosophers have been talking about all along. Rival accounts are examined in detail and it is argued that they are inadequate to the phenomenon of knowledge (even of human knowledge). One traditional objection to this sort of naturalistic approach to epistemology is that, in providing a descriptive account of the nature of important epistemic categories, it must inevitably deprive these categories of their normative force. But Kornblith argues that a proper account of epistemic normativity flows directly from the account of knowledge which is found in cognitive ethology. Knowledge may be properly understood as a real feature of the world which makes normative demands upon us. This controversial and refreshingly original book offers philosophers a new way to do epistemology.

Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel

Author : N. Rescher
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401714665
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel by : N. Rescher

Download or read book Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel written by N. Rescher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eminent philosopher of science Carl G. Hempel, Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and a Past President of the American Philosophical Association, has had a long and distinguished academic career in the course of which he has been professorial mentor to some of America's most distinguished philosophers. This volume gathers together twelve original papers by Hempel's students and associates into a volume intended to do homage to Hempel on the occasion of his 65th year in 1970. The papers are grouped around the unifying topic of Hempel's own interests in logic and philosophy of science, the great majority dealing with issues on inductive logic and the theory of scientific explanatio- problems to which Hempel has devoted the bulk of his outstandingly fruitful efforts. With the approach of 'Peter' Hempel's 65th birthday, an editorial committee sprang into being by an uncannily spontaneous process to prepare to commemorate this event with an appropriate Festschrift. The editors were pleased to receive unfailingly prompt and efficient coopera tion on the part of all contributors. The responsibility of seeing the work through the press was assumed by Nicholas Rescher. The editors are grateful to all concerned for their collaboration. ALAN ROSS ANDERSON PAUL BENACERRAF ADOLF GRUNBAUM GERALD J. MASSEY NICHOLAS RESCHER RICHARD S. RUDNER TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V PAUL OPPENHEIM: Reminiscences of Peter 1 w. v. QUINE: Natural Kinds 5 JAAKKO HINTIKKA: Inductive Independence and the Paradoxes of Confirmation 24 WESLEY c.

Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry IV

Author : Kenneth S. Kendler
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192515527
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry IV by : Kenneth S. Kendler

Download or read book Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry IV written by Kenneth S. Kendler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-24 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revisions of both DSM-IV and ICD-10 have again focused the interest of the field of psychiatry and clinical psychology on the issue of nosology. This interest has been further heightened by a series of controversies associated with the development of DSM-5 including the fate of proposed revisions of the personality disorders, bereavement, and the autism spectrum. Major debate arose within the DSM process about the criteria for changing criteria, leading to the creation of first the Scientific Review Committee and then a series of other oversight committees which weighed in on the final debates on the most controversial proposed additions to DSM-5, providing important influences on the final decisions. Contained within these debates were a range of conceptual and philosophical issues. Some of these - such as the definition of mental disorder or the problems of psychiatric " - have been with the field for a long time. Others - the concept of epistemic iteration as a framework for the introduction of nosologic change - are quite new. This book reviews issues within psychiatric nosology from clinical, historical and particularly philosophical perspectives. The book brings together a range of distinguished authors - including major psychiatric researchers, clinicians, historians and especially nosologists - including several leaders of the DSM-5 effort and the DSM Steering Committee. It also includes contributions from psychologists with a special interest in psychiatric nosology and philosophers with a wide range of orientations. The book is organized into four major sections: The first explores the nature of psychiatric illness and the way in which it is defined, including clinical and psychometric perspectives. The second section examines problems in the reification of psychiatric diagnostic criteria, the problem of psychiatric epidemics, and the nature and definition of individual symptoms. The third section explores the concept of epistemic iteration as a possible governing conceptual framework for the revision efforts for official psychiatric nosologies such as DSM and ICD and the problems of validation of psychiatric diagnoses. The book ends by exploring how we might move from the descriptive to the etiologic in psychiatric diagnoses, the nature of progress in psychiatric research, and the possible benefits of moving to a living document (or continuous improvement) model for psychiatric nosologic systems. The result is a book that captures the dynamic cross-disciplinary interactions that characterize the best work in the philosophy of psychiatry.