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Natural Kindness

Slater, Matthew (2013) Natural Kindness. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a particular sort of inquiry. Even if coherent, this situation isn’t ideal. My goal in this paper is to begin to articulate a more general account of “natural kind phenomena”. While I do not claim that this account should satisfy everyone—it is built around a certain conception of the epistemic role of kinds and has a certain obvious pragmatic flavor—I believe that it has the resources to go further than extant alternatives, in particular the Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) view of kinds.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Slater, Matthewmatthew.slater@gmail.com
Keywords: natural kinds, homeostatic property cluster kinds, HPC, stability, biological kinds, projectibility
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Systematics
General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User: Dr. Matthew Slater
Date Deposited: 20 May 2013 20:06
Last Modified: 20 May 2013 20:06
Item ID: 9776
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Systematics
General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date: 20 May 2013
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9776

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