Khalidi, Muhammad Ali
(2023)
Natural Kinds.
Elements in the Philosophy of Science
.
Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 9781009008655
Abstract
This book is a concise introduction to the concept of ‘natural kinds’ from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Scientists cannot devise theories, construct models, propose explanations, make predictions, or even carry out observations, without first classifying their subject matter. Philosophers who posit natural kinds claim that the goal of scientific taxonomy is to come up with classification schemes that conform to nature's own. Another way of putting this is that science aims to devise categories that correspond to natural kinds. The interest in ascertaining the real kinds of things in nature is as old as philosophy itself, but it takes on a different guise when one adopts a naturalist stance in philosophy, that is when one looks closely at scientific practice and takes it as a guide for identifying natural kinds and investigating their general features. This brief book in the Cambridge Elements series surveys existing philosophical accounts of natural kinds, defends a naturalist alternative, and applies it to case studies in a diverse set of sciences.
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