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Why water may not be a natural kind after all

Seifert, Vanessa A. (2025) Why water may not be a natural kind after all. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I present an argument that undermines the standardly held view that chemical substances are natural kinds. This argument is based on examining the properties required to pick out members of these purported kinds. In particular, for a sample to be identified as -say- a member of the kind-water, it has to be stable in the chemical sense of stability. However, the property of stability is artificially determined within chemical practice. This undermines the kindhood of substances as they fail to satisfy one of two key requirements: namely that they are picked out by (some) natural properties and that they are categorically distinct. This is a problem specifically for the natural realist interpretation of kinds. I discuss whether there are other ways to conceive of kinds in order to overcome it.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Seifert, Vanessa A.vs14902@bristol.ac.uk0000-0002-5391-0791
Additional Information: Preprint of paper forthcoming in Análisis Filosófico.
Keywords: Chemical kinds; Real patterns; Functional kinds
Subjects: General Issues > Natural Kinds
Depositing User: Dr. Vanessa A. Seifert
Date Deposited: 02 Jun 2025 13:13
Last Modified: 02 Jun 2025 13:13
Item ID: 25528
Subjects: General Issues > Natural Kinds
Date: 2025
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25528

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