Naturalness of Kinds and the Rules of Nature

Editorial

Authors

Abstract

Scientific disciplines divide the particulars they study into kinds and theorize about them, but it is difficult to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for a particular to be classified under a certain kind. What is a natural kind? Scientists normally assume that in the process of studding the nature they discover some real independent kinds; not that they invent them subjectively. Are they true? If natural kinds really exist and they are distinguishable from non-natural kinds, then what is the standard of this distinction? In this paper we first go through natural kinds and their related issues. Then, while explaining the difference between naturalism and Conventionalism, we offer a description of the causal theory of reference and its suggested solutions for distinguishing natural from non-natural. Finally we show that the difference between naturalism and conventionalism can be more accurately explained through the rule of the "explanatory value".

Keywords

Editorial

 

References

  1.  

    1. Bird, Alexander, 1998, Philosophy of Science, Rotledge.
    2. Bird, Alexander, Tobin, Emma, 2009, "Natural Kinds", in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL: http: //plato. stanford. edu/archives/spr2009/entries/natural-kinds/
    3. Gross, Steven, 2005, “Natural Kind Terms”, in: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, URL: http: //mysite. verizon. net/vze299db/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/naturalkinds. pdf.
    4. Hull, David, Russ, Michael, 1998, Philosophy of Biology, Oxford University Press.
    5. Karbasizadeh, Amir Ehsan, 2007, “Revising the Concept of Lawhood: Special Sciences and Natural Kinds”, in: Synthese, 162: 15–30.
    6. Kripke, Saul, 1980, Naming and Necessity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
    7. Kukla, Andre, 2000, Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science, London: Routledge.
    8. Laporte, Joseph, 2004, Natural Kind and Conceptual Changes.
    9. ------- , "Rigid Designators", in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http: //plato. stanford. edu/archives/fall2008/entries/rigid-designators/
      1. Putnam, Hilary, 1973a, “The Meaning of “Meaning”, in: Mind, Language, Reality.
      2. ------- , 1973b, “Meaning and Reference”, in: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology, Blackwell (2001).
      3. Psillos, Stathis, 1999, Scientific Realism, How Science Tracks Truth, Routledge.
      4. Quine, W. V. O., 1969, “Natural Kinds” in: the Philosophy of Science, ed. Richard Boyd, MIT (1991).
      5. Salmon, Nathan, 1982, Reference and Essence, Princeton University Press.
      6. Sober, Elliott, 1993, Philosophy of Biology, Oxford University Press.

     

Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics