Natural Kind Concepts Research Articles

Natural Kinds: The Expendables

AbstractTheoreticians that defend a form of realism regarding natural kinds minimally entertain the belief that the world features divisions into kinds and that the natural kind concept is a useful tool for philosophy of science. The objective of this paper is to challenge these assumptions. First, we challenge realism toward natural kinds by showing that the main arguments for their existence, which rely on the epistemic success of natural kinds, are unsatisfactory. Second, we show that, whether they exist or not, natural kinds are expendable when it comes to describing and analyzing scientific explanations accurately.

An Intuitive Solution to the Problem of Induction

The subject of this essay is the classical problem of induction, which is sometimes attributed to David Hume and called “the Humean Problem of Induction.” Here, I examine a certain sort of Neo-Aristotelian solution to the problem, which appeals to the concept of natural kinds in its response to the inductive skeptic. This position is most notably represented by Howard Sankey and Marc Lange. The purpose of this paper is partly destructive and partly constructive. I raise two questions. The first is: Are the natural kind solutions to the problem successful? The first thesis of this paper is that they are not, and I will show how and why they fail. And the second question I raise here is: Is there nonetheless some alternative Neo-Aristotelian solution to the problem which is successful and can overcome the shortcomings endemic to the Sankey-Lange account? The second thesis is that there is, and I’ll attempt to sketch one. My stance here may be summarized by saying that, while I agree with Sankey and Lange that the problem of induction can be adequately resolved, and while I am on the whole sympathetic with the Aristotelian spirit of their account(s), I am, for all that, dissatisfied with the letter of them. Nothing short of a more thoroughgoing Aristotelianism about the epistemology of induction will do.

EMOTIONS AS NATURAL KINDS: A NATURALIST THEORY OF EMOTIONS IN JESSE PRINZ'S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Naturalism refers to the ideas of emerging sciences and employ studies developed by Psychology, Physics and Biology. The many sorts of naturalism range from those advocating the use of science to inform about cognitive processes in order to fix them to those who advocate the end of any normative claim of philosophy. Jesse Prinz, Ruth Millikan and Hilary Kornblith are recognized naturalist philosophers, with differences in their approaches, and they use the concept of 'natural kinds' to undertake their philosophical projects. On the other hand, emotions have become an ascending subject in philosophy of mind, mostly because of doubts about theirs statuses as mental states, which are disputed as feelings, thoughts, perceptual or quasi-perceptual states, or, something totally different of that. As a result, different theories of emotions are flourishing in philosophy of mind and cognitive psychology. In this text, the intent is to present the exemplary connection of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind through the concept of natural kinds in Prinz’s philosophy of mind and theory of emotions. This intent will count with the useful Millikan’s and Kornblith’s analyses of the concept of natural kind.

Modality, Capacities, and Intuition

Barbara Vetter has argued that the notion of a metaphysical possibility functions like a natural-kind concept that picks out whatever kind is instantiated by the large majority of paradigmatic examples. Vetter holds that proponents of such a view can reject appeals to intuition and a priori reasoning as ways of supporting claims about the extension of metaphysical possibility, and that the attractiveness of a natural-kind account is consequently undiminished by intuitive counterexamples. This paper argues that that is far from obvious. It may be true on a natural kind view that the claim that it is metaphysically possible that p can be established only on the basis of empirical evidence about which kind is instantiated by most paradigm examples and what the members of this kind are. However, that leaves open the possibility that intuition and a priori reasoning can be used to evaluate conditional claims of the following form: If the kind instantiated by most paradigm examples includes (fails to include) X, then it is possible (not possible) that p. If intuition and a priori considerations can be used in this manner, then they are relevant to the assessment of the natural-kind view. Keywords: modality, natural kinds, the a priori, intuition, potentiality

On the Explanatory Power of Dispositional Realism

The article focuses on the unifying and explanatory power of the selective realism defended by Anjan Chakravartty. Our main aim is twofold. First, we critically analyse the purported synthesis between entity realism and structural realism offered by the author. We give reasons to think that this unification is an inconvenient marriage. In the second step, we deal with certain controversial aspects of the intended unification among three metaphysical concepts: causation, laws of nature and natural kinds. After pointing out that Chakravartty’s conception of laws is a plausible view that a scientific realist might endorse, we contend, on the contrary, that the concept of natural kind is dispensable in the framework of Chakravartty’s realism.

Дворкин о семантике правовых и политических понятий = Patterson D. M. Dworkin on Semantics of Legal and Political Concepts / пер. с англ. А. Б. Дидикина, С. А. Александрова

In a recent comment on H. L. A. Hart’s «Postscript» to The Concept of Law, Ronald Dworkin claims that the meaning of legal and political concepts maybe understood by analogy to the meaning of natural kind concepts like «tiger», «gold» and «water». This article questions the efficacy of Dworkin’s claims by challenging the use of natural kinds as the basis for a semantic theory of legal and political concepts. Additionally, in matters of value there is no methodological equivalent to the scientific method. Thus, there is little hope of finding hidden essences to explain the meaning of legal and political concepts. Finally, even if there are natural kinds, Dworkin’s arguments for their efficacy in jurisprudence are problematic and unpersuasive. The problem for Dworkin is that his embrace of natural kinds undermines the «fit» side of the fit/justification model of adjudication that lies at the heart of his theory of law

Categorization and Organizational Evolution: A Species Approach to Organizational Form

Organizational evolution has become a keystone of wider organizational sciences as it seeks to understand the emergence and sustained presence of organizational forms within the econosystem. Rooted in a population ecology approach to evolutionary theory, the field is presented with the key issue of how to draw the boundaries between organizational forms and thus delimit populations. Despite this centrality, development of a cogent classificatory scheme that meets the demands of both the philosophy of science and social ontology has been elusive. In this paper I integrate the concept of natural kinds taken from philosophy of science with allegory to the ecological niche to formulate an Organizational Species Concept which accommodates these demands. I operationalize this framework through cluster analysis and an abductive process of exploratory science. This is applied to a unique national data set covering an emergent organizational form in food systems, the “food hub”, as a proof of concept. This application carries policy import for goals that center food hubs within initiatives to scale up local and regional food systems. Through this application, I show how determinations about organizational form and underlying populations can be made.

Against natural kind eliminativism

It has recently been argued that the concept of natural kinds should be eliminated because it does not play a productive theoretical role and even harms philosophical research on scientific classification. We argue that this justification for eliminativism fails because the notion of ‘natural kinds’ plays another epistemic role in philosophical research, namely, it enables fruitful investigation into non-arbitrary classification. It does this in two ways: first, by providing a fruitful investigative entry into scientific classification; and second—as is supported by bibliometric evidence—by tying together a research community devoted to non-arbitrary classification. The question of eliminativism then requires weighing off the benefits of retaining the concept against its harms. We argue that the progressive state of philosophical work on natural kinds tips this balance in favour of retaining the concept.

Species of American Food Hubs: Development of an Organizational Species Concept and Its Application to an Emerging Organizational Form

Systematic classification has played a pivotal role in the development of evolutionary thought, where groupings are hierarchical orderings such that membership has predictive capabilities at some given level as well as explains origins or relations among kinds. (Bailey, 1994; Carper & Snizek, 1980; McKelvey, 1982; Rich, 1992) Early works in evolutionary approaches to organizations employ allegories to biological concepts but often do so without first employing a systematic method for delimiting the population being studied. In this paper we integrate the concept of natural kinds taken from philosophy of science with allegory to the ecological niche (see Cattani, Porac, & Thomas, 2017; Popielarz & Neal, 2007; Astley, 1985; Astley & Van de Ven, 1983) to formulate an Organizational Species Concept which can accommodate an array of social sciences concerned with organizational forms and making inferences about the structures, behaviors, resource allocation decisions, and other characteristics of firms. We operationalize this conceptual framework through the use of cluster analysis and an abductive process of exploratory scientific discovery. Here this is applied to a unique national data set covering an emergent organizational form in food systems, the “food hub”, as a proof of concept. This application carries policy import for goals that center food hubs within initiatives to scale up local and regional food systems. Based on findings from our empirical work, we propose six species of American food hub organizations.

Water is and is not H2O

The Twin Earth thought experiment invites us to consider a liquid that has all of the superficial properties associated with water (clear, potable, etc.) but has entirely different deeper causal properties (composed of “XYZ” rather than of H2O). Debates about natural kind concepts have sought to accommodate an apparent fact about ordinary people's judgments: Intuitively, the Twin Earth liquid is not water. We present results showing that people do not have this intuition. Instead, people tend to judge that there is a sense in which the liquid is not water but also a sense in which it is water.

The essence of essentialism

Over the past several decades,psychological essentialismhas been an important topic of study, incorporating research from multiple areas of psychology, philosophy and linguistics. At its most basic level, essentialism is the tendency to represent certain concepts in terms of a deeper, unobservable property that is responsible for category membership. Originally, this concept was used to understand people's reasoning about natural kind concepts, such astigerandwater, but more recently, researchers have identified the emergence of essentialist‐like intuitions in a number of other contexts, including people's representation of concepts likescientistorChristian.This paper develops an account that aims to capture how essentialism may operate across these varied cases. In short, we argue that while there is diversity in the forms essentialism can take, these varied cases reflect the same underlying cognitive structure.

Dual character concepts

AbstractSome of philosophy's most central concepts, including art, friendship, and happiness, have been argued to be dual character concepts. Their main characteristic is that they encode not only a descriptive dimension but also an independent normative dimension for categorization. This article introduces the class of dual character concepts and discusses various accounts of their content and structure. A specific focus will be placed on their relation to two other classes of concepts, thick concepts and natural kind concepts. The study of dual character concepts not only demonstrates that a wide range of concepts is inherently normative, but it also reveals new possibilities for investigating gender biases, generics, and social roles.

Anthropic Concepts

AbstractNatural kind concepts have the function of tracking categories that exist independently of our beliefs and purposes. But not all ways of tracking categories in the natural world involve conceiving of them as natural kinds. Anthropic concepts represent groups of natural, mind‐independent entities that are apt for serving various human interests, goals, and projects. They represent the natural world under a practical mode of presentation, as a set of material resources that can be transformed to further a host of functions and ends. I argue that cross‐cultural studies of traditional ecological knowledge provide evidence that many chemical, mineral, and biological concepts that are frequently taken to be natural kind concepts turn out on closer inspection to be anthropic concepts. Anthropic concepts are distinguished from artifact concepts, and a form of realism about the anthropic kinds that they refer to is defended.

Personal Constructions of Biological Concepts – The Repertory Grid Approach

This work discusses repertory grid analysis as a tool for investigating the structures of students’ representations of biological concepts. Repertory grid analysis provides the researcher with a variety of techniques that are not associated with standard methods of concept mapping for investigating conceptual structures. It can provide valuable insights into the learning process, and can be used as a diagnostic tool in identifying problems that students have in understanding biological concepts. The biological concepts examined in this work are ‘natural kinds’: a technical class of concepts which ‘appear’ to have invisible ‘essences’ meaning carrying more perceptual weight than being perceptually similar. Because children givemore weight to natural-kind membership when reasoning about traits, it would seem pertinent to apply such knowledge to deep-level research into how children reason in biology. The concept of natural kinds has a particular resonance with biology since biological kinds hold the distinction of being almost all natural kinds, such as when the same ‘stuff or thing’ takes many different forms. We have conducted a range of studies using a diversity of biological natural kinds, but in this paper, we wish to explore some of the theoretical underpinnings in more detail. To afford this exploration, we outline one case-study in a small group of secondary school students exploring the concept of ‘equine’ – that is, what is an equine? Five positive examples were chosen to engaged with by the students and one ‘outlier’ with which to compare the construction process. Recommendations are offered in applying this approach to biological education research.

Personal constructions of biological concepts - the repertory grid approach

This work discusses repertory grid analysis as a tool for investigating the structures of students’ representations of biological concepts. Repertory grid analysis provides the researcher with a variety of techniques that are not associated with standard methods of concept mapping for investigating conceptual structures. It can provide valuable insights into the learning process, and can be used as a diagnostic tool in identifying problems that students have in understanding biological concepts. The biological concepts examined in this work are ‘natural kinds’: a technical class of concepts which ‘appear’ to have invisible ‘essences’ meaning carrying more perceptual weight than being perceptually similar. Because children give more weight to natural-kind membership when reasoning about traits, it would seem pertinent to apply such knowledge to deep-level research into how children reason in biology. The concept of natural kinds has a particular resonance with biology since biological kinds hold the distinction of being almost all natural kinds, such as when the same ‘stuff or thing’ takes many different forms. We have conducted a range of studies using a diversity of biological natural kinds, but in this paper, we wish to explore some of the theoretical underpinnings in more detail. To afford this exploration, we outline one case-study in a small group of secondary school students exploring the concept of ‘equine’ – that is, what is an equine? Five positive examples were chosen to engaged with by the students and one ‘outlier’ with which to compare the construction process. Recommendations are offered in applying this approach to biological education research. (DIPF/Orig.)

Water Is and Is Not H2O

The Twin Earth thought experiment invites us to consider a liquid that has all of the superficial properties associated with water (clear, potable, etc.) but has entirely different deeper causal properties (composed of “XYZ” rather than of H2O). Although this thought experiment was originally introduced to illuminate questions in the theory of reference, it has also played a crucial role in empirically informed debates within the philosophy of psychology about people’s ordinary natural kind concepts. Those debates have sought to accommodate an apparent fact about ordinary people’s judgments: Intuitively, the Twin Earth liquid is not water. We present results from four experiments showing that people do not, in fact, have this intuition. Instead, people tend to have the intuition that there is a sense in which the liquid is not water but also a sense in which it is water. We explore the implications of this finding for debates about theories of natural kind concepts, arguing that it supports views positing two distinct criteria for membership in natural kind categories – one based on deeper causal properties, the other based on superficial, observable properties.

Psychiatric disorders: natural kinds made by the world or practical kinds made by us?

The concept of natural kind, a term of art in philosophy, is being increasingly appropriated by mental health professionals (1–4). First introduced in the 19th century, the notion of a natural kind has benefited from sustained philosophical attention over the past forty years (5–7). Newly developed ways of thinking about the concept are worth taking note of in psychiatry. Typical examples of natural kinds are chemical elements such as gold, biological species such as tiger, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. These all: a) are naturally occurring as opposed to artificial; b) have clearly demarcated boundaries separating members of the natural kind from non-members; c) possess observable features that are causally produced by internal properties; and d) these causal properties can be used to objectively validate category membership. Also, studying what instances of a kind have in common allows us to know what to expect of the kind in general. Few would claim that currently available psychiatric taxonomies classify natural kinds. Diagnostic co-occurrence and use of the not elsewhere and not otherwise specified codes are widespread, underlying pathological processes shared by all cases have not been discovered, and no diagnostically reliable biomarkers have been identified. In addition, treatments are frustratingly non-specific. A psychiatric taxonomy of natural kinds is at present only an aspirational ideal (8,9).

Conceptual analysis and natural kinds: the case of knowledge

There is a line of reasoning in metaepistemology that is congenial to naturalism and hard to resist, yet ultimately misguided: that knowledge might be a natural kind, and that this would undermine the use of conceptual analysis in the theory of knowledge. In this paper, I first bring out various problems with Hilary Kornblith’s argument from the causal–explanatory indispensability of knowledge to the natural kindhood of knowledge. I then criticize the argument from the natural kindhood of knowledge against the method of conceptual analysis in the theory of knowledge. A natural motivation for this argument is the following seemingly plausible principle: if knowledge is a natural kind, then the concept of knowledge is a natural kind concept. Since this principle lacks adequate support, the crucial semantic claim that the concept of knowledge is a natural kind concept must be defended in some more direct way. However, there are two striking epistemic disanalogies between the concept of knowledge and paradigmatic natural kind concepts that militate against this semantic claim. Conceptual analyses of knowledge are not affected by total error, and the proponents of such analyses are not subject to a priori conceptual obliviousness. I conclude that the argument from natural kindhood does not succeed in undermining the use of conceptual analysis in the theory of knowledge.

Pinpointing the deeper structures, processes and mechanisms of change within interactional fields

This paper seeks to understand how we might identify the “underlying logics” and “deeper structures” that bring about change in phenomena. We argue that this represents a move from a classical perspective focusing on discrete exchange, and that this requires a processual or relational approach to understanding in contrast to a substantialist or variables-based approach. One way of advancing our understanding of the emergence of change is to consider the site of interaction. That is the interactional field where actors act and interact with other actors and entities as well as the broader environment; where resources are exchanged, imported or exported; where change is instigated and transferred across time and space. We suggest interactional fields are the sites of plasticity where change actually takes place. To understand the causal structure and processes taking place in an interactional field we draw on the concept of natural and social kinds. We discuss how interactional fields are located in time and space, which influence and are influenced by the trajectories of change and development. While we believe this applies to change in general we apply our thinking to organizational change.

Learning, Concept Acquisition and Psychological Essentialism

In this article I will evaluate the popular view that we acquire most of our concepts by means of learning. I will do this through an examination of Jerry Fodor’s dissenting views and those of some of his most persistent and significant critics. Although I will be critical of Fodor’s central claim that it is impossible to learn a concept, I will ultimately conclude that we should be more sceptical than is normal about the power of learning when it comes to concept acquisition, particularly with respect to natural kind concepts. Central to my argument for this conclusion will be an examination of the bearings of psychological essentialism on concept acquisition.