Natural Kinds Research Articles

Of looping kinds and unruly objects: the conceptual making of organoids

Although the traditional approach within ELSA (Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects) initiatives is to have certain kinds of objects “set” or ready to be governed within bioethics, I will claim that the established regime of bioethics and bio law act as governance while influencing the conceptualization of the entities at play, in this example, the organoids. As a small contrast case to making organoids, I will use the regulation and categorization of embryonic research as a more “natural kind” entity research compared to conceptually synthetic research, where the objects to be regulated are shaped by existing practices of language and material alike. While analyzing the conceptual making of the organoids, I will follow the general methodological framework of Ian Hacking in Social Construction of What? (1999) from philosophy of science, particularly his understanding of “looping kinds”. And since Hacking’s understanding of looping kinds is in a relatively vague formulation, I will supply with different structures within co – productionist account of science and technology studies, most notably of works of Jasonoff (2015) of co-productionist accounts and Bensaude – Vincent’s concept of “buzzword coalitions” (2014) in the making of conceptual coalition around organoids. I will use the structure of scientific objects to assign different uses of parts of concepts in the making.

The Effect of Variation of Corn Comb Fiber Composition on The Physical Properties of Biofoam with The Addition of Aerogel Silica

Styrofoam has many negative impacts because it harms health, pollutes the environment, and cannot decompose in nature. Efforts have been made to develop biofoam derived from natural kinds of stuff to reduce the harmful effects of styrofoam. So that they are safer and do not pollute the environment. Biofoam in this study was made from tapioca starch, corncob fiber, a binding polymer in the form of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), and a superhydrophobic agent in the form of silica aerogel. This research was conducted to determine the effect of variations in the composition of corncob fiber on the physical properties of biofoam with the addition of silica aerogel. The production of corncob fiber was carried out in two stages, namely using 10% NaOH to remove lignin and bleaching using 10% H2O2 to bleach the fibers, which were then combined into the biofoam mixture. The production of biofoam used the thermopressing method with a temperature of 150° and pressed for 4 minutes with fiber variations of 13.75g, 16.25g, 18.75g, and 21.25g. Add conclusion of the research is 18.75 g of fiber with a water absorption value of (1.2 ± 0.2)%, a density of (0.5 ± 0.1)g/cm3, and a compressive strength of 3.60 MPa.

Biocultural psychopathology as a new epistemology for mental disorders.

Psychopathology has been criticized for decades for its reliance on a brain-centred and over-reductionist approach which views mental disorders as disease-like natural kinds. While criticisms of brain-centred psychopathologies abound, these criticisms sometimes ignore important advances in the neurosciences which view the brain as embodied, embedded, extended and enactive, and as fundamentally plastic. A new onto-epistemology for mental disorders is proposed, focusing on a biocultural model, in which human brains are understood as embodied and embedded in ecosocial niches, and with which individuals enact particular transactions characterized by circular causality. In this approach, neurobiological bases are inseparable from interpersonal and socio-cultural factors. This approach leads to methodological changes in how mental disorders are studied and dealt with.

Emergence: A pluralist approach

Despite the common use of the concept of emergence, no uncontroversial theoretical framework has been yet formulated in this regard. In this paper, I examine what this circumstance suggests about the significance and usefulness of this concept. I first trace a brief history of the notion of emergence from its first formulation among the British Emergentists to its contemporary uses. Then, I outline its most common features and examine three examples of emergent phenomena, namely particle decay, free will, and division of labour in ant colonies. These three cases of emergence exhibit different features and imply criteria which only partially overlap. I then suggest that the multiplicity of features and criteria recognised as defining emergence, rather than being a threat to the tenability of the concept, should encourage the assumption of a pluralist attitude that is consistent with both the employment of this idea in different sciences and the recognition of emergent phenomena across different levels of organisation. Finally, I propose that emergence can be approached in a similar way to how Richard Boyd approached the problem of natural kinds, namely by identifying an open cluster of properties, rather than a set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

On the Philosophy of Unsupervised Learning

Unsupervised learning algorithms are widely used for many important statistical tasks with numerous applications in science and industry. Yet despite their prevalence, they have attracted remarkably little philosophical scrutiny to date. This stands in stark contrast to supervised and reinforcement learning algorithms, which have been widely studied and critically evaluated, often with an emphasis on ethical concerns. In this article, I analyze three canonical unsupervised learning problems: clustering, abstraction, and generative modeling. I argue that these methods raise unique epistemological and ontological questions, providing data-driven tools for discovering natural kinds and distinguishing essence from contingency. This analysis goes some way toward filling the lacuna in contemporary philosophical discourse on unsupervised learning, as well as bringing conceptual unity to a heterogeneous field more often described by what it is not (i.e., supervised or reinforcement learning) than by what it is. I submit that unsupervised learning is not just a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry but perhaps the most fundamental branch of all AI. However, an uncritical overreliance on unsupervised methods poses major epistemic and ethical risks. I conclude by advocating for a pragmatic, error-statistical approach that embraces the opportunities and mitigates the challenges posed by this powerful class of algorithms.

Severe Trauma-Induced Coagulopathy: Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Critical Illness.

Trauma remains one of the leading causes of death in adults despite the implementation of preventive measures and innovations in trauma systems. The etiology of coagulopathy in trauma patients is multifactorial and related to the kind of injury and nature of resuscitation. Trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC) is a biochemical response involving dysregulated coagulation, altered fibrinolysis, systemic endothelial dysfunction, platelet dysfunction, and inflammatory responses due to trauma. The aim of this review is to report the pathophysiology, early diagnosis and treatment of TIC. A literature search was performed using different databases to identify relevant studies in indexed scientific journals. We reviewed the main pathophysiological mechanisms involved in the early development of TIC. Diagnostic methods have also been reported which allow early targeted therapy with pharmaceutical hemostatic agents such as TEG-based goal-directed resuscitation and fibrinolysis management. TIC is a result of a complex interaction between different pathophysiological processes. New evidence in the field of trauma immunology can, in part, help explain the intricacy of the processes that occur after trauma. However, although our knowledge of TIC has grown, improving outcomes for trauma patients, many questions still need to be answered by ongoing studies.

The essentialism of early modern psychiatric nosology

Are psychiatric disorders natural kinds? This question has received a lot of attention within present-day philosophy of psychiatry, where many authors debate the ontology and nature of mental disorders. Similarly, historians of psychiatry, dating back to Foucault, have debated whether psychiatric researchers conceived of mental disorders as natural kinds or not. However, historians of psychiatry have paid little to no attention to the influence of (a) theories within logic, and (b) theories within metaphysics on psychiatric accounts of proper method, and on accounts of the nature and classification of mental disorders. Historically, however, logic and metaphysics have extensively shaped methods and interpretations of classifications in the natural sciences. This paper corrects this lacuna in the history of psychiatry, and demonstrates that theories within logic and metaphysics, articulated by Christian Wolff (1679–1754), have significantly shaped the conception of medical method and (psychiatric) nosology of the influential nosologist Boissier De Sauvages (1706–1767). After treating Sauvages, I discuss the method of the influential nosologist William Cullen (1710–1790), and demonstrate the continuity between the classificatory methods of Sauvages and Cullen. I show that both Sauvages and Cullen were essentialists concerning medical diseases in general and psychiatric disorders in particular, contributing to the history of conceptions of the ontology and nature of mental disorders.

ALLERGIC CONTACT CHEILITIS OF BOTH LIPS CAUSED BY WHITE PETROLEUM JELLY

White petroleum jelly is commonly used as a skin protectant for dry skin and dry lips. The active ingredient of white petroleum jelly is "petrolatum". Petroleum jelly very rarely causes hypersensitivity reactions. Even though it is a very rare case, allergic reaction to petroleum jelly is a potential problem of its common use of petroleum jelly for cosmetic and medical purposes. We report a case of a 25years old male patient with allergic contact cheilitis of both lips. The patient presented with complaints of cheilitis of both lips due to the white petroleum jelly application, which was treated with topical and oral steroids. Rechallenge was not done in the interest of the patient and due to ethical constraints. Due to the emerging adverse events related to white petroleum jelly, All health care providers should create awareness about the adverse events related to white petroleum jelly among the public. White petroleum jelly is used worldwide in most of cosmetic products, it should be used with caution. We can use natural cocoa butter kind of products as moisturizers instead of petroleum jelly.

The independence solution to grue

The paper presents a comprehensive solution to the new riddle of induction. Gruesome induction is blocked because “grue” is not independent of our sampling and observation methods. Before presenting my theory, I critically survey previous versions of what I call the “independence strategy”, tracing the strategy to three different papers from 1970s by (respectively) Wilkerson, Moreland, and Jackson. Next I critically examine recent approaches by Okasha, Godfrey-Smith, Schramm, and Freitag. All of these approaches have their virtues, but none of them rules out every problem case. Nor do any of them alone explain exactly what goes wrong in all types of gruesome reasoning. My account aims to do both. Learning lessons from my criticisms of previous theories, I argue that there are several crucial types of independence. Correct characterizations of all of them are needed to rule out every problem case. I close by suggesting that the independence solution can be adopted by other approaches—Bayesians, fans of natural kinds, and pragmatists.

Deferred Ostension Of Extinct And Fictive Kinds

This article applies Quine's account of deferred ostension and the Kripke-Putnam account of reference to natural kinds in order to solve two problems that arise concerning the deferred ostension of two sorts of absent referents, extinct and fictive kinds. First, the sample problem concerns how a rigid designation to a kind can be established even though the fossil or depiction is an imitative representation rather than an instance of the kind itself. The author argues that the retained characteristic shape, understood via analogy with living creatures, supports the deferred ostension of the extinct kind. Second, the contrast problem concerns how the deferred ostensions of imitative representations for extinct species differ from the imitative representations for fictional species, that is, how sampled fossils differ from sampled depictions. The author argues that the difference is a causal one. We know that fossils happen thanks to a natural causal process that embeds the fossil imitation in the primary world of perceived things; depictions of fictional kinds lack intrinsic causal properties and therefore embed their references in a secondary world of fiction. The article concludes by suggesting we approach the problem of negative existentials as a question of embedding in the primary world of causality or the secondary world of noncausal relations.

Scurvy and the Ontology of Natural Kinds

AbstractSome philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being.

Homologues and homology and their related terms in phylogenetic systematics.

In the field of phylogenetic systematics, the terms homology and homologue and their relationship to cladistic terms such as character, character state, synapomorphy and symplesiomorphy, as well as their relationships to each other, have been and are still discussed frequently. A recent re-emergence of concepts of homology/homologue free of any reference to explanatory hypotheses prompted us to explore these concepts and their relationships to each other as well as to the concept of morpheme, as introduced recently. All concepts are examined with regard to their ontological status and their bearing in the epistemological process in morphology and phylogenetic systematics. To us, morphemes, homologues and in partem character states refer to things (concrete objects in the ontological sense). However, although morphemes are exclusively descriptive, the latter two represent objects of causal explanations. Homologue always refers to the things themselves, yet a character state also can be a property or the absence of a thing. In this context, a character as a transformation series of character states does not represent a thing but a natural kind. Character states of one character are connected by homology relationships, i.e. common descent. Synapomorphy and symplesiomorphy represent different states of a single transformation series. A nonexplanatory, purely descriptive, concept of homologues is contradictory to its original as well as the post-Darwinian, evolutionary, concept which refers to causal relationships between parts of organisms and their correspondences in the archetype or ancestor, respectively. Character states, homologues and synapomorphies/symplesiomorphies can only be approximated in the form of hypotheses. We argue that the high value of the concept of homology and its related concepts for evolutionary biology should be maintained by acknowledging their explanatory nature and that dilution with nonexplanatory (even idealistic) definitions should be avoided.

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.

The Relationship between Knowing and Liking for 91 Urban Animal Species among Students.

While there is growing consensus that nature should be promoted in cities, it is less clear what kind of nature this should be. One hypothesis is that humans show greater liking for those parts of nature that they know better. Using questionnaires, we studied the familiarity of 475 students with 91 urban animal species and the relationship between familiarity and attitudes towards the species. Students declared that they were familiar with most animals, but not all animals were equally liked. Better-known species were not generally the better-liked ones. The more familiar animal species were the more extreme attitudes became towards them, both positively and negatively. Our research shows that familiarity and attitude are not two sides of the same coin. It also emphasizes that there are parts of nature that are not liked by many humans and that this dislike is not necessarily correlated with insufficient knowledge. Detailed studies of what components of nature humans like and reasons underlying this are necessary to successfully increase nature in cities.

From naturalness to materiality: reimagining philosophy of scientific classification

The notion of natural kinds has been widely criticized in philosophy of science but also appears indispensable for philosophical engagement with classificatory practices. Rather than addressing this tension through a new definition of “natural kind”, this article suggests materiality as a substitute for naturalness in philosophical debates about scientific classification. It is argued that a theory of material kinds provides an alternative and more inclusive entry point for analyzing classificatory practices, which is specified through an account of “restricted malleability” of materiality and further analyzed as (1) gradual, (2) multi-dimensional, (3) scalable, (4) interactive, and (5) purpose sensitive.

Natural kinds, chemical practice, and interpretive communities

Natural kinds, chemical practice, and interpretive communities

Natural Kind Realism and Dupré’s Promiscuous Realism

I contend that scientific realism and realism about natural kinds should be given separate treatment because a person could be a scientific realist in general without having key realist commitments about natural kinds. I utilize Chakravartty’s three dimensions of commitment for scientific realism to create three key conditions for realism regarding natural kinds in particular. I find that Dupré’s promiscuous realism fails at least one these conditions, and therefore, for the sake of terminological consistency and clarity, we should classify promiscuous realism as an antirealist view of natural kinds.

Introduction

Introduction

Optical, impedance, and relaxation response of Fe3+ doped double perovskite solid solution

In this report, the effect of Fe3+-incorporation on the crystal structure, vibrational, optical, impedance, modulus, and ferroelectric responses of BaBi1.8Fe0.2TiO6 was discussed. According to XRD and SEM studies, the crystal structure is monoclinic single-phase polycrystalline. The vibrational modes identification from the FTIR spectrum concedes different modes of symmetric and/or antisymmetric vibrations which are usual characteristics of perovskite compounds. The UV-visible study outlines strong absorption and weak reflection near UV and the visible spectrum has a cutoff wavelength of 560 nm. The Tauc and Wood relation estimated the direct band gap energy in the absorbance spectra is 2.70 eV, while the diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) method revealed its value in the reflectance spectra as Eg = 2.84 eV. The resulting bandgap energies suggest that they could be used in photocatalysis. The impedance and modulus analysis supports the semiconducting nature and non-Debye kind relaxation phenomenon in the compound. The PE hysteresis loop with non-zero remanent polarization indicates the material's ferroelectric property, which is suitable for memory storage applications.

Last Chance Saloons for Natural Kind Realism

AbstractTraditionally, accounts of natural kinds have run the gamut from strongly conventionalist to strongly realist views. Recently, however, there has been a significant shift toward more conventionalist-sounding positions, even (perhaps especially) among philosophers interested in scientific classification. The impetus for this is a trend toward making anthropocentric features of categories, namely, capacities to facilitate human epistemic (and other) interests via inductive inference, central to an account of kinds. I argue that taking these features seriously is both defensible and compatible with conventionalism, but not compatible with a traditional realism about kinds specifically. Moreover, hopes of achieving compatibility by revising and extending kind realism—into what I call “hyperrealism”—face an insuperable dilemma. The news for realists is not all bad, however: though kind realism proves untenable, closely associated realisms underlying the objectivity of kind discourse may be viable nonetheless.