Abstract

Moments of “nominalist” euphoria in the philosophy of science--e.g., Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"--often give way to massive hangovers, as once-giddy “nominalists” realize that they may have abandoned, in their euphoria, the very idea of nature. No wonder, then, that, in Quine's wake, Kripke and Putnam reasserted that physical natural kinds--e.g., gold or chlorine--are, in some sense, necessary entities. But what of biological kinds like species? Doesn't Darwinism require “nominalism” about species? Following the example of Sober, in this presentation I will argue that, far from requiring “nominalism," Darwinism actually requires the rejection of full-fledged “nominalism” about biological kinds