How to Fix Kind Membership: A Problem for HPC Theory and a Solution

Philosophy of Science 76 (5):724-736 (2009)
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Abstract

Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recognized natural kinds are supposed to do in “standard” scientific explanations. Breaking down this categorical distinction between traditional natural kinds and other kinds of kinds, I argue, delivers two goods: It provides us with a view of natural kindhood that does justice to the epistemic roles of kinds in scientific explanations. And it allows us to solve a problem that HPC theory, currently one of the more popular accounts of natural kindhood, confronts.

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Thomas A. C. Reydon
Universität Hannover

Citations of this work

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Natural kinds.Emma Tobin & Alexander Bird - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Free actions as a natural kind.Oisín Deery - 2021 - Synthese 198 (1):823-843.
Natural kinds.Alexander Bird & Emma Tobin - 1995 - In Edward N. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University.

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References found in this work

Homeostasis, species, and higher taxa.Richard Boyd - 1999 - In Robert Andrew Wilson, Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays. MIT Press. pp. 141-85.
When mechanistic models explain.Carl F. Craver - 2006 - Synthese 153 (3):355-376.
Scientific Essentialism.Lenny Clapp - 2002 - Philosophical Review 111 (4):589-594.
Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology.William Bechtel - 2007 - Journal of the History of Biology 40 (1):185-187.
Kinds, Complexity and Multiple realization.Richard Boyd - 1999 - Philosophical Studies 95 (1-2):67-98.

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