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Biological Essentialism, Projectable Human Kinds, and Psychiatric Classification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2022

Jonathan Y. Tsou Open the ORCID record for Jonathan Y. Tsou [Opens in a new window]
Jonathan Y. Tsou*
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology (AHT), University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, US
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

A minimal essentialism (“intrinsic biological essentialism”) about natural kinds is required to explain the projectability of human science terms. Human classifications that yield robust and ampliative projectable inferences refer to biological kinds. I articulate this argument with reference to an intrinsic essentialist account of homeostatic property cluster kinds. This account implies that human sciences (e.g., medicine, psychiatry) that aim to formulate predictive kind categories should classify biological kinds. Issues concerning psychiatric classification and pluralism are examined.

Type
Symposia Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 5 , December 2022 , pp. 1155 - 1165
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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