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Natural Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

T. E. Wilkerson
T. E. Wilkerson
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Extract

What is a natural kind ? As we shall see, the concept of a natural kind has a long history. Many of the interesting doctrines can be detected in Aristotle, were revived by Locke and Leibniz, and have again become fashionable in recent years. Equally there has been agreement about certain paradigm examples: the kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kinds table, nation and banknote are not. Sadly agreement does not extend much further. It is impossible to discover a single consistent doctrine in the literature, and different discussions focus on different doctrines without writers or readers being aware of the fact. In this paper I shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 63 , Issue 243 , January 1988 , pp. 29 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1988

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References

1 Cf. Roger Woolhouse's account of ‘essentialism’ and ‘relativism’ in Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), esp. 81, 104, 105.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Grayling, A. C., An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982), 183f.Google Scholar

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