How to be a Realist About Natural Kinds

Authors

P.D. Magnus, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2018

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.2553734

Abstract

Although some authors hold that natural kinds are necessarily relative to disciplinary domains, many authors presume that natural kinds must be absolute, categorical features of the reality— often assuming that without even mentioning the alternative. Recognizing both possibilities, one may ask whether the difference especially matters. I argue that it does. Looking at recent arguments about natural kind realism, I argue that we can best make sense of the realism question by thinking of natural kindness as a relation that holds between a category and a domain.

Comments

This is the published version. The version of record can be found here: Magnus, P. D. (2018). How to be a Realist about Natural Kinds [Cómo ser un realista sobre especies naturales]. Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin, 7(8), a016. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2553735

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Magnus, P.D., "How to be a Realist About Natural Kinds" (2018). Philosophy Faculty Scholarship. 59.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cas_philosophy_scholar/59