Scientific Enquiry and Natural Kinds [electronic resource] : From Planets to Mallards /
Magnus, P.author.
Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Series Editor's Foreword; Introduction; 1 How to Think about Natural Kinds; A. Why history is no help; B. Some criteria considered; B.1 The induction assumption; B.2 The essence assumption; B.3 The science assumption; B.4 The law assumption; B.5 Artifacts and artificial kinds; B.6 The sharpness assumption; B.7 Starting with language; B.8 The intrinsic feature assumption; B.9 The hierarchy assumption; B.10 The scarcity assumption; B.11 The implicit simpliciter assumption; C. Keeping score; 2 A Modest Definition; A. First formulation
B. More or less natural kindsB.1 Lessons from underdetermination; B.2 The lessons applied; C. Induction redux; D. Natural kinds for settled science; D.1 Example: the domain of chemistry; D.2 Fungible kinds; 3 Natural Kinds Put to Work; A. Eight planets, great planets; A.1 Numerology and asteroids; A.2 Enter Pluto; A.3 The constraints of astronomy; A.4 Natural kinds and the fate of Pluto; B. The abundance of living things; B.1 Particular species (buzz, buzz); B.2 The species category; B.3 How species are and are not natural kinds; C. Thinking outside the box; C.1 Tasks and processes
C.2 Distributed cognitionC.3 What the natural kind is not; D. Further examples; 4 Practical and Impractical Ontology; A. An unreasonable dichotomy; A.1 Natural kinds and bicameral legislation; A.2 Amphibolic pragmatism; A.3 The pragmatists' hope of convergence; A.4 Engaging the world; A.5 The practical as leverage on the real; B. Deep metaphysics; B.1 Bad arguments for realism; B.2 Realism and metaphysical depth; 5 The Menace of Triviality; A. Cheap similarity; B. Project-relative kinds; B.1 Promiscuous realism; B.2 Cooking up natural kinds; C. Agent-relative kinds
C.1 Meerkat threats and alarmsC.2 Unicorns and fictobiology; C.3 Constellations; D. Coda on promiscuity; 6 Causal Processes and Property Clusters; A. Species as the specimen of an HPC; A.1 Worries about polymorphism; A.2 Getting over similarity fetishism; A.3 Natural kinds and systematic explanation; B. Species and token histories; B.1 The tigers of Mars; B.2 Hybrids and separate origin; C. RE: ducks, the species problem redux; D. Historical individuals; D.1 Sets and sums, a metaphysical non sequitur; D.2 Metaphysical puzzles about change; D.3 Individualism and HPCs
E. HPC thinking beyond token causesE.1 The waters of Mars; E.2 The Unity Problem; F. Coda on HPCs; 7 Conclusion; Bibliography; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.
Philosophy and science.
Epistemology.
Philosophy of Science.
Epistemology.