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COLLOQUIA & CONFERENCES
Anjan Chakravartty Department of Philosophy University of Toronto October 7, 2005 Friday, 4:00pm-6:00pm Nursing, Room 127 The sciences theorize about and experiment on kinds of things: different classes of objects, events, and processes. Those who subscribe to the idea of "natural" kinds often suggest that such classes are crucial to the empirical success characteristic of modern sciences. Success, they say, can be explained in terms of the nature of scientific taxonomy and the successful inductive generalizations and projections these taxonomies underwrite. Brian Ellis and other advocates of the New Essentialism, for example, analyze the relation of kinds to success by drawing a connection between the essences of kinds and laws of nature. The basic idea is that since members of a genuine natural kind share an essence, and scientific taxonomies demarcate genuine natural kinds, it is no surprise that our inductions meet with success, since shared essences underwrite successful inductive generalizations and projections. I argue, however, that "kind essences" are only sometimes and often not at all relevant to successful inductive practice. What is important are simply distributions of determinate properties on the basis of which scientists divide nature into classes in the first place. Unlike the New Essentialism, the view I will sketch embraces classes from across the sciences, not merely those sharing "essences", and suggests that insofar as it makes sense to apply the philosophical concept of natural kinds to scientific contexts, it is best understood in a deflationary manner.  |
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Last updated 4/8/08 10:32 PM
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