Natural Kinds: Rosy Dawn, Scholastic Twilight

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 61:203-239 (2007)
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Abstract

The rosy dawn of my title refers to that optimistic time when the logical concept of a natural kind originated in Victorian England. The scholastic twilight refers to the present state of affairs. I devote more space to dawn than twilight, because one basic problem was there from the start, and by now those origins have been forgotten. Philosophers have learned many things about classification from the tradition of natural kinds. But now it is in disarray and is unlikely to be put back together again. My argument is less founded on objections to the numerous theories now in circulation, than on the sheer proliferation of incompatible views. There no longer exists what Bertrand Russell called ‘the doctrine of natural kinds’—one doctrine. Instead we have a slew of distinct analyses directed at unrelated projects.

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Ian Hacking
University of Toronto, St. George Campus

Citations of this work

Natural Kindness.Matthew H. Slater - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (2):375-411.
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Natural kinds as categorical bottlenecks.Laura Franklin-Hall - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (4):925-948.

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References found in this work

Species.Philip Kitcher - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (2):308-333.
Scientific Essentialism.H. Beebee - 2004 - Mind 113 (450):334-340.
A tradition of natural kinds.Ian Hacking - 1991 - Philosophical Studies 61 (1-2):109-26.

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