How Scientific Is Scientific Essentialism?

Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 40 (1):85-101 (2009)
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Abstract

Scientific essentialism holds that: (1) each scientific kind is associated with the same set of properties in every possible world; and (2) every individual member of a scientific kind belongs to that kind in every possible world in which it exists. Recently, Ellis (Scientific essentialism, 2001 ; The philosophy of nature 2002 ) has provided the most sustained defense of scientific essentialism, though he does not clearly distinguish these two claims. In this paper, I argue that both claims face a number of formidable difficulties. The necessities of scientific essentialism are not adequately distinguished from semantic necessities, they have not been shown to be necessities in the strictest sense, they must be relativized to context, and they must either be confined to a subset of scientific properties without warrant or their connection to causal powers must be revoked. Moreover, upon closer examination (1) turns out to be a trivial thesis that can be satisfied by non-kinds, and (2) is inapplicable to some of the most fundamental kinds in the basic sciences.

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Muhammad Ali Khalidi
CUNY Graduate Center

Citations of this work

Knowledge, Truth and Plausibility.Carlo Cellucci - 2014 - Axiomathes 24 (4):517-532.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
The meaning of 'meaning'.Hilary Putnam - 1975 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Scientific Essentialism.Brian Ellis - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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