Nominalism and Nature: Just How Real are Biological Kinds?

Abstract

Moments of “nominalist” euphoria in the philosophy of science--e.g., Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"--often give way to massive hangovers, as once-giddy “nominalists” realize that they may have abandoned, in their euphoria, the very idea of nature. No wonder, then, that, in Quine's wake, Kripke and Putnam reasserted that physical natural kinds--e.g., gold or chlorine--are, in some sense, necessary entities. But what of biological kinds like species? Doesn't Darwinism require “nominalism” about species? Following the example of Sober, in this presentation I will argue that, far from requiring “nominalism," Darwinism actually requires the rejection of full-fledged “nominalism” about biological kinds

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-18

Downloads
17 (#742,076)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references