Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Natural Kinds, philosophy: deviating from the biological definition, substances such as gold, water, etc. are referred to as natural kinds in the recent philosophical discussion. This goes back to the way in which these terms were introduced. (See H. Putnam, “The Meaning of 'Meaning”'. In Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. Mind, Language and Reality, Cambridge.) Starting from a primary showing, the natural kind is defined as "something like this". The decisive point here is that there is no limit to future research. Virtually, any property that is initially attributed can prove to be a false assumption. See also introduction, definitions, terms._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Jerry Fodor on Natural Kinds - Dictionary of Arguments
I 139 Natural Kind/Fodor: no natural kind is e.g. "less than". There is no science that is based on this predicate, e.g. "less then three kilometers from the Eiffel Tower": if I knew what a law is, I would say: P is a natural kind predicate relative to S if S contains actual laws of the form Px>ax or ax>Px a-A-P are the predicates whose terms are the bound variables in the actual laws of a science. Problem: the concept of law is unclear. >Laws. I 141 E.g. different payment modes (sea shealls, dollar bills) form a natural kind, because Gresham's Law applies to payments. I 154 Def Natural kind/Fodor: a natural kind can be a thing or event classes about which there are important generalizations. Not all physical objects form natural kinds. A complete generalization dissolves the natural kind. >Generalization._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch, Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |