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. | |||
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Ruth Millikan on Natural Kinds - Dictionary of Arguments
I 11 Properties/Kind/Millikan: propoerties exist only in the actual world (our real world). MillikanVsNominalism. >Nominalism. I 328 Natural kinds/Putnam/Millikan: Thesis: at least in the case of natural kind-concepts, the intension does not determine the extension. Reason: it is possible that such concepts have identical intensions but different extensions. Meaning/Putnam: whatever has different extensions, must have different meanings. Therefore, meanings cannot be in the head. >Meanings ain't in the head/Putnam. I 329 Putnam/Millikan: his argumentation here is that of a realist. >Realism, >Internal realism. Meaning/Millikan: if meanings are not intensions, there must be something else that can determine the reference or the extension. >Intension, >Extension, >Reference. Natural kind/solution/Putnam: contrary to the appearance natural kind-concepts are indexical. And tradition has always had its difficulties with this. Extension/Putnam: Thesis: the extension of "water" and "gold" is determined by a relation between the expression token and the extension. MillikanVsPutnam: that is the reason why he mistakenly thinks that natural kind-concepts are indexical. No problem is solved, but only one is named._____________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. |
Millikan I R. G. Millikan Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987 Millikan II Ruth Millikan "Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild, Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
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> Counter arguments against Millikan
> Counter arguments in relation to Natural Kinds
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-27