NATURAL AND OTHER KINDS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps20256216Keywords:
classifications in science, natural kinds, incommensurability, realism and nominalism, realism and antirealismAbstract
Real notion is distinct from nominal one and connected with objective borderlines and essential properties of objects. Do scientists know the real natural kinds or produce schemas and concepts in theories from constructive activity of imagination and, therefore, group objects by pragmatic means of language, rather than in accordance to world structure? Does the differentiation of sciences follow the orders of things or is it influenced by the social and communicative nature of science? Can we mix a sort of constructivism and realism in epistemology? The classification of sciences made by A.Yu. Antonovski is discussed in the following article, and it is explained what are natural and other kinds from the viewpoint of referential potential theory by P. Kitcher, P.K. Stanford and others.
References
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Stanford, P.K., Kitcher, P. “Refining the Causal Theory of Reference for Natural Kind Terms”, Philosophical Studies, 2000, no. 97, pp. 99–129.
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