Course Description
In this course we will discuss the metaphysics of so-called natural kinds. In everyday life as well as in science, we often classify objects and people into kinds: kinds of objects and kinds of people. Some classifications ‘feel’ much more natural than others: making one class of all the elm trees, or one of all the men ‘feels’ more natural than making a class out of the tree in front of your house together with a particular tiger and my father. What makes some of these classifications ‘more natural’ or ‘better’ than others? Are some of them more natural – independently of our interests? Do those natural kinds have something like essences (‘what it is to be that kind of thing’)? Or does what makes some classifications more natural than others always depend on our interests? Or is the question which classifications are natural an irreducibly normative question (roughly, a question not of what is the case, but of what ought to be the case)? What is the ideology of ‘naturalness’ (roughly, what political and social ideas get projected by calling or treating something as ‘(more) natural’)? We will discuss the issues that arise with respect to the kinds discussed in physics, biology, and the social sciences, as well as the human kinds that structure much of our daily lives. Among others we discuss water, molecules, species, race, sex and gender.
Syllabus
1. Overview
No obligatory reading
Optional Readings
- Bird, A. and Tobin, E. (2015). Natural Kinds, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/natural-kinds/>.
- Koslicki, K. (2008). Natural kinds and natural kind terms. Philosophy Compass 3 (4):789-802.
2. Natural Kinds and Entrenchment
In this session, we take a look at Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction, and at how Goodman and Quine thought appeal to natural kinds might solve that riddle. As we will see, their solution appeals to a fairly anti-realist notion of natural kind.
- Goodman, N. (1955/1983) Ch 3+4 of Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 59-124
- Quine, W. V. (1969). Natural kinds. In Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 114–38
3. Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms
In this session, we read (excerpts from) the two classic texts that are often to have brought back a stronger form of realism about natural kinds. We are particularly interested in how the discussion of linguistic natural kind terms (semantic externalism) and the metaphysics of natural kinds (natural kind essentialism) are connected.
- Putnam, H (1975). The Meaning of 'Meaning, in Mind, Language and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 215-71.
- Kripke, S. (1980), excerpts from: Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
4. Natural Kinds and Essences
In this session, we take a deeper look at the connection between the philosophy of language issues and the metaphysical issues. We consider critiques of the idea that substantial essentialist (or other metaphysical) theses follow from the Putnam/Kripke externalist semantics (and also whether these two are really the same in this respect).
- Salmon, N. U. (1979). How Not to Derive Essentialism From the Theory of Reference. Journal of Philosophy, 76, 703–25
- Beebee, H. (2013). How to carve across the joints in nature without abandoning Kripke-Putnam semantics. In Metaphysics and Science, ed. Stephen Mumford & Matt Tugby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
- Reid, J. (2002). Natural Kind Essentialism. Australasian-Journal-of-Philosophy 80 (1), 62-74.
Optional Readings
- Hacking, I. (2007). Putnam's theory of natural kinds and their names is not the same as Kripke's. Principia: an international journal of epistemology, 11(1), 1-24.
- Mumford, S. (2005). Kinds, essences, powers. Ratio, 18(4), 420-436.
5. Natural Kinds and Psychological Essentialism (2nd summary due)
In this session, we consider the connections between philosophers’ thinking about natural kinds and essences, and our (and children’s intuitive way of thinking about those natural kinds and essences. Do the philosophical intuitions that drive e.g. Kripke’s and Putnam’s thought experiments result from fairly primitive psychological mechanisms? Does this discredit those intuitions?
- Leslie, S.J. (2013). Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition. Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 4, 108-165
Optional Readings
- Gelman, excerpts from: The Essential Child
- Keller, J. (2005). In genes we trust: The biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 686–702.
6. Natural Kinds and Natural Properties
This session is the one most directly concerned with the metaphysical nature of natural kinds. How are natural kinds, and natural properties, and (sparse) universals related? Are there direct metaphysical motivations for realism about natural properties, how do they relate to motivations for realism about natural kinds?
- Lewis, D. (1983). New work for a theory of universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61(4), 343-377.
- Tobin, E. (2015). Are Natural Kinds and Natural Properties Distinct?”, Metaphysics and Science, Stephen Mumford and Matt Tugby (eds.) Oxford University Press.
Optional Readings
- Hawley, K. and Bird, A., (2011). What are Natural Kinds?, Philosophical Perspectives, 25: 205–221.
- Paul, L. (2013). Realism about Structure and Kinds. In The Metaphysics of Science, 203–221, edited by Stephen Mumford and Matthew Tugby. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Armstrong, D. (1997). Properties, in D. H. Mellor and A Oliver (eds.), Properties (Oxford University Press), esp. pp.160-167
7. Natural Kinds and Homeostatic Property Clusters
In this session, we start considering the role of natural kinds in the “special sciences”. We consider the influential idea that natural kinds (in those sciences) are stable clusters of properties. We also look at whether – at least in biology – natural kinds (like species) should rather be individuated by their historical origin.
- Boyd, R. (1989). What Realism Implies and What It Does Not, Dialectica, 5-29
- Millikan, R. (1999). Historical Kinds and the ‘Special Sciences’. Philosophical Studies 95 , 45-65
- Boyd, R. (1999). Kinds, Complexity and Multiple Realization, Philosophical Studies 95 (1999), 67-98
Optional Readings
- Fodor, J. (1974) Special Sciences, Synthese 2: 97-115.
- Millikan, R. G. (1999). Response to Boyd's Commentary. Philosophical Studies, 95(1), 99-102.
8. Natural Kinds and Human Interests
In this (and the next) session, we look at modern anti-realist views on natural kinds. On the views we consider in this session, any classification is interest relative, there are no interest independent “natural joints”.
- Anderson, E. (1995). Knowledge, human interests, and objectivity in feminist epistemology. Philosophical Topics, 23(2), 27-58.
- Kitcher, P. (2001). Ch. 3,4,5 of Science, Truth, and Democracy, Oxford University Press, 43-83
Optional Readings
- Longino, H., & Doell, R. (1983). Body, bias, and behavior: A comparative analysis of reasoning in two areas of biological science. Signs, 206-227.
9. Anti-Realisms about Natural Kinds
This session considers some more anti-realist (at least: not fully realist) views and arguments about natural kinds. Is the whole tradition of natural kinds debunked? Do natural kinds serve and important scientific role – even if they are not “joints in nature”?
- Hacking, I. (1991). A Tradition of Natural Kinds, Philosophical Studies, 109-126
- Franklin-Hall, L. R. (2014). Natural kinds as categorical bottlenecks. Philosophical Studies, 1-24.
Optional Readings
- Rorty, R. (1999). Philosophy and Social Hope. Introduction ‘Relativism: Finding and Making’ and Ch. 3 ‘A World without Substances or Essences’, Penguin Books, p. xvi- xxxii & 47-71
- Hacking, I. (2007). Natural kinds: Rosy dawn, scholastic twilight. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 61, 203-239.
10. Natural Kinds, Species and Biological Taxa (2nd response due)
In this session, we look at one of the – at least since Aristotle – most prominent example of a natural kind: biological species and taxa. Do animals come in natural kinds? Is their a unique, correct way of classifying animals or should we be pluralists about biological classification?
- Dupre, J. (1981). Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa, The Philosophical Review, 90, 66-90
- Khalidi, M. A. (1998). Natural kinds and crosscutting categories. The Journal of Philosophy, 33-50.
Optional Readings
- J. Dupre (1999) Are Whales Fish?, in D.L. Medin and S. Atran (eds), Folkbiology (MIT Press, 1999), pp.461-476.
11. Natural Kinds, Biological Taxa and Human Races
In this session, we consider one of the most controversial topics related to natural kinds: human ‘races’. Are their human races? Is the category of race a biological category? Or should the category be abandoned (at least “scientifically speaking”)?
- Kitcher, P. (1999). Race, Ethnicity, Biology, Culture, in L. Harris (ed.) Racism (Humanity Books), 87-117
- Andreasen, R. O. (1998). A new perspective on the race debate. The British journal for the philosophy of science, 49(2), 199-225.
- Glasgow, J. M. (2003). On the new biology of race. The Journal of Philosophy, 456-474.
12. Natural Kinds and Human Kinds
In this session, we look at what might make kinds of human special. We consider the idea that human kinds are characterized by an interesting type of looping effect: an interaction between what kinds of humans (or human activities) there are and what kinds of human (or human activities) we take their to be.
- Hacking, I. (1986). Making Up People. In Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought. Edited by Thomas C. Heller and Christine Brooke-Rose. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986. ISBN: 0804712913.
- Hacking, I. (1996). The Looping Effects of Human Kinds, in D. Sperber (ed.) Causal Cognition (Oxford University Press, 1996), 351-383
- Elgin, C. Z. (1997). Making Up People and Things, Between the Absolute and the Arbitrary, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Optional Readings
- Cooper, R., (2004). Why Hacking is Wrong About Human Kinds, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55 (1):73-85.
- Khalidi, M. A. (2010). Interactive Kinds. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 61(2), 335-360.
13. Human Kinds and Social Construction
In this session, we consider the idea of social construction, the idea that (at least some human) kinds are socially constructed. What does this idea of social construction of kinds amount to? What role might classifications that are so constructed play?
- Haslanger, S. (1995). Ontology and social construction. Philosophical Topics, 23(2), 95-125.
- Haslanger, S. (2000). Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be? Nous 34(1), 31-55.
- Sveinsdóttir, Á. K. (2013). The Social Construction of Human Kinds. Hypatia, 28(4), 716-732.
14. Human Kinds and Ideology (essay due)
In this last session, we look more at the ideological functions of natural kinds talk. What purpose does the talk of some classification as “natural” serve? Should we critique socially constructed kinds, as well as the talk of kinds as independent of us?
- Haslanger, S. (2007). "But mom, crop-tops are cute!" Social knowledge, social structure and ideology critique. Philosophical Issues 17 (1):70–91.
Optional Readings
- Althusser, L. (1970/2006). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. The anthropology of the state: A reader, 86-111.