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The semantics and metaphysics of natural kinds / edited by Helen Beebee and Nigel Sabbarton-Leary.
- Format:
- Book
- Series:
- Routledge studies in metaphysics ; 1.
- Routledge studies in metaphysics ; 1
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Categories (Philosophy).
- Semantics (Philosophy).
- Metaphysics.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (250 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Routledge, 2010.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Essentialism--roughly, the view that natural kinds have discrete essences, generating truths that are necessary but knowable only a posteriori--is an increasingly popular view in the metaphysics of science. At the same time, philosophers of language have been subjecting Kripke's views about the existence and scope of the necessary a posteriorito rigorous analysis and criticism. Essentialists typically appeal to Kripkean semantics to motivate their radical extension of the realm of the necessary a posteriori; but they rarely attempt to provide any semantic arguments for this extension, or engag
- Contents:
- Book Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; 1 Introduction; 2 Rigidity, Natural Kind Terms, and Metasemantics; 3 General Terms as Designators: A Defence of The View; 4 Are Natural Kind Terms Special?; 5 The Commonalities between Proper Names and Natural Kind Terms: A Fregean Perspective; 6 Theoretical Identity Statements, Their Truth, and Their Discovery; 7 Discovering the Essences of Natural Kinds; 8 The Elements and Conceptual Change; 9 On the Abuse of the Necessary A Posteriori; 10 Crosscutting Natural Kinds and the Hierarchy Thesis
- 11 From Constitutional Necessities to Causal Necessities12 Realism, Natural Kinds, and Philosophical Methods; Contributors; Index
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.
- ISBN:
- 1-136-97576-4
- 1-136-97577-2
- 1-282-62969-7
- 9786612629693
- 0-203-85233-8
- 9780203852330
- OCLC:
- 642661631
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