Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-03T14:03:42.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stable Property Clusters and Their Grounds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Eduardo J. Martinez
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue against Matthew Slater’s rejection of what he calls the grounding claim in his stable property cluster (SPC) account of natural kinds. This claim states that the epistemic value of natural kinds depends on the existence of some ground to bind together a kind’s properties. Using two test cases from academic medicine, I show that grounds are genuinely explanatory of scientific epistemic practices and that the SPC account should not do without them in its philosophical analysis of natural kinds.

Type
Laws and Natural Kinds
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 5 , December 2017 , pp. 944 - 955
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to Annabelle Anandappa, Justin Bzovy, Davis Goodnight, Josh Hunt, Max Lewis, Pierce Randall, Matthew Slater, Naomi Stark, Quayshawn Spencer, Mingjun Zhang, and audiences at the 2016 Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting and the philosophy department of the University of Michigan for helpful comments and discussions.

References

Barker, Matthew J., and Wilson, Robert A. 2010. “Cohesion, Gene Flow, and the Nature of Species.” Journal of Philosophy 107 (2): 61–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1989. “What Realism Implies and What It Does Not.” Dialectica 43 (1–2): 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard 1991. “Realism, Anti-foundationalism, and the Enthusiasm for Natural Kinds.” Philosophical Studies 61 (1–2): 127–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard 1999. “Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Wilson, Robert A., 141–85. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, Marc, and Matthen, Mohan. 2005. “Taxonomy, Polymorphism, and History: An Introduction to Population Structure Theory.” Philosophy of Science 72 (1): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul E. 1999. “Squaring the Circle: Natural Kinds with Historical Essences.” In Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Wilson, Robert A., 209–28. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lange, Marc. 2004. “The Autonomy of Functional Biology: A Reply to Rosenberg.” Biology and Philosophy 19 (1): 93–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Thomas J., et al. 2004. “Activating Mutations in the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Underlying Responsiveness of Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer to Gefitinib.” New England Journal of Medicine 350 (21): 2129–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maemondo, Makoto, et al. 2010. “Gefitinib or Chemotherapy for Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer with Mutated EGFR.” New England Journal of Medicine 362 (25): 2380–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayr, Ernst. 1963. Animal Species and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paez, J. Guillermo, et al. 2004. “EGFR Mutations in Lung Cancer: Correlation with Clinical Response to Gefitinib Therapy.” Science 304 (5676): 1497–1500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shope, Richard E. 1931. “Swine Influenza: III. Filtration Experiments and Etiology.” Journal of Experimental Medicine 54 (3): 373–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slater, Matthew H. 2013a. Are Species Real? An Essay on the Metaphysics of Species. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Matthew H. 2013b. “Cell Types as Natural Kinds.” Biological Theory 7 (2): 170–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Matthew H. 2015. “Natural Kindness.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (2): 375–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Wilson, Andrewes, Christopher H., and Laidlaw, Patrick P. 1933. “A Virus Obtained from Influenza Patients.” Lancet 222 (5732): 66–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veale, D., Ashcroft, T., Marsh, C., Gibson, G. J., and Harris, A. L. 1987. “Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer.” British Journal of Cancer 55 (5): 513–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Webster, Robert G., Bean, William J., Gorman, Owen T., Chambers, Thomas M., and Kawaoka, Yoshihiro. 1992. “Evolution and Ecology of Influenza A Viruses.” Microbiological Reviews 56 (1): 152–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, Robert A., Barker, Matthew J., and Brigandt, Ingo. 2007. “When Traditional Essentialism Fails: Biological Natural Kinds.” Philosophical Topics 35 (1–2): 189–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article:

Erratum