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Essence in the Age of Evolution: A New Theory of Natural Kinds

Christopher J. Austin

London, UK: Routledge (2018)

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Natural Kinds, Mind-independence, and Unification Principles.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-23.details There have been many attempts to determine what makes a natural kind real, chief among them is the criterion according to which natural kinds must be mind-independent. But it is difficult to specify this criterion: many supposed natural kinds have an element of mind-dependence. I will argue that the mind-independence criterion is nevertheless a good one, if correctly understood: the mind-independence criterion concerns the unification principles for natural kinds. Unification principles determine how natural kinds unify their properties, and only those (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 5 citations
The dynamical essence of powers.Andrea Roselli & Christopher Austin - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5):14951-14973.details Powers are properties defined by what they do. The focus of the large majority of the powers literature has been mainly put on explicating the (multifaceted) results of the production of a power in certain (multifaceted) initial conditions: but all this causal complexity is bound to be—and, in fact, it has proved to be—quite difficult to handle. In this paper we take a different approach by focusing on the very activity of producing those multifaceted manifestations themselves. In this paper, we (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 1 citation
Natural Kind Essentialism.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2024 - In Kathrin Koslicki & Michael J. Raven (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Essence in Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 156-168.details Natural kind essentialism is a specification of the intuitive idea that there are some mind-independent or objective categories in nature. These categories are thought to be characterised by a shared essence, which may involve intrinsic or extrinsic properties, mechanisms, or causal history. While the ontological basis of natural kinds has its roots in antiquity and especially Aristotle, the contemporary notion of a “natural kind” in philosophical discussion is often traced to William Whewell’s and John Stuart Mill’s work in the 1800s. (...) Download Export citation Bookmark

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