What is a natural kind? As we shall see, the concept of a natural kind has a long history. Many of the interesting doctrines can be detected in Aristotle, were revived by Locke and Leibniz, and have again become fashionable in recent years. Equally there has been agreement about certain paradigm examples: the kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kinds table, nation and banknote are not. Sadly agreement does not extend much further. It is impossible to (...) discover a single consistent doctrine in the literature, and different discussions focus on different doctrines without writers or readers being aware of the fact. In this paper I shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds. (shrink)

What is a natural kind? As we shall see, the concept of a natural kind has a long history. Many of the interesting doctrines can be detected in Aristotle, were revived by Locke and Leibniz, and have again become fashionable in recent years. Equally there has been agreement about certain paradigm examples: the kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kinds table, nation and banknote are not. Sadly agreement does not extend much further. It is impossible to (...) discover a single consistent doctrine in the literature, and different discussions focus on different doctrines without writers or readers being aware of the fact. In this paper I shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds. (shrink)

Explains Aristotle's views on the possibility of continuous variation between biological species. While the Porphyrean/Linnean classification of species by a tree suggests species are distributed discretely, Aristotle admitted continuous variation between species among lower life forms.

The terminology of ‘essence’ and ‘accident’, which it is customary to trace back to Aristotle, has been given a new lease of life by recent writing on logic and metaphysics. Aristotle's notion of ‘essence’ is notoriously difficult and obscure, but the works of Putnam 1 on natural kinds, Kripke 2 on naming and Wiggins 3 on identity may be seen as providing a new rationale, with a distinctive scientific twist, for talk of essences. This revival in the fortunes of essentialism (...) merits closer examination, for whilst it may be that modern versions of essentialism have avoided some of the difficulties of Aristotle's account, they have imported others which may prove no less intractable. (shrink)