How to carve nature across the joints without abandoning Kripke-Putnam semantics

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham)
• Thursday 03 February 2011, 16:30-18:00
• Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Nicky Reeves.

Kripke-Putnam semantics (KP) for natural kind terms, according to which truths like ‘water is H2O ’ are metaphysically necessary but knowable only a posteriori, is often taken to have significant metaphysical consequences. In particular, it is often taken to justify ‘natural kind essentialism’. I argue that the metaphysical consequences of KP are in fact extremely weak; in particular, KP is consistent both with species pluralism (the view that there are several, equally ‘correct’ ways of classifying organisms) and with Kuhnian relativism.

This talk is part of the Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of Science series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge talks
• Department of History and Philosophy of Science
• Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of Science
• Featured lists
• History and Philosophy of Science long list
• Philosophy Events
• Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• hc446
• jer64's list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.