CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Ball, Errol Philip |
|---|---|
| Title | Considering Post-essentialist Kinds: Ambiguities of Epistemic Access and the Slippery Slope of the Real |
| Summary | I examine two accounts of natural kinds which attempt to maintain natural kind realism while justifying the failures of traditional natural kind essentialism. I understand the accommodationist proposal to hold that natural kinds are real because of underlying causal mechanisms that support successful inferences. The promiscuous realist proposal yields two possible ways of developing natural kind realism; I call them reference realism and conceptual inevitability. All three routes to realism are shown to be inconsistent. I suggest that the solution is not to adopt a strictly anti-realist attitude, but rather to accept the ambiguities of epistemic access and avoid further attempts to traverse the slippery slope of the real. |
| Supervisor | Kronfeldner, Maria |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/ball_errol.pdf |
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