Course Description

In this course we will discuss the metaphysics of so-called natural kinds. In everyday life as well as in science, we often classify objects and people into kinds: kinds of objects and kinds of people. Some classifications ‘feel’ much more natural than others: making one class of all the elm trees, or one of all the men ‘feels’ more natural than making a class out of the tree in front of your house together with a particular tiger and my father. What makes some of these classifications ‘more natural’ or ‘better’ than others? Are some of them more natural – independently of our interests? Do those natural kinds have something like essences (‘what it is to be that kind of thing’)? Or does what makes some classifications more natural than others always depend on our interests? Or is the question which classifications are natural an irreducibly normative question (roughly, a question not of what is the case, but of what ought to be the case)? What is the ideology of ‘naturalness’ (roughly, what political and social ideas get projected by calling or treating something as ‘(more) natural’)? We will discuss the issues that arise with respect to the kinds discussed in physics, biology, and the social sciences, as well as the human kinds that structure much of our daily lives. Among others we discuss water, molecules, species, race, sex and gender.