Episode 163: Guest Stewart Umphrey on Natural Kinds (Part One)

From The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

On Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities (2016). Are general terms like "water" or "dog" just things that we made up to order the world? Aristotle thought that some universals constitute natural kinds, with a nature that explains their behavior. "Kinds" were replaced with "laws," but Stewart wants us to reconsider, and bring back "natural philosophy" in the process.

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