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Single Idea 11907

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 6. Necessity of Kinds ]

Full Idea

One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind.

Gist of Idea

Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not

Source

Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2)

Book Ref

Mackie,Penelope: 'How Things Might Have Been' [OUP 2006], p.173

A Reaction

You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional.

The 18 ideas from Penelope Mackie

11877 An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P]
11906 The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P]
11905 Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P]
11909 Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P]
11907 Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P]
11882 No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P]
11883 A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P]
11884 The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P]
11886 There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P]
11887 Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P]
11889 Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P]
11890 De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
11892 Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
11893 Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]
11894 Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P]
11897 A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P]
11898 Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P]
11899 Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P]