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Full Idea
Natural kinds are distinguished from other sorts of things by their associations with essential properties and real essences.
Gist of Idea
Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences
Source
Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.02)
Book Ref
Ellis,Brian: 'Scientific Essentialism' [CUP 2007], p.21
A Reaction
I don't think I agree with this. I rest my notion of natural kind on the elementary realising that to know all about this kind you only have to examine one sample of it, as in the Upanishads. The source of such a phenomenon is an open question.
Related Idea
Idea 8153 By knowing one piece of clay or gold, you know all of clay or gold [Anon (Upan)]
| 15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
| 15993 | If we observe total regularity, there must be some unknown law and relationships controlling it [Locke] |
| 11191 | The hidden structure of a natural kind determines membership in all possible worlds [Putnam] |
| 12680 | Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 13574 | Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis] |
| 15150 | The properties of an electron can't be explained just as 'clustering' [Chakravartty on Boyd] |
| 15149 | Properties cluster together, either because of intrinsic relations, or because of an underlying process [Boyd, by Chakravartty] |
| 14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
| 14957 | There is nothing more to a natural kind than a real pattern in nature [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 15146 | Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty] |
| 13287 | Concepts for species are either intrinsic structure, or relations like breeding or ancestry [Koslicki] |
| 15641 | Kinds are fixed by the essential properties of things - the properties that make it that kind of thing [Eagle] |