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Ideas of John Dupré, by Text

[British, fl. 1993, At Stanford and Birkbeck, and the Professor at Exeter University.]

1993 The Disorder of Things
Intro p.3 17374 The possibility of prediction rests on determinism
Intro p.5 17375 Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification
1 p.18 17377 All descriptive language is classificatory
1 p.26 17378 Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience
1 p.27 17379 Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals
1 p.30 17380 Wales may count as fish
1 p.32 17381 Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage
1 p.34 17382 Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions
2 p.37 17383 Species are the lowest-level classification in biology
2 p.39 17384 Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons
2 p.40 17385 Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract
2 p.42 17386 The theory of evolution is mainly about species
2 p.43 17387 Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy
2 p.53 17388 It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds
2 p.55 17389 A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one
3 p.67 17390 Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory
Ch 1 p.18 17376 We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object