My latest paper – Carving Nature at its Joints, a review 25 Nov 201225 Nov 2012 You can find it online here. A very interesting but ultimately, to me, largely frustrating book (because it didn’t answer my questions, goddammit!). Review – Carving Nature at Its Joints Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke and Matthew H. Slater (Editors) MIT Press, 2012 Review by John S. Wilkins Nov 20th 2012 (Volume 16, Issue 47) Academe Book Epistemology Logic and philosophy Metaphysics
Book Yet another “post-Darwinism” 2 Aug 201122 Jun 2018 Over the years there have been many books that purport to “radically revise” or “supplant” Darwinian evolutionary biology; they come with predictable regularity. Usually they are of three kinds: something is wrong with natural selection, something is wrong with inheritance, or something is wrong with phylogeny. This book, by geneticist… Read More
Education Crowdsourcing question: scientific method book? 8 Sep 2010 I need a recommendation of a short simple book that provides a good, but not simplistic, outline of how it is that scientists reach their conclusions. Failing that, a good paper. Targeted at non-philosophy undergraduate students. I have been looking rather hard and nothing much of worth since the 1930s,… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Random thoughts about God and evolution 27 Jun 2010 As some may know, I am writing a couple of book chapters to try to sell a proposal to a publisher for The Nature of Classification, a book I am coauthoring with Malte Ebach. I bring the philosophy and he brings the knowledge. However, this means I am not devoting… Read More
he also addresses the grue paradox and law-derived etiologies, holding that natural law requires natural necessity and natural kinds require natural law. Hmm. I guess I’m going to have to read those. Dangit. acceptability of Humean supervenience of laws Humeanism is a bad (and somewhat confused) position. he does not seem to address the existence of centers; a mountain may have a peak even if one cannot easily distinguish where it and an adjacent mountain meet. A good point. Is it typically discussed in the literature (on kinds or on vagueness)? One sentence is enough to sum the claim up for me: “If there is no teleology in nature, then the Axiological Species Concept fails” *chuckle* the author argues that determinism is neither entailed by nor entails physicalism. obviously = The connection with natural kinds lies in the issue of exceptionless or exception-laden kinds in physics. ?? I guess I’m going to have to read that one too . . .
He does know everything – he just has this strange Socratic idea that by asking these questions we can find enlightenment. Sometimes it even works.