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
Ecology and Biodiversity The mind of the ecological engineer 27 Oct 201127 Oct 2011 I watched a very interesting documentary episode recently, entitled “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” (a phrase of poet Richard Brautigan’s), in which the maker Adam Curtis put forward the view that ecology was founded (at least in its modern iteration) in direct analogy with the view of… Read More
History Quote: Nominalism 16 Feb 201216 Feb 2012 Nominalism has often been misunderstood in the past, perhaps because of the associations of the word itself. Properly conceived, nominalism has nothing to do with names. It is, quite precisely, the thesis that everything which exists is an individual, and is moreover an individual in itself, and not merely as a… Read More
Epistemology God and evolution 3: The problem of purpose A 13 Apr 201322 Jun 2018 The problem of purpose When Darwin published the Origin, he was lauded by his Christian friend and correspondent Asa Gray, who wrote: “…Darwin’s great service to Natural Science in bringing back to it Teleology: so that instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology” Darwin replied… 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.