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
Administrative Ooh, cool! 23 Apr 2009 “Few topics have engaged biologists and philosophers more than the concept of species, and arguably no idea is more important for evolutionary science. John S. Wilkins’ book combines meticulous historical and philosophical analysis and thus provides new insights on the development of this most enduring of subjects.”—Joel Cracraft, American Museum… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Evolution and its rivals – special issue of Synthese 16 Dec 2010 A special issue of the philosophical journal Synthese covers the topic “Evolution and its rivals”. It is open access until the end of this month, so you can get the papers now. The major discussions centre around intelligent design, which is the nearest to intellectual adequacy that creationism gets. There… Read More
Cognition Notes on novelty 7: Surprise! 14 Jan 201221 Jun 2018 Notes on Novelty series: 1. Introduction 2. Historical considerations – before and after evolution 3: The meaning of evolutionary novelty 4: Examples – the beetle’s horns and the turtle’s shell 5: Evolutionary radiations and individuation 6: Levels of description 7: Surprise! 8: Conclusion – Post evo-devo It is now time to return to the basic argument… 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.