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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change

Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change

Laporte, Joseph

Hardcover

Series: Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology

PhilosophyHistory & Philosophy of Science

ISBN10: 0521825997
ISBN13: 9780521825993
Publisher: Cambridge
Published: Dec 8 2003
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.49
Height: 0.79 Width: 6.34 Depth: 9.26
Language: English
According to the received tradition, the language used to refer to natural kinds in scientific discourse remains stable even as theories about these kinds are refined. Hence, scientists discover, rather than stipulate, that sentences like 'Whales are mammals, not fish' are true. In this illuminating book, Joseph LaPorte argues that scientists do not discover that sentences about natural kinds, like 'Whales are mammals, not fish', are true rather than false. Instead, scientists find that these sentences were vague in the language of earlier speakers, and they refine the meanings of the relevant natural-kind terms to make sentences true. Hence, scientists change the meanings of these terms. This conclusion prompts LaPorte to examine the consequences of this change in meaning for the issue of incommensurability and for the progress of science.

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