Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:50:32.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Logic of Natural Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Nino Cocchiarella
Nino Cocchiarella*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A minimal second order modal logic of natural kinds is formulated. Concepts are distinguished from properties and relations in the conceptual-logistic background of the logic through a distinction between free and bound predicate variables. Not all concepts (as indicated by free predicate variables) need have a property or relation corresponding to them (as values of bound predicate variables). Issues pertaining to identity and existence as impredicative concepts are examined and an analysis of mass terms as nominalized predicates for kinds of stuff is proposed. The minimal logic is extendible through a summum genus, an infima species or a partition principle for natural kinds.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 202 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Carnap, R. “On the Use of Hilbert's ∊-Operator in Scientific Theories.” In Essays on the Foundations of Mathematics, Dedicated to Fraenkel, A. A. Edited by Bar-Hillel, Y., et al. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961. Pages 156–164.Google Scholar
Cocchiarella, N. “Logical Atomism, Nominalism, and Modal Logic.” Synthese 31 (1975): 23–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hintikka, J. Time and Necessity. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. “Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic.” Philosophical Review 78 (1969): 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. “Three Grades of Modal Involvement.” Proc. XIth International Congress of Philosophy, Brussells, 1953, vol. 14. Reprinted in Ways of Paradox. New York: Random House, 1966. Pages 156–174.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. “Abstract Entities.” Review of Metaphysics 16 (1963): 627–671.Google Scholar