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On the Logic of Natural Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Nino Cocchiarella
Nino Cocchiarella*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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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

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References

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