Spurious Causal Kinds: A Problem for the Causal-Power Conception of Kinds |
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Authors: | Brandon N Towl |
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Institution: | 1.Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program,Washington University in St. Louis,St. Louis,USA |
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Abstract: | There is an assumption common in the philosophy of mind literature that kinds in our sciences—or causal kinds, at least—are
individuated by the causal powers that objects have in virtue of the properties they instantiate. While this assumption might
not be problematic by itself, some authors take the assumption to mean that falling under a kind and instantiating a property
amount to the same thing. I call this assumption the “Property-Kind Individuation Principle”. A problem with this principle
arises because there are cases where we can sort objects by their possession of common causal powers, and yet those objects
do not intuitively form a causal kind. In this short note, I discuss why the Property-Kind Individuation Principle is thus
not a warranted metaphysical assumption. |
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