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Etiological classification and the acquisition and structure of knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 1998

Michael T. Ghiselin
Affiliation:
Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118-4599 mghiselin@calacademy.org

Abstract

Millikan's account of how we acquire our most basic concepts might be clarified by a better ontological taxonomy, especially one that distinguishes between natural kinds on the one hand and wholes composed of parts on the other. The two have a different causal basis, which is important because once classification goes beyond the stage of naive induction, it becomes fundamentally etiological.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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