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From: TLW.MDC@OFFICE-1.ARPA (Tony Wilkie /DAC/)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Natural Kinds
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Date: Wed, 15-Jul-87 17:19:00 EDT
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Posted: Wed Jul 15 17:19:00 1987
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I may get sizzled for this, but I will suggest that the term "natural kind", 
while a fairly recent addition to the philosophical lexicon, is a conceptual 
descendant of Plato`s Forms, and more closely approximated in meaning to 
Aristotle's discussions of 'kinds' in his Metaphysics.

Chairs would certainly be a paradigm example of a Platonic Form, and Aristotle 
in his Metaphysics used his horse, Bucephalus, as an example in his discussion 
of kinds. Given his inclination as sort of a teleological guerilla, Aristotle 
would have (and may have) had a tough time separating his 'kinds' concept from 
'species' in the biological cases. Still, I think it safe to say that 
philosophical discussion of ontology preceded the development of a formal 
concept of species.

   Tony L. Wilkie