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9 1 Essentialism about Natural Kinds Essentialism about natural kinds has three tenets. The first tenet is that all and only members of a natural kind have some essential properties. The second tenet is that these essential properties play a causal role. The third tenet is that they are explanatorily relevant. I examine the prospects of questioning these tenets and point out that arguing against the first and the second tenets of kind-essentialism would involve taking part in some of the grand debates of philosophy. But, at least if we restrict the scope of the discussion to the biological domain, the third tenet of kindessentialism could be questioned more successfully. It is not an easy task to pin down what is meant by essentialism about natural kinds (Putnam 1975; Kripke 1980). First, one can be essentialist about individuals and about kinds. I will not say anything here about essentialism regarding individuals. Maybe, as Kripke claims, specific individuals have essential properties, maybe not (on this important and complex question, see, for example, Robertson 1998; Hawthorne and Gendler 2000; Matthen 2003). Essentialism about individuals is logically independent from essentialism about kinds (see also Okasha 2002, 192). The question I am interested in is whether natural kinds have essential properties. Second, there are a number of potential definitions for essentialism about kinds. As I intend to argue against essentialism, I will use the most general of these. Richard Boyd identified a widespread and fairly strong version of essentialism, according to which natural kinds “must possess definitional essences that define them in terms of necessary and sufficient , intrinsic, unchanging, ahistorical properties” (Boyd 1999, 146). Essential properties in, say, chemistry may all be intrinsic, unchanging, and ahistorical. But it is not clear that all essential properties need to Three Ways of Resisting Essentialism about Natural Kinds Bence Nanay 176 B. Nanay satisfy any of these three requirements. In fact, a rather easy way of arguing against essentialism about at least some natural kinds—namely, biological kinds—is to point out that biological properties are extrinsic, historical, and change over time since biological entities are evolving over time. But it is unlikely that arguments of this kind will defeat essentialism about biological, natural kinds. A new wave of biological essentialists all seek to specify essential properties of biological kinds that are extrinsic, and yet are neither unchanging nor ahistorical.1 The simple argument from the observation that biological entities are evolving over time cannot be used to argue against these versions of biological essentialism. Thus, if we want a target that is worth arguing against, we need to weaken this strong definition of essentialism. As most of the new essentialists , I am also happy to go along with David Hull’s characterization, according to which “each species is distinguished by one set of essential characteristics. The possession of each essential character is necessary for membership in the species, and the possession of all the essential characters sufficient” (1994, 313). I will use Hull’s definition as my starting point for characterizing kind-essentialism in what follows.2 Third, essentialism about kinds is a complex thesis that goes beyond the simple claim that there are some properties that all and only members of a natural kind have in all possible worlds. Marc Ereshefsky specified three tenets of any version of essentialism about kinds: One tenet is that all and only the members of a kind have a common essence. A second tenet is that the essence of a kind is responsible for the traits typically associated with the members of that kind. For example, gold’s atomic structure is responsible for gold’s disposition to melt at certain temperatures. Third, knowing a kind’s essence helps us explain and predict those properties typically associated with a kind. (Ereshefsky 2007, sec. 2.1) Most philosophers who, like Ereshefsky, argue against essentialism, only consider the first tenet. Proponents of essentialism also tend to be concerned only with this first tenet. In contrast, I would like to focus on the second and especially the third tenet. My claim is that questioning the second or third tenets may be a more promising way of resisting kind-essentialism. In short, a promising and so far almost completely unexplored anti-essentialist strategy would be to say that even if it turns out that “all and only the members of a kind have a common essence,” this essence is unlikely to play any...

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