In this paper, I go back to Bas van Fraassen's seminal discussion of perspectivity in the
context of scientific representation as a springboard for distinguishing between two possible …

Scientific disciplines frequently divide the particulars they study into kinds and theorize
about those kinds. To say that a kind is natural is to say that it corresponds to a grouping that …

How do we come to know metaphysical truths? How does metaphysical inquiry work? Are
metaphysical debates substantial? These are the questions which characterize …

Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But
it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the …

Many philosophers take mind-independence to be criterial for realism about kinds. This is
problematic when it comes to psychological and social kinds, which are unavoidably mind …

Biological Essentialism addresses three main issues. The first concerns the essences
(natures, identities) of biological taxa, particularly species. Kripke and other metaphysicians …

There have been many attempts to determine what makes a natural kind real, chief among
them is the criterion according to which natural kinds must be mind-independent. But it is …

The article examines the role of natural kinds in semantic theorizing, which has largely been
conducted in isolation from relevant work in science, metaphysics, and philosophy of …

I propose that we approach the epistemology of modality by putting modal metaphysics first
and, specifically, by investigating the metaphysics of essence. Following a prominent Neo …

The notion of essence is notoriously mysterious: philosophers seem to use it in a number of
different senses, and even if they do use the notion in the same sense, it is often not quite …