Antirealism and Artefact Kinds

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-107
Author(s):  
Marzia Soavi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Real Kinds

Many realists on kinds deem it highly controversial to consider artefact kinds real kinds on a par with natural ones. There is a built-in tendency in realism to conceive of artefact kinds as merely a conventional classification used for practical purposes. One can individuate three main different approaches characterizing real kinds and accordingly three different types of arguments against viewing artefact kinds as real kinds: the metaphysical, the epistemological and the semantic arguments. The aim of this contribution is to undermine the thesis that it is possible to trace a clear distinction between artefacts and natural kinds in each of these approaches. As a consequence there are no metaphysical, epistemological and semantic bases for claiming that artefact kinds as opposed to natural ones are not real kinds.

Signs and terminology: Science caught between language and perception

Bionomina ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars M. VOGT
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
Formal Representation ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Scientific Terminology ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Scientific Terms

After briefly discussing various problems that can result from linguistic ambiguities, I attempt to provide an introduction and overview of various aspects and theories that are relevant to scientific terminology. These include a general semiotics (i.e., theory of signs), the distinction of semantic conceptual content and aesthetic nonconceptual content and their relationship to each other, a discussion of different types of scientific concepts (e.g., essentialistic and cluster classes, natural kinds, type approach), and the importance of specifying epistemological recognition criteria for empirical concepts in addition to their ontological theoretical definitions and the specification of contexts in which the concepts are used and on which theories they depend upon. I then provide a distinction of raw data, data, metadata, information and knowledge, and discuss the relation between images and data and how efforts to standardize data and metadata can affect scientific terminology. I briefly introduce new methods and techniques for increasing semantic transparency and communicability in science, which include the organization and the management of scientific terms within taxonomies, and their formal representation in ontologies. The usefulness of terminological standardization and its possible negative effects on scientific progress is then discussed, and finally the question is addressed of whether one can distinguish types of terminologies that benefit from standardization from those that could suffer from it.

Interpretation of crypto-assets and taxation specificity of digital assets in developed countries and Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (5) ◽  
pp. 182-216
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Kochergin ◽  
Natalia Pokrovskaia
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Asset Market ◽  
Regulatory Authorities ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Digital Assets ◽  
Tax Regulation

The article explores various types of crypto-assets and justification of differentiated regime for their regulations. The purpose of the article is to determine the main economic and legal approaches of interpreting crypto-assets and identify the features of taxation of various types of crypto-assets in developed countries and Russia. Drawing on economic and functional features of crypto-assets, the study offers the classification of virtual assets. Having analyzed various approaches to crypto-assets tax regulation in the UK, Switzerland and Singapore, the authors determine the specificity of crypto-assets taxation and offer recommendations for crypto-assets taxation in Russia. The paper concludes that in countries where regulatory authorities make a clear distinction between different types of crypto-assets the taxation of virtual assets is also differentiated. A differentiated approach to taxation of crypto assets in Russia seems to be most promising since it encourages the development of certain segments of crypto asset market and offers a clearer mechanism for tax control over the turnover of crypto assets in the country.

Category-Specific Semantic Deficits in Focal and Widespread Brain Damage: A Computational Account

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Devlin ◽  
Laura M. Gonnerman ◽  
Elaine S. Andersen ◽  
Mark S. Seidenberg
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Connectionist Model ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Herpes Encephalitis ◽  
Focal Lesions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Probabilistic Nature ◽  
Over Time

Category-specific semantic impairments have been explained in terms of preferential damage to different types of features (e.g., perceptual vs. functional). This account is compatible with cases in which the impairments were the result of relatively focal lesions, as in herpes encephalitis. Recently, however, there have been reports of category-specific impairments associated with Alzheimer's disease, in which there is more widespread, patchy damage. We present experiments with a connectionist model that show how ficategory-specificfl impairments can arise in cases of both localized and wide-spread damage; in this model, types of features are topographically organized, but specific categories are not. These effects mainly depend on differences between categories in the distribution of correlated features. The model's predictions about degree of impairment on natural kinds and artifacts over the course of semantic deterioration are shown to be consistent with existing patient data. The model shows how the probabilistic nature of damage in Alzheimer's disease interacts with the structure of semantic memory to yield different patterns of impairment between patients and categories over time.

Natural kinds in biology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Ereshefsky
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Potential Problem ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Biological Trait ◽  
Traditional Account ◽  
Different Types

Species are seen as paradigmatic natural kinds in biology. However, that assumption poses a potential problem for the traditional account of natural kinds. Many biologists and philosophers argue that species lack essences. They maintain that there is no biological trait that must occur in all and only the members of a species. If species are natural kinds and lack essences, then species are a counterexample to the view that natural kinds have essences. Philosophers have responded to this problem in several ways. Some defend traditional essentialism. Others offer accounts of biological kinds that depart from traditional essentialism. Still others suggest that there are different types of natural kinds in biology: some biological kinds have essences, while other biological kinds do not. The issue of natural kinds in biology is important because such kinds serve as a basis for prediction and explanation in science. Furthermore, biological kinds are taken to be real categories in nature. For these reasons, the topic of natural kinds in biology is of special interest to the philosophy of science and metaphysics.

scholarly journals Mind-Dependent Kinds

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Keyword(s):  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Synthetic Chemicals ◽  
Social Kinds ◽  
Real Kinds ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractMany 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-dependent. But reflection on the case of artificial or synthetic kinds (e.g. synthetic chemicals, genetically modified organisms) shows that the criterion of mind-independence needs to be qualified in certain ways. However, I argue that none of the usual variants on the criterion of mind-dependence is capable of distinguishing real or natural kinds from non-real kinds. Although there is a way of modifying the criterion of mind-independence in such a way as to rule in artificial kinds but rule out psychological and social kinds, this does not make the latter non-real. I conclude by proposing a different way of distinguishing real from non-real kinds, which does not involve mind-independence and does not necessarily exclude psychological and social kinds.

Syntaxe du Complément de Nom

1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-284
Author(s):  
Gaston Gross
Keyword(s):  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Initial Observation ◽  
Different Types

This article deals with the automatic description of N de N phrases. The initial observation is that it is impossible to make a clear distinction between structures of that type (i.e. N de N) that are frozen structures and those that are not frozen or partially frozen. The problem, then, consists in finding criteria that may be useful for the description of those sequences, in grouping these criteria and using them to distinguish the different types of N de N structures. This is equivalent to constructing a complete syntax of the noun complement introduced by de.

A Criterion Problem: The Use of Different Operationalizations in Seriation Research

1982 ◽  
Vol 55 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1303-1316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Kingma
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
School Grades ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Way

Effects of using different criteria for seriation on performance are reported. Two types of criteria are distinguished, the new-Genevan and the result-only criterion. For the first type of criterion attention was paid to the way the child started with the seriation, the number of self-corrections, anticipation of seriation and insertion. 428 children from kindergarten and primary school Grades 1 to 6 were observed while completing a set of eight seriation tasks. With the use of the new-Genevan criteria, no clear distinction could be made between partial and operational seriators. Use of both the Genevan and result-only criteria, also led to contradictions regarding Piaget's predicted order of acquisition of different types of seriation. However, a theoretical framework about the acquisition of seriation must be developed since both the new-Genevan and the judgment-only criteria were insufficient for this purpose.

The extinction time of a general birth and death process with catastrophes

1986 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 851-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Brockwell
Keyword(s):  
Laplace Transform ◽  
Size Distribution ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Death Process ◽  
Extinction Time ◽  
Birth And Death Process ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Laplace Transform ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

The Laplace transform of the extinction time is determined for a general birth and death process with arbitrary catastrophe rate and catastrophe size distribution. It is assumed only that the birth rates satisfyλ0= 0,λj> 0 for eachj> 0, and. Necessary and sufficient conditions for certain extinction of the population are derived. The results are applied to the linear birth and death process (λj=jλ, µj=jμ) with catastrophes of several different types.

Differentiating between different forms of moral obligations

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajen A. Anderson ◽  
Benjamin C. Ruisch ◽  
David A. Pizarro
Keyword(s):  
Moral Character ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Different Types

Abstract We argue that Tomasello's account overlooks important psychological distinctions between how humans judge different types of moral obligations, such as prescriptive obligations (i.e., what one should do) and proscriptive obligations (i.e., what one should not do). Specifically, evaluating these different types of obligations rests on different psychological inputs and has distinct downstream consequences for judgments of moral character.

Ultrastructural Investigations of the Contractile Filaments of Amoebae

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 188-189
Author(s):  
P.L. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Cytoplasmic Streaming ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Freeze Fracture ◽  
Amoeboid Movement ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Chemical Conditions ◽  
Complete Interpretation

Previous freeze fracture results on the intact giant, amoeba Chaos carolinensis indicated the presence of a fibrillar arrangement of filaments within the cytoplasm. A complete interpretation of the three dimensional ultrastructure of these structures, and their possible role in amoeboid movement was not possible, since comparable results could not be obtained with conventional fixation of intact amoebae. Progress in interpreting the freeze fracture images of amoebae required a more thorough understanding of the different types of filaments present in amoebae, and of the ways in which they could be organized while remaining functional.The recent development of a calcium sensitive, demembranated, amoeboid model of Chaos carolinensis has made it possible to achieve a better understanding of such functional arrangements of amoeboid filaments. In these models the motility of demembranated cytoplasm can be controlled in vitro, and the chemical conditions necessary for contractility, and cytoplasmic streaming can be investigated. It is clear from these studies that “fibrils” exist in amoeboid models, and that they are capable of contracting along their length under conditions similar to those which cause contraction in vertebrate muscles.

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