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Bridging the Gap between Human Kinds and Biological Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marc Ereshefsky
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Abstract

Many writers claim that human kinds are significantly different from biological and natural kinds. Some suggest that humans kinds are unique because social structures are essential for the etiology of human kinds. Others argue that human cultural evolution is decidedly different from other forms of evolution. In this paper I suggest that the gulf between humans and our biological relatives is not as wide as some argue. There is a taxonomic difference between human and nonhuman organisms, but such factors as social structure and cultural evolution do not distinguish us from many other organisms.

Type
Biological Kinds and Human Kinds
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 912 - 921
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

My thanks to John Dupré, Jesse Hendrikse, Mohan Matthen, Robert Ware, Bill Wimsatt, and Scott Woodcock for their helpful comments. Thanks to Clement Loo for his help as a research assistant. Funding for research on this paper was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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