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Dynamic Partitioning and the Conventionality of Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jeffrey A. Barrett
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Abstract

Lewis sender-receiver games illustrate how a meaningful term language might evolve from initially meaningless random signals (Lewis 1969; Skyrms 2006). Here we consider how a meaningful language with a primitive grammar might evolve in a somewhat more subtle sort of game. The evolution of such a language involves the co-evolution of partitions of the physical world into what may seem, at least from the perspective of someone using the language, to correspond to canonical natural kinds. While the evolved language may allow for the sort of precise representation that is required for successful coordinated action and prediction, the apparent natural kinds reflected in its structure may be purely conventional. This has both positive and negative implications for the limits of naturalized metaphysics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 527 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Brian Skyrms, Simon Huttegger, Rory Smead, Kevin Zollman, and Samuel Park for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank the referees who looked at this paper for their excellent suggestions.

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