engleski

Scientific Kinds in the Biomedical Sciences: Epistemological and Ontological Aspects

Natural kinds are thought to be categories that track real patterns in nature. There are, however, different approaches in interpreting what this amounts to. It is claimed that: (1) natural kinds correspond to some basic ontological entities ; (2) scientific investigation of the world, most likely physics or chemistry, will lead us to identify natural kinds that are some fundamental categorizations of the world ; and (3) natural kinds refer to certain privileged classifications reached through scientific investigation of the world and can be found at all levels of scientific investigation. In this thesis I start off with assumption (3), which I label the scientific kinds approach. I focus more specifically on scientific classification in the biomedical sciences, a field comprising a variety of disciplines that are devoted to applying knowledge from the natural sciences, especially biology and biochemistry, for the purposes of healthcare. My aim is to offer an account of classifications in the biomedical sciences that is able to capture the classificatory scientific practice of delineating important scientific categories without being reduced to mere science reporting, i.e. establishing that the categories used by scientists are the ones that ought to be endorsed. The thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first part (Chapters 1–3) I develop the similarity-based clustering view as the most promising candidate in the scientific kinds approach, show how it can be applied to classifications in the biomedical sciences, and defend it against criticism. In the second part (Chapters 4–6) I situate the scientific kinds approach in the debate on realism and antirealism about natural kinds. I explore the ontological commitments of the scientific kinds approach and defend the extended epistemic view as the best option for capturing the scientific kinds approach.

Natural kinds, scientific kinds, classification, cluster accounts, biomedical sciences, realism/antirealism, epistemic view

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