Scientific disciplines 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 or ordering that does not depend on humans.An interesting question is: What if a grouping depends on dogs, rather than humans? Specifically, we now know that animals, although unable to study or theorize, do categorize, or group like things together.
So, supposing my dog has a wordless category, which we would call "raccoon". His grouping the masked beings together doesn't depend on humans.
It nonetheless remains true that '"raccoon", considered from the evolutionary viewpoint, is a blurry category. They are evolved from something else.
Of course, dog cognition
may not provide
the very best guide
to species definition.
No comments:
Post a Comment