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Scientific paper - Original scientific paper
Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism
Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 18 (2018), 53; 293-306. urn:nbn:hr:186:975439
Brzović, Zdenka

Institutional repository: Repository of the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Brzović, Z. (2018). Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism. Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 18. (53), 293-306. Retrieved from https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439

Brzović, Zdenka. "Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism." Croatian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 18, no. 53, 2018, pp. 293-306. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439

Brzović, Zdenka. "Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism." Croatian Journal of Philosophy 18, no. 53 (2018): 293-306. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439

Brzović, Z. (2018) 'Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism', Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 18(53), pp. 293-306. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439 (Accessed 06 January 2025)

Brzović Z. Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism. Croatian Journal of Philosophy [Internet]. 2018 [cited 2025 January 06];18(53):293-306. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439

Z. Brzović, "Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism", Croatian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 18, no. 53, pp. 293-306, 2018. [Online]. Available at: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:975439. [Accessed: 06 January 2025]

Metadata
Title (english)Devitt’s Promiscuous Essentialism
AuthorZdenka Brzović
Author's institutionUniversity of Rijeka
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Scientific / art field,
discipline and subdiscipline		HUMANISTIC SCIENCES
Philosophy
Abstract (english)
In this paper I examine Michael Devitt’s version of essentialism, a view that stirred a lot of debate amongst philosophers of biology by going against the mainstream view of “death of essentialism” in evolutionary biology. So far, much more attention was directed to refuting Devitt’s view then to analyzing what his essentialism consists in. I go through the main tenets of the essentialist view, examine the relation between Devitt’s view and the so-called traditional essentialism, and the cluster approaches to natural kinds. I conclude that Devitt holds a very fl exible variety of pluralistic essentialism, that I term promiscuous essentialism. The benefi t of holding such a view is that it can encompass a wide range of categories, but its downside is that knowing the essence of a kind can be minimally explanatory. For this reason, the criterion for privileging certain kinds cannot follow from identifying their essence, which was originally one of the main motivations for holding an essentialist view.
Keywords (english)
Languageenglish
Publication typeScientific paper - Original scientific paper
Publication statusPublished
Peer reviewPeer review
Publication versionPublished version
Journal titleCroatian Journal of Philosophy
Numberingvol. 18, no. 53, pp. 293-306
p-ISSN1333-1108
e-ISSN1847-6139
URN:NBNurn:nbn:hr:186:975439
Publication2018
Document URLhttps://hrcak.srce.hr/253554
Type of resourceText
Access conditionsOpen access
Terms of useLicence In copyright icon
Created on2022-12-16 13:10:49