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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Millikan's teleosemantic account grounds natural kind membership in selected-for causal roles, privileging function over physical substrate in biological taxonomy.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Evolutionary function is retrospective and observer-dependent, making it unstable ground for objective natural kind classifications.
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    • 2.Many organisms with identical selected-for functions are not classified as same natural kind, suggesting function underdetermines taxonomy.
      ?

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    • 3.Physical substrate determines developmental constraints, inheritance patterns, and causal powers that matter for biological classification.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Organisms with identical functions but different substrates (e.g., different hemoglobin molecules) belong to same biological kind.
      ?

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    • 2.Evolution selects for functional roles, not physical properties, making function the fundamental basis of natural kind membership.
      ?

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    • 3.Teleosemantic accounts explain why malfunctioning hearts and functional mechanical pumps differ in kind despite structural similarity.
      ?

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