Considering the ontology which best fits a conception according to which natural kinds are the categories fit for enquiry, with scurvy and vitamin C as central examples. It was presented at the Philosophy of Science Association meeting in Pittsburgh (November 2022) and published in Philosophy of Science (2023).
Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being.
@ARTICLE{Magnus2023,
AUTHOR = {P.D. Magnus},
TITLE = {Scurvy and the ontology of natural kinds},
JOURNAL = {Philosophy of Science},
YEAR = {2023},
MONTH = dec,
VOLUME = {90},
NUMBER = {5},
DOI = {10.1017/psa.2023.19},
PAGES = {1031--1039}
}
The first on-line draft of this paper was posted 17dec2021.