The Relationship Between Natural Kinds and Biological Kinds

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of natural kinds and biological kinds. The central question is whether biological kinds are natural kinds. The article is mainly based on works of Muhammad Ali Khalidi, predominantly on his Natural Categories and Human Kinds: Classification in the Natural and Social Sciences (2013). Thus, this paper places the issue of natural kinds into the context of biology and attempts to resolve it using examples found therein. We shall verify the definitions of natural kind and biological kinds by referring to a selection of authors. Muhammad Ali Khaildi argues for the existence of natural kinds within »special sciences«, such as biological sciences (Khalidi, 2013). He also discusses main challenges that indicate why species might not be considered natural kinds (Khalidi, 2013). We will analyse his examples of natural kinds and use our own cases from biology to answer the question of biological kinds being natural kinds. We will compare natural kinds found in chemistry to those find in biology. In explaining what natural kinds are, we shall also refer to cladistics.