Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is considered by many to be the locus classicus of a number of influential arguments for conventionalism, according to which there are no objective, privileged ways of classifying things in the natural world. In the dissertation I argue that Locke never meant to reject natural kinds. Still, the challenge is to explain how, within a metaphysics that explicitly denies mind-independent essences, we can make sense of a privileged, objective sorting of substances. I argue that we do so by looking to Locke's conception of God as divine architect of created substances. / Philosophy
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/11181128 |
| Date | 18 October 2013 |
| Creators | Kuklok, Allison Sara |
| Contributors | Simmons, Alison |
| Publisher | Harvard University |
| Source Sets | Harvard University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Rights | open |
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