Promiscuous kinds and individual minds
PDF
HTML

Keywords

Eliminativism
Natural kinds
Naturalism
Pain
Psychological explanation
Realism

How to Cite

Promiscuous kinds and individual minds. (2023). Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 4. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2023.9936

Abstract

Promiscuous realism is the thesis that there are many equally legitimate ways of classifying the world’s entities. Advocates of promiscuous realism are typically taken to hold the further the- sis, often undistinguished, that kind terms usefully deployed in scientific generalisations are no more natural than those deployed for any other purposes. Call this further thesis promiscuous nat- uralism. I here defend a version of promiscuous realism which denies promiscuous naturalism. To do so, I introduce the notion of a promiscuous kind: a kind that is maximally usefully referenced in predictive and explanatory generalisations, none of which are scientific generalisations. I first defend the claim that pain is a promiscuous kind before extending these considerations to everyday mental kinds more generally. I draw on further reflections from both everyday life and contem- porary psychology to make credible the novel suggestion that our everyday theory of our minds is for the explanation and prediction of individuals. Combined with the complex idiosyncrasy of individual minds, this suggested aim of everyday theory gives us reason to think that promiscuity is prevalent among everyday mental kinds.

PDF
HTML

References

Baetu, T. M. (2020a). Pain eliminativism. Journal of Mental Health & Clinical Psychology, 4(3), 22–25. https://doi.org/10.29245/2578-2959/2020/3.1206

Baetu, T. M. (2020b). Pain in psychology, biology and medicine: Some implications for pain eliminativism. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 82, 101–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2020.101292

Borsboom, D. (2005). Measuring the mind: Conceptual issues in contemporary psychometrics. Cambridge University Press. Boyd, R. (1999). Homeostasis, species, and higher taxa. In Robert A. Wilson (Ed.), Species: New interdisciplinary essays (pp.141–185). MIT Press.

Bradshaw, B., DH, & Pace, N. (2015). Music for pain relief. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 7, 1465–1858. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD009284.pub2

Bradshaw, D. H., Chapman, C. R., Jacobson, R. C., & Donaldson, G. W. (2012). Effects of music engagement on responses to painful stimulation. The Clinical Journal of Pain, 28(5), 418. https://doi.org/10.1097/AJP.0b013e318236c8ca

Brzović, Z. (2018). Natural kinds | internet encyclopedia of philosophy. (10/17/2023) https://www.iep.utm.edu/nat-kind/

Coninx, S. (2021). The notorious neurophilosophy of pain: A family resemblance approach to idiosyncrasy and generaliz-ability. Mind & Language, 178–197. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12378

Coninx, S. (2022). A multidimensional phenomenal space for pain: Structure, primitiveness, and utility. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 21(1), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-021-09727-0

Conner, T. S., Tennen, H., Fleeson, W., & Barrett, L. F. (2009). Experience sampling methods: A modern idiographic approach to personality research. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3(3), 292–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00170.x

Corns, J. (2014). The inadequacy of unitary characterizations of pain. Philosophical Studies, 169(3), 355–378. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0186-7

Corns, J. (2016). Pain eliminativism: Scientific and traditional. Synthese, 193(9), 2949–2971. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0897-8

Corns, J. (2020). The complex reality of pain. Routledge.

Corns, J. (2023). Scientific eliminativism for pain. In J. Cohen & B. P. McLaughlin (Eds.), Contemporary debates in philosophy of mind (pp. 519–534). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0897-8

Dupré, J. (1981). Natural kinds and biological taxa. The Philosophical Review, 90(1), 66–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/2184373

Fulkerson, M. (2023). Pain is a natural kind. In J. Cohen & B. P. McLaughlin (Eds.), Contemporary debates in philosophy of mind (pp. 535–550). John Wiley & Sons.

Geethanjali, B., Adalarasu, K., & Jagannath, M. (2018). Music induced emotion and music processing in the brain–a review. Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2018/30384.11060

Hamaker, E. L. (2012). Why researchers should think “within-person”: A paradigmatic rationale. In M. R. Mehl & T. S. Conner (Eds.), Handbook of research methods for studying daily life (pp. 43–61). Guilford Publications.

Hamaker, E. L., Dolan, C. V., & Molenaar, P. C. M. (2005). Statistical modeling of the individual: Rationale and application of multivariate stationary time series analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 40, 207–233. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr4002_3

Klein, C. (2021). The complex reality of pain, by jennifer corns. Mind, 131(523), 988–997. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzab025

Machery, E. (2009). Doing without concepts. Oxford University Press.

Millikan, R. G. (1999). Historical kinds and the “special sciences”. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 95(1/2), 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004532016219

Molenaar, P. C. (2004). A manifesto on psychology as idiographic science: Bringing the person back into scientific psychology, this time forever. Measurement, 2(4), 201–218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15366359mea0204_1

Molenaar, P. C., & Campbell, C. G. (2009). The new person-specific paradigm in psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(2), 112–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.0161

Ramsey, W. M. (2021). What eliminative materialism isn’t. Synthese, 199(3), 11707–11728. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03309-y

Reddan, M. C., & Wager, T. D. (2018). Modeling pain using fMRI: From regions to biomarkers. Neuroscience Bulletin, 34(1), 208–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0150-1

Salvatore, S., & Valsiner, J. (2009). Idiographic science on its way: Towards making sense of psychology. Yearbook of Idiographic Science, 1, 9–19.

Thomas, D. V. (2002). Aromatherapy: Mythical, magical, or medicinal? Holistic Nursing Practice, 17(1), 8–16. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004650-200210000-00005

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2023 Jennifer Corns