Epstein on Anchors and Grounds

Authors

  • Francesco Guala Università degli Studi di Milano

Keywords:

social kinds, grounds, anchors, types, tokens, institutions, pluralism, individualism

Abstract

The distinction between anchors and grounds is one of the most innovative contributions of The Ant Trap. In this commentary I will argue that the distinction suffers from an ambiguity between tokens and types. This leads Epstein to endorse pluralism about anchors and grounds, a position that is not justified in the book and to which there are plausible alternatives.

References

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Dupré, J. (1993): The Disorder of Things. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Epstein, B. (2014): “How Many Kinds of Glue Hold the Social World Together?”. In: M. Gallotti and J. Michael (Eds.): Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition. Dordrecht: Springer, p. 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9147-2_4

Epstein, B. (2015a): The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of Social Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199381104.001.0001

Epstein, B. (2015b): “What Alabama’s Roy Moore Got Right”, In: The New York Times, February 16, 2015. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/what-alabamas-roy-moore-gets-right/.

Ghiselin, M. T. (1974): “A Radical Solution to the Species Problem”. In: Systematic Zoology 23, p. 536–544. https://doi.org/10.2307/2412471

Griffiths, P. (2004): “Emotions as Natural and Normative Kinds”. In: Philosophy of Science 71, p. 901–911. https://doi.org/10.1086/425944

Guala, F. (2016): Understanding Institutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Guala, F. and F. Hindriks (2015): “A Unified Social Ontology”. In: Philosophical Quarterly 165, p. 177–201. https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqu072

Hull, D. L. (1976): “Are Species Really Individuals?”. In: Systematic Zoology 25, p. 174–191. https://doi.org/10.2307/2412744

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Published

2016-03-23

How to Cite

Guala, Francesco. 2016. “Epstein on Anchors and Grounds”. Journal of Social Ontology 2 (1). Vienna, Austria:135-47. https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6850.

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Book Symposium

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