Aida Roige: Special science kinds from a mechanistic standpoint

Tuesday December 9 2025 @11:30 (CET)
Sala B, Edificio de Humanidades, UNED & online

Abstract
Natural kinds have key roles in laws of nature and scientific explanation. But what about the special science kinds of e.g. biology, the social sciences, or psychology? I will provide a novel account of mechanistic entity-types or kinds (as opposed to tokens) that is based on (and is compatible with) Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (2000) account of mechanisms. The account provided makes sense of distinctive properties of special sciences kinds’, including multiple realizability, unsuitability for strict natural laws, and explanatory power —in a way that does not depend on supposing different levels of reality, or supposing that all special sciences kinds are natural. In particular, I will defend that special science kinds correspond to working entity-types which properties make them play the activity-enabling, robustness and individuating roles, each of which I will discuss in detail. 

Bio
Aida Roige is a postdoc (APOSTD program – Generalitat Valenciana & the European Social Fund) at VLC Philosophy Lab, at the Universitat de Valencia. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Maryland, where she worked mainly with Peter Carruthers and Lindley Darden. Her research addresses questions about types and kinds in the cognitive sciences, a topic that intersects with ongoing interests in philosophy of mind, science and biology (specially mechanistic explanation). She was a member of the medical ethics committee at the hospital Capital Region Medical Center (USA), has been a Fulbright and “la Caixa” scholar, a senior member of LOGOS (University of Barcelona), and member of a number of research projects in Canada and Spain.