Semantic Fitness and the C. S. Peirce's approach to natural kind terms

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to argue for a pluralist interpretation of Peirce’s theory of meaning when applied to general terms which refer to natural kinds – or as recently established within the contemporary debate, natural kind terms (NKTs). Upon conducting an analysis of Peirce’s writings, we can find a reliable and promising theory regarding this wide category of terms. Guided by privileged readers of Peirce’s philosophy, two main positions are identified and compared employing the pragmatic method. From the conclusions of this comparison, we find strong reasons to adopt a moderate pluralist stance, emphasizing the teleology of cognitive agents instead of the final causes of the things properly considered. This interpretation is not only strongly naturalized, but also works as an instrumentalist approach to the philosophy of language aiming to shed light on some of the main claims of this strategic author when confronted with the contemporary discussion around NKTs. The Peircean account of general terms is enriched by new empirical research in cognitive sciences and biosemiotics. The entire work has a special debt to recent cognitive computing studies that introduced the concept of semantic fitness to model an optimum level of abstraction to produce more meaningful representations in a given ontological domain, classifying particular objects dynamically and progressively. I will import this concept to a thoroughgoing evolutionary interpretation of Peirce’s theory of generals and try to expose the advantages of this new framework.