Abstract

SCHUMACHER, Christian. Natural Kinds, Causal Laws, Magical Concepts: an Approach to American Magical Realism. arete, 2012, vol.24, no.1, p.153-180. ISSN 1016-913X.

"Natural Kinds, Causal Laws, Magical Concepts: an Approach to American Magical Realism". Throughout Latin American history of ideas one can find an alienated relation towards nature, which appears as magical, indecipherable and hostile. The two main characteristics of this idea of nature are the abundance of strange species and the unpredictability of events. In this essay I will argue that the first characteristic is a natural effect of the process of inductive learning under the conditions of the discovery and conquest of America, and that the second characteristic is in turn an effect of the way how the empirical expectations with these strange species were cast in causal laws.

Keywords: induction; natural kinds; causal laws; magical realism; conceptual spaces.