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Realism, Anti-Foundationalism and The Realism, Anti-Foundationalism and the Enthusiasm for Natural Kinds Author(s): Richard Boyd Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 61, No. 1/2, The Twenty-Ninth Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy (Feb., 1991), pp. 127-148 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4320174 . Accessed: 08/01/2015 09:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 192.122.237.41 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:38:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RICHARD BOYD REALISM, ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM AND THE ENTHUSIASM FOR NATURAL KINDS (Received 14 March, 1990) 0. THE TRADITION OF NATURAL KINDS 0.1 Hacking'sChallenge In his interestingand challengingpaper "A Traditionof NaturalKinds" Professor Hacking identifies a long-standingempiricist tradition of theorizingabout naturalkinds, he identifiesits roots as nominalistand its main concern as the characterizationof the sorts of kinds and kind definitionsappropriate for the formulationof reliableinductive gener- alizations.Hacking distinguishes a numberof sub-traditionswithin the tradition of natural kinds but what is central to all of them is the conception that a naturalkind is one such that it is (i) (at least on a certain idealization) defined by a set of necessary and sufficient properties(relations, etc.) such that, (ii) the possession of these proper- ties is, as a matterof fact ratherthan of logic, indicativeof a very large numberof other methodologicallyinteresting properties and such that, (iii) these definingproperties are naturalrather than social properties. When the propertiesdefining a kind satisfycondition (ii) then it is a fact about nature that the kind in question exists and a fact about nature that reference to the kind in question is appropriatefor the formulationof causal generalizationsrelated to the property correla- tions indicatedin (ii). Hackingpoints out that this conceptionof naturalkinds was modest in scope: althoughthe sub-traditionsdiffered on just which kinds are the naturalkinds all agreedthat they constitutedonly a smallfraction of all the kinds there were - a smallfraction even of those non-arbitrarily defined kinds which are naturalcategories in some importantsense of "natural". By contrast,recent work on naturalkinds - especiallywork under- Philosophical Studies 61: 127-148, 1991. ? 1991 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. This content downloaded from 192.122.237.41 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:38:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 128 RICHARD BOYD taken by realists in the philosophy of science - has reflected a much granderconception. Almost all sorts of kinds and kind terms except the most clearly arbitraryhave been treated as natural kinds and kind terms at least in the sense that the naturalisticconceptions of definitions and of reference developed for the case of more traditionalnatural kindsand naturalkind terms are understoodto applyto themas well. Hacking challenges the new enthusiasmfor the theory of natural kinds. He suggests,in particular,that kinds which fail to satisfythe first of the traditionalconditions on naturalkinds (as propertycluster kinds do) or which fail to satisfy the third condition (as social kinds do) should not be assimilatedto a conception of natural kinds however "natural"the categoriesthey correspondto may otherwisebe. In neither case apparentlyis the existence of the kinds in question a fact about naturein the relevantrespects. Against the assimilationof the first sort of kinds Hackingargues that kinds of that sort ". are constructed along lines of family resemblance and what puts things into a familyis not naturebut people in concert." He also argues that the relevantfamily resemblanceswill characteris- tically include "plainlysocial" as well as "natural"properties, causing most propertycluster kinds to violate as well the stricturerepresented by the thirdcondition. In defense of that condition - which is to say against treating socially defined kinds as naturalkinds - Hackingoffers considerations which go to the heart of our conception of a naturalkind as a fact of nature.He suggeststhat the complex feedbackloops which connect our classificationof, and theorizingabout, people with changesin their self- concept and behaviorand back again make it inappropriateto think of socially defined kinds as kinds defined by nature rather than by us. Realistsoften talk about employingnatural kind terms to "carvenature at its joints." In the case of socially defined categories, the causal powers of the objects classified- and thus the location of the "joints" - depends on our own acts of classificationand theorizingrather than on nature. What I propose to do in the present paper is to defend the enthu- siasm for naturalkinds againstHacking's criticisms. I agree that there are important philosophical and methodologicaldifferences between kinds defined by property clusters and kinds defined by sets of This content downloaded from 192.122.237.41 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:38:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ENTHUSIASM FOR NATURAL KINDS 129 properties, and between natural properties and social properties. I believe however that there are extremely good reasons for treating manyproperty-cluster kinds and social kinds, and the termswhich refer to them, on the model of natural kinds and natural kind terms. In particular I hold, about any property cluster kind or social kind referenceto which is importantin explanationor induction,that three claims will be true of it which representthe centralcore of the current conceptionof naturalkinds. First, the definitionof the kind in question is determineda posteriorirather than by social convention.Second, this in turn is true because the use we make of reference to the kind in inductionand explanationrequires that it be defined by a set or cluster of propertieswhose membershipis determinedby the causal structure of the world and is thus, in a relevant sense (which I propose to specify),independent of our conventionsor our theorizing.Finally, the establishmentof a relationof referencebetween a term and the kind in question depends on the existence of an epistemicallyrelevant pattern of causal relationsbetween instantiationsof the kind and the use of the term in question and not on the acceptance by any or all of the membersof the relevantlinguistic community of the correctdefinition of the kind. In order to defend the assimilationof property cluster and social kinds to the model of naturalkinds I'll need to offer a brief and (only slightly) anachronisticaccount of the history of the traditionof theo- rizingabout natural kinds. 0.1. Locke on Projectability,or the TensionBetween Nominalism and RationalInduction Hackingmaintains, correctly, that the traditionof researchinto natural kinds is largely nominalistic. What he does not say but what is uncontroversialis that the tradition is nominalistic because it is basicallyverificationist: the nominalismin question is an outgrowthof the traditionalempiricist skepticism about the possibilityof knowledge real essences, hidden mechanisms,causal powers or other "unobserv- ables". Hacking also rightly emphasizes the fact that the tradition is concernedwith identifyingthose kinds appropriatefor induction(and, I wouldadd, explanation). This content downloaded from 192.122.237.41 on Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:38:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 130 RICHARD BOYD There is something else which is also uncontroversialbut which Hackingdoes not emphasize:that the traditionof naturalkinds reflects (at least in its empiriciststages) a deep tension between the nominalistic project of eliminating"metaphysics" and the project (equallycentral to empiricism) of characterizingrational principles for induction. That there is some such tension can be seen by reflectingon the fact that the central component of the traditionof naturalkinds is not compatible withtraditional nominalism. I take traditionalnominalism to be reflectedin the Lockeanposition that while naturemakes things similarand differentthe classificationof them into kinds is solely "the workmanshipof the understanding." According to this central empiricistconception of nominal definitions such definitionsare almost entirely arbitrary.For Locke, for example, the only permissibleconstraints on the idea of a mixed mode is logical consistencyof the ideas united to form it; for an idea of substancethere is the additionalconstraint that the qualitiesand powers corresponding its constituentideas must be conjointlyrealizable in nature.Subject, at most, to these constraints "... each abstract idea, with a name to it, makesa distinctSpecies." Accordingto the traditionof naturalkinds, in both its empiricistand its realist versions, much deeper non-conventional constraints are appropriate:it is a fact about nature, rather than about the under-
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