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The Metaphysics of Natural Kinds THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL KINDS Alexander Bird Abstract Rev.8.2—Thursday 12th August, 2010, 11:20 This paper explores the meta- physics of natural kinds. I consider a range of increasingly ontologically com- mitted views concerning natural kinds and the possible arguments for them. I then ask how these relate to natural kind essentialism, arguing that essentialism requires commitment to kinds as entities. I conclude by examining the homeo- static property cluster view of kinds in the light of the general understanding of kinds developed. 1 Introduction The principal aim of this paper is to examine the various options concerning the metaphysics of natural kinds, in particular as regards their ontology. Initially pro- ceed by posing a series of questions whose positive answers correspond to a se- quence of increasingly metaphysically committed views about natural kinds. In sec- tion 2 these questions concern the naturalness and kindhood of natural kinds. This leads, in section 3 to the question whether natural kinds are themselves genuine en- tities. In section 4 I present an argument for a positive answer to the existence ques- tion, that takes essentialism about natural kinds to imply their existence: (having an) essence implies existence. In section 5 I consider the objection that kind essen- tialism reduces to individual essentialism, which would undermine the import of the essence-implies-existence argument. In sections 6 and 7, I put this machinery to work, asking first what sort of entity a natural kind may be (e.g. a set, an uni- versal, or a sui generis entity), and, finally, how homeostatic property cluster view fares when compared to the general conception of natural kinds developed in the preceding sections. 2 Natural kinds and classification In this section I introduce the metaphysics of natural kinds with what is the least metaphysically loaded question concerning natural kinds, that concerning the ex- istence of genuinely natural divisions in the world. I shall argue that discussions of this question often lose sight of a second, arguably more important question, whether these divisions are divisions into kinds. Socrates, in a famous quotation from Plato’s Phaedrus (265d–266a), enunciates two principles; the first of which is that a speaker should define his notions, and the 1 second of which is “that of division into species according to the natural formation, where the joint is, not breaking any part as a bad carver might”. John Stuart Mill, who introduced the term ‘Kind’ (usually with a capital ‘K’ in Mill’s text, and later expanded by John Venn (1866) to ‘natural kind’)1 expresses a similar thought, “In so far as a natural classification is grounded on real Kinds, its groups are certainly not conventional; it is perfectly true that they do not depend upon an arbitrary choice of the naturalist” (Mill 1843: 720). The central issue here concerns one’s response to the following question: (Q1) Is the world such that there are genuinely natural divisions and dis- tinctions, i.e. that there are natural differences and similarities between things (and if so what accounts for such differences)? Socrates gives a positive answer to the first part of (Q1), thus asserting the view that I call weak realism about natural kinds—that there are natural divisions among things such that our actual categorizations can succeed in matching those divisions (or fail to), whereas Mill’s discussion of ‘natural classification’ is committed to what I de- nominate naturalism: the view that many of our actual categorizations into natu- ral kinds, especially those of science, succeed in matching the actual divisions in nature. Weak realism is a metaphysical thesis. Mill’s naturalism implies weak real- ism, but adds to it an epistemological claim that we can and do often know what those natural divisions are; that is we can, sometimes, knowingly succeed in follow- ing Socrates’ exhortation to match our actual categorizations to those in nature. It would in principle be possible to argue for weak realism without committing to naturalism. A Kantian view might hold that we are unable to discern which the ac- tual divisions in nature are, but nonetheless might also maintain that the existence of such divisions is a condition of the possibility of differentiated experience. Kuhn expresses something like such a thought (Kuhn 1979; cf. Hoyningen-Huene 1993: 34). More commonly, an argument for weak realism is a corollary of an argument for naturalism. Thus one may argue for the existence of natural divisions by articulating an argument for scientific realism that focuses on the presence of classifications into kinds in science. Scientific realism tells us that modern science is our best guide to what things there are and what they are like. Furthermore, science is not merely our best guide, but also it is generally, when consensus has been reached, a good if not infallible guide to such things. Natural science does divide things into kinds—kinds of subatomic particle, kinds of chemical element or chemical compound, kinds of crystal structure, clades and possibly species, and other biological kinds, kinds of rock, kinds of star and so forth. If such divisions are not natural then much science has got things massively wrong. Conversely, if science is by and large right, then we can have a high degree of confidence that the divisions science draws are genuinely natural. As the quotation from Mill indicates, the view opposing naturalism is that our classifications in the sciences are ‘arbitrary conventions’. Conventionalism (cf. Hacking 1999; Kukla 2000) holds that the divisions we think of as natural, including those of science, are mere social constructions, reflecting particular human inter- 1See Hacking (1991) for a historical survey. 2 ests rather than the structure of reality. The argument from scientific realism sug- gests that one can take the naturalism versus conventionalism debate to be a re- flection of a more general debate concerning scientific realism. The simple claim of conventionalism that scientific interests are just one set of interests among many other human interests and should not be awarded priority, is far from sufficient to ground conventionalism. This is because the interests of science are a particular set of interests—the interests of describing, explaining, understanding, and predicting the natural world. It is precisely because the categories of some field of science are tailored to these interests concerning what is natural, that the explanatory and pre- dictive success of that field is a reason to believe that its categories do often pick out natural divisions. I shall not pursue that argument further, since its soundness de- pends on issues concerning scientific realism that have been very much discussed elsewhere (see Psillos (1999) for a now classic survey and discussion). The realist argument for naturalism (and hence weak realism) is typically ex- pressed with a more specific focus on induction; natural kinds are essential to the inductive component of science (Mill 1843; Quine 1969). Our success in induc- ing predictively confirmed generalizations—protons attract electrons, potassium is more reactive than sodium, members of the family Felidae are carnivorous, and so forth—allows us to infer the genuineness of our natural categories.2 The problem with this simple association of natural kind classification with in- ductive success is that it promotes an overly liberal conception of natural kind. Many successful inductions concern natural relations between objects (such as the separation of objects and the forces they exert on one another) but entering into a natural relation typically does not form any basis for grouping entities into a natural kind.3 Quine (1969) asserts that any natural similarity can form the basis for a natu- ral kind. Thus things sharing the same colour form a kind (albeit a kind that might be eliminated by a more sophisticated science4). If we agree that natural proper- ties are essential to induction, then natural kinds will be essential to induction on Quine’s liberal conception of natural kind according to which there is a kind for ev- ery (induction-supporting) respect in which two objects can be similar. But as Mill (1843: 122–3) pointed out, eighty-five years before Quine’s essay, nor- mal usage is more restrictive than this; we do not normally regard all white things as belonging to a common kind. The same goes for more scientifically respectable qualities, such a positive charge. Positively charged items include top quarks, pro- tons, hydronium ions, charged macromolecules, balloons rubbed on a jumper, and the Sun. But such items do not form a kind. 2In this paper I do not address questions concerning the structure of natural kind classifications. Do natural kinds always come in hierarchies? If so, does any given natural entity belong at most to one hierarchy (monism)? Or could an entity belong to more than one system of natural classification? 3I say ‘typically’, because I do not wish to assert that kind membership is an intrinsic property of an en- tity. Often it is, but membership of a biological kind may well depend on origin, which will be a relational rather than intrinsic property of an object. 4Quine (1969: 137–8) does remark that, “In general we can take it as a very special mark of the maturity of a branch of science that it no longer needs an irreducible notion of similarity and kind.” But Quine is not referring to the elimination of kinds specifically but rather to the elimination of qualitative properties, such as colour, in favour of quantitative ones, such as mass. 3 Not only would the liberal conception of kind violate normal usage, it would close off philosophical discussion of the validity of a more restrictive notion of kind.
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