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Full Idea
For all the purposes of identity and individuation of things that belong to natural kinds..., it is enough to have regard for the lawlike propensities of members of the kind.
Gist of Idea
Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds
Source
David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.1)
Book Ref
Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance Renewed' [CUP 2001], p.107
A Reaction
This may have got things in reverse, since it is hard to see how you could pick out any laws if you didn't assume the existence of natural kinds which were causing the regularities in the behaviour.
| 15170 | We distinguish species by their nominal essence, not by their real essence [Locke] |
| 16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
| 13583 | There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis] |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| 15693 | One sample of gold is enough, but one tree doesn't give the height of trees [Gelman] |
| 6769 | In the Kripke-Putnam view only nuclear physicists can know natural kinds [Bird] |
| 6774 | Darwinism suggests that we should have a native ability to detect natural kinds [Bird] |
| 14956 | Explanation by kinds and by clusters of properties just express the stability of reality [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 13285 | Natural kinds support inductive inferences, from previous samples to the next one [Koslicki] |