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Full Idea
Any water is said to be specifically the same as any other water because it has a certain similarity to it.
Gist of Idea
All water is the same, because of a certain similarity
Source
Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a20)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Posterior Analytics and Topica', ed/tr. Tredennick,H/Forster,ES [Harvard 1960], p.289
A Reaction
(Cf. Idea 8153) It take this to be the hallmark of a natural kind, and we should not lose sight of it in the midst of discussions about rigid designation and essential identity. Tigers are only a natural kind insofar as they are indistinguishable.
Related Idea
Idea 8153 By knowing one piece of clay or gold, you know all of clay or gold [Anon (Upan)]
| 8153 | By knowing one piece of clay or gold, you know all of clay or gold [Anon (Upan)] |
| 12265 | All water is the same, because of a certain similarity [Aristotle] |
| 19761 | Men started with too few particular names, but later had too few natural kind names [Rousseau] |
| 6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
| 12681 | There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 15798 | Kinds are arrangements of dispositions [Fetzer] |
| 6170 | Natural kinds are defined by their real essence, as in gold having atomic number 79 [Rowlands] |
| 6773 | If F is a universal appearing in a natural law, then Fs form a natural kind [Bird] |
| 17478 | Maybe two kinds are the same if there is no change of entropy on isothermal mixing [Hendry] |