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Single Idea 16935

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds ]

Full Idea

If similarity has no degrees there is no containing of kinds within broader kinds. If colored things are a kind, they are similar, but red things are too narrow for a kind. If red things are a kind, colored things are not similar, and it's too broad.

Gist of Idea

If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another

Source

Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.118)

Book Ref

Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.118

A Reaction

[compressed] I'm on Quine's side with this. We glibly talk of 'kinds', but the criteria for sorting things into kinds seems to be a mess. Quine goes on to offer a better account than the (diadic, yes-no) one rejected here.

Related Idea

Idea 16936 Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine]

The 20 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about natural kinds]:

10952 Unusual kinds like mule are just a combination of two kinds [Aristotle]
19244 Chemists rely on a single experiment to establish a fact; repetition is pointless [Peirce]
7375 Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett]
16935 If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine]
16936 Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine]
6613 The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis]
5472 Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis]
15886 Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré]
17371 Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt]
17381 Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré]
17385 Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré]
6776 Natural kinds are those that we use in induction [Bird]
6767 Rubies and sapphires are both corundum, with traces of metals varying their colours [Bird]
6768 Tin is not one natural kind, but appears to be 21, depending on isotope [Bird]
6770 Membership of a purely random collection cannot be used as an explanation [Bird]
6771 Natural kinds may overlap, or be sub-kinds of one another [Bird]
17394 Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri]
17421 If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri]
14504 The Kripke/Putnam approach to natural kind terms seems to give them excessive stability [Koslicki]
18613 Artifacts can be natural kinds, when they are the object of historical enquiry [Machery]