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Single Idea 16936

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

Full Idea

With the triadic relation of comparative similarity, kinds can contain one another, as well as overlapping. Red and colored things can both count as kinds. Colored things all resemble one another, even though less than red things do.

Gist of Idea

Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red'

Source

Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.119)

Book Ref

Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.119

A Reaction

[compressed] Quine claims that comparative similarity is necessary for kinds - that there be some 'foil' in a similarity - that A is more like C than B is.

Related Idea

Idea 16935 If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [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]