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Full Idea
If kinds are based on similarity, this has the Imperfect Community problem. Red round, red wooden and round wooden things all resemble one another somehow. There may be nothing outside the set resembling them, so it meets the definition of kind.
Gist of Idea
You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle
Source
Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.120)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.120
A Reaction
[ref. to Goodman 'Structure' 2nd 163- , which attacks Carnap on this] This suggests an invocation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance, which won't be much help for natural kinds.
| 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] |