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Single Idea 19244

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

Full Idea

The chemist contents himself with a single experiment to establish any qualitative fact, because he knows there is such a uniformity in the behavior of chemical bodies that another experiment would be a mere repetition of the first in every respect.

Gist of Idea

Chemists rely on a single experiment to establish a fact; repetition is pointless

Source

Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV)

Book Ref

Peirce,Charles Sanders: 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things', ed/tr. Ketner,K.L. [Harvard 1992], p.169

A Reaction

I take it this endorses my 'Upanishads' view of natural kinds - that for each strict natural kind, if you've seen one you've them all. This seems to fit atoms and molecules, but only roughly fits tigers.

Related Idea

Idea 8153 By knowing one piece of clay or gold, you know all of clay or gold [Anon (Upan)]

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]