display all the ideas for this combination of texts
1 idea
| 15696 | Peope favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is [Gelman] |
| Full Idea: People favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is. ...An object looking like a knife is less likely to be called 'a knife' if it is described as having been created by accident. | |
| From: Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 06 'Essentialism') | |
| A reaction: I like this because it talks, suggestively, of 'historical paths' rather than of 'origin'. Thus we might judge a person's identity by their traumatic experience rather than by their birth. This doesn't challenge necessity of origin, but affects labels. |