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Half-Naturalized Social Kinds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Richard W. Miller
Richard W. Miller*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Cornell University, 218 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853–3201.
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Abstract

We often legitimately ascribe reality both to social and to natural kinds. But the bases for these ascriptions are not entirely the same. In both cases, reality is typically determined by what characterizations of causal factors are indispensable to adequate explanation. Nonetheless, a psychological role as part of an identity that instances embrace is sometimes, distinctively, a condition for ascribing reality to a social kind. Although such assessments of reality can be construed as employing a standard of causal activity shared with natural science, they reveal a distinctive moral dimension in the bases for ascribing reality to social kinds.

Type
Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S640 - S652
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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