In the philosophy of science and some other branches of philosophy, a "natural kind" is an intellectual grouping, or categorizing of things, that is reflective of the actual world and not just human interests. Some treat it as a classification identifying some structure of truth and reality that exists whether or not humans recognize it. Others treat it as intrinsically useful to the human mind, but not necessarily reflective of something more objective. Candidate examples of natural kinds are found in all the sciences, but the field of chemistry provides the paradigm example of elements. Alexander Bird and Emma Tobin see natural kinds as relevant to metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language, as well as the philosophy of science. John Dewey held a view that belief in unconditional natural kinds is a mistake, a relic of obsolete scientific practices. Hilary Putnam rejects descriptivist approaches to natural kinds with semantic reasoning. Richard Boyd holds that many natural kinds are homeostatic property clusters, families of properties whose co-occurrence is maintained by causal mechanisms. Hasok Chang and Rasmus Winther hold the emerging view that natural kinds are useful and evolving scientific facts.
John Dewey In 1938, John Dewey published Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, where he explained how modern scientists create kinds through induction and deduction, and why they have no use for natural kinds.
The philosophical issue is how humans can dependably predict that unobserved examples of a kind will have the same traits as a few observed examples. The traditional answer grew out of Aristotle's assertion that humans describe things they know in two kinds of propositions. Existential kinds—known by observing traits—are stated in "generic" propositions. Conceptual kinds—known by intuitive recognition of groups of traits—are stated in "universal" propositions. Dewey argued that modern scientists do not follow Aristotle in treating inductive and deductive propositions as facts already known about nature's stable structure. Today, scientific propositions are intermediate steps in inquiry, hypotheses about processes displaying stable patterns. Aristotle's generic and universal propositions have become conceptual tools of inquiry warranted by inductive inclusion and exclusion of traits. They are provisional means rather than results of inquiry revealing the structure of reality.
Propositions as such are ... provisional, intermediate and instrumental. Since their subject-matter concerns two kinds of means, material and procedural, they are of two main categories: (1) Existential [generic means, known by induction], referring directly to actual conditions, as determined by experimental observation, and (2) ideational or conceptual [universal means, known by deduction], consisting of interrelated meanings, which are non-existential in content ... but which are applicable to existence through the operations they represent as possibilities. Modern induction starts with a question to be answered or a problem to be solved. It identifies problematic subject-matter and seeks potentially relevant traits and conditions. Generic existential data thus identified are reformulated—stated abstractly as if-then universal relations capable of serving as answers or solutions: If H 2 O {\displaystyle H_{2}O} , then water. For Dewey, induction creates warranted kinds by observing constant conjunction of relevant traits.
No grounded generic propositions can be formed save as they are the products of the performance of operations indicated as possible by universal propositions. The problem of inference is, accordingly, to discriminate and conjoin those qualities [kinds] of existential material that serve as distinguishing traits (inclusively and exclusively) of a determinate kind. Dewey used the example of "morning dew" to describe these abstract steps creating scientific kinds. From antiquity, the common-sense belief had been that all dew is a kind of rain, meaning dew drops fall. By the early 1800s the curious absence of rain before dew and the growth of understanding led scientists to examine new traits. Functional processes changing bodies [kinds] from solid to liquid to gas at different temperatures, and operational constants of conduction and radiation, led to new inductive hypotheses "directly suggested by this subject-matter, not by any data [kinds] previously observable. ... There were certain [existential] conditions postulated in the content of the new [non-existential] conception about dew, and it had to be determined whether these conditions were satisfied in the observable facts of the case." After demonstrating that dew could be formed by these generic existential phenomena, and not by other phenomena, the universal hypothesis arose that dew forms following established laws of temperature and pressure. "The outstanding conclusion is that inductive procedures are those which prepare existential material so that it has convincing evidential weight with respect to an inferred generalization. Existential data are not pre-known natural kinds, but become conceptual statements of "natural" processes.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
