Are Social Kinds Vague and Does It Matter

Bibliographic Data

ID19216683
AuthorsLorenzo d’Addante Trifiletti (0009-0007-9896-8659, University of Milan, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume56
Issue5
Pages478-503
Publication date2026-06-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy of the Social Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-3931 • E-ISSN: 1552-7441
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00483931261458626
OpenAlexW7164665195
LanguageEN
References cited34

Vagueness is pervasive in social reality yet neglected in social ontology. This neglect stems from a widespread assumption: social kinds have mind-dependent membership conditions fixed by collective attitudes, entailing epistemic transparency—infallible access to the nature and extension of social kinds. I argue that epistemic transparency is incompatible with any interpretation of vagueness, and consequently that anti-realist frameworks cannot accommodate vague social kinds. Realists, however, are better equipped to handle vagueness by relying on theories of kinds as clusters. Anti-realists must drop mind-dependent membership conditions and epistemic transparency entirely, a deeply unsatisfactory solution for a priori projects in social ontology

Extension (predicate logic) · Interpretation (philosophy) · Neglect · Social relation · Transparency (behavior) · Vagueness · Verstehen · Critical Realism in Sociology · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy and Theoretical Science

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