Capricious Kinds
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8399781 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jessica Laimann (University of Bristol, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1043-1068 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjps/axy024 |
| OpenAlex | W4249855588 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 31 |
According to Ian Hacking, some human kinds are subject to a peculiar type of classificatory instability: individuals change in reaction to being classified, which in turn leads to a revision of our understanding of the kind. Hacking’s claim that these ‘human interactive kinds’ cannot be natural kinds has been vehemently criticized on the grounds that similar patterns of instability occur in paradigmatic examples of natural kinds. I argue that the dialectic of the extant debate misses the core conceptual problem of human interactive kinds. The problem is not that these kinds are particularly unstable but ‘capricious’—their members behave in wayward, unexpected manners that defeats existing theoretical understanding. The reason for that, I argue, is that human interactive kinds are often ‘hybrid kinds’ consisting of a base kind and an associated status, which makes mechanisms that support patterns of change and stability systematically difficult to understand and predict. 1. Introduction 2. The Extant Discussion 2.1. Hacking’s account of interactive kinds 2.2. Classificatory feedback in non-human kinds 3. Natural kinds and Ontological Instability 3.1. Understanding instability 3.2. The problem of stabilizing feedback 3.3. Summary 4. Capricious Kinds 4.1. Biased conceptualization 4.2. Studying social status 5. Conclusion
Economics · Epistemology · Mathematical economics · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychology of Social Influence · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
How Classification Works
Natural Categories and Human Kinds
Sex Differences in Social Behavior
Historical Kinds and the “Special Sciences”
Science as Social Knowledge
Realism, anti-foundationalism and the enthusiasm for natural kinds
Elizabeth Spelman, Gender Realism, and Women
The Construction of Human Kinds
Outsiders Studies in the Sociology of Deviance
Sex, Gender and Society
Rewriting the Soul
Psychiatry in the Scientific Image
The Social Construction of Human Kinds
Gender Roles and Women's Achievement-Related Decisions
The Labeling of Convicted Felons and Its Consequences for Recidivism
Why Hacking is Wrong about Human Kinds
Interactive Kinds
Classifying madness
Resisting Reality
Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance
Doing Gender
Looping Kinds and Social Mechanisms
The Making and Molding of Child Abuse
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |