Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Sep;47(9):e13335.
doi: 10.1111/cogs.13335.

Are Natural Kind Terms Ambiguous?

Jussi Haukioja  1 , Jeske Toorman  1 , Giosuè Baggio  2 , Jussi Jylkkä  3
Affiliations

Are Natural Kind Terms Ambiguous?

Jussi Haukioja et al. Cogn Sci. 2023 Sep.

Abstract

Recent experimental studies have claimed to find evidence for the view that natural kind terms such as "water" are ambiguous: that they have two extensions, one determined by superficial properties, the other by underlying essence. In an online experiment, we presented to 600 participants scenarios describing discoveries of novel samples that differ in deep structure from samples of a familiar kind but are superficially identical, such as a water-like substance that is not composed of H2 O. We used three different types of question sets to probe whether the participants considered the sample as a member of the kind or not. Our results did not confirm the predictions of the ambiguity view. They were, rather, consistent with views that take underlying essences to be the sole criterion for membership in a natural kind.

Keywords: Ambiguity; Categorization; Causal theory of reference; Descriptivism; Experimental semantics; Natural kind terms; Reference.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1-48.
    1. Braisby, N., Franks, B., & Hampton, J. (1996). Essentialism, word use, and concepts. Cognition, 59(3), 247-274.
    1. Devitt, M., & Porter, B. C. (2021). Testing the reference of biological kind terms. Cognitive Science, 45, e12979.
    1. Devitt, M., & Porter, B. C. (forthcoming). Two sorts of biological kind terms: The cases of ‘Rice’ and ‘Rio de Janeiro Myrtle’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
    1. Gelman, S., & Wellman, H. M. (1991). Insides and essences: Early understandings of the nonobvious. Cognition, 38, 213-244.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources