Fifty shades of grue: Indeterminate categories and induction in and out of the language sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-488
Author(s):  
Matthew Spike
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
New Riddle Of Induction ◽  
Linguistic Categories

AbstractIt is hard to define structural categories of language (e.g. noun, verb, adjective) in a way which accounts for linguistic variation. This leads Haspelmath to make the following claims: i) unlike in biology and chemistry, there are no natural kinds in language; ii) there is a fundamental distinction between descriptive and comparative linguistic categories, and; iii) generalisations based on comparisons between languages can in principle tell us nothing about specific languages. The implication is that cross-linguistic categories cannot support scientific induction. I disagree: generalisations on the basis of linguistic comparison should inform the language sciences. Haspelmath is not alone in identifying a connection between the nature of the categories we use and the kind of inferences we can make (e.g. Goodman’s ‘new riddle of induction’), but he is both overly pessimistic about categories in language and overly optimistic about categories in other sciences: biology and even chemistry work with categories which are indeterminate to some degree. Linguistic categories are clusters of co-occurring properties with variable instantiations, but this does not mean that we should dispense with them: if linguistic generalisations reliably lead to predictions about individual languages, and if we can integrate them into more sophisticated causal explanations, then there is no a priori requirement for a fundamental descriptive/comparative distinction. Instead, we should appreciate linguistic variation as a key component of our explanations rather than a problem to be dealt with.

scholarly journals Shared understanding of color among congenitally blind and sighted adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Sein Kim ◽  
Brianna Aheimer ◽  
Veronica Montane Manrara ◽  
Marina Bedny
Keyword(s):  
Visual Experience ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Stop Sign ◽  
Congenitally Blind ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Blind Individuals

Empiricist philosophers such as Locke famously argued that people born blind could only acquire shallow, fragmented facts about color. Contrary to this intuition, we report that blind and sighted people share an in-depth understanding of color, despite disagreeing about arbitrary color facts. Relative to the sighted, blind individuals are less likely to generate ‘yellow’ for banana and ‘red’ for stop-sign. However, blind and sighted adults are equally likely to infer that two bananas (natural kinds) and two stop-signs (artifacts with functional colors) are more likely to have the same color than two cars (artifacts with non-functional colors), make similar inferences about novel objects’ colors, and provide similar causal explanations. We argue that people develop inferentially-rich and intuitive “theories” of color regardless of visual experience. Linguistic communication is more effective at aligning people’s theories than their knowledge of verbal facts.

Causal pathways, random walks, and tortuous paths: Moving from the descriptive to the etiological in psychiatry

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tabb ◽  
Kenneth F. Schaffner
Keyword(s):  
Random Walks ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Pattern Approach

Most philosophers of psychiatry as well as psychiatrists themselves believe that instead of revising psychiatric categories, researchers should attempt to discover causal mechanisms that can explain these common clusters of signs and symptoms. But what sorts of causal explanations can realistically be hoped for? We argue here that psychiatric nosologists should aim to construct categories that represent robust patterns in the data that emerge from our best theories. The portmanteau term “robust pattern” introduces two philosophical terms: Dennett’s real patterns, and Wimsatt’s theory of robustness. Robust patterns are best seen heuristically, as categories growing out of empirical theories in response to practical needs. In the case of schizophrenia, we explore how a robust pattern approach might differ from a traditional diagnostic kind as formulated by the DSM. We conclude by considering the ontological status of diagnostic categories viewed as robust patterns, and comparing this with a “natural kinds” approach.

Color Primitivism and Neo-pragmatism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Gert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Color Primitivism ◽  
Descriptive Language

This chapter responds to criticisms raised by Jonathan Cohen, on behalf of reductionists, to the Benacerraf-style argument for color primitivism offered in Chapter One. The response stresses the fact that the argument for primitivism is perfectly consistent with the idea that some ostensively taught terms—terms for natural kinds, for example—refer to properties that have hidden essences that are the business of empirical science to determine. In this way, the Benacerraf-style argument is perfectly consistent with the idea that water is identical to H2O. The chapter also presents in much more detail the neo-pragmatism on which the book relies throughout. Rather than making the a priori assumption that descriptive language must function by making use of words that “latch on” via a substantive relation of reference to objects and properties out there in the world, the neo-pragmatist takes a more empirical view of language that reflects a deeper naturalism.

scholarly journals Abuso de substâncias gêmeas: Pap e Kuhn contra a distinção entre propriedades essenciais e acidentais de espécies científicas

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeferson Diello Huffermann
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Thomas Kuhn

Neste artigo analiso criticamente o essencialismo acerca de espécies naturais [natural kinds] a partir da teoria funcional do a priori de Arthur Pap (1943, 1944 e 1946). De maneira similar a outros autores que privilegiam a prática científica, mostra-se que há razões para rejeitar a legitimidade da distinção entre propriedades essenciais e propriedades acidentais no interior de uma teoria científica. Buscamos mostrar como uma resposta muito similar àquela de Thomas Kuhn ao célebre experimento de pensamento da Terra Gêmea pode ser formulada a partir da teoria funcional de Pap. Tanto Kuhn quanto Pap apresentam razões pelas quais devemos rejeitar a aplicação da teoria causal da referência ao léxico científico. Com base em uma análise da prática científica da primeira metade do século XX mostramos que a distinção entre propriedades acidentais e essenciais de espécies científicas é inadequada (o caso do “Fósforo Gêmeo”). Isso nos permite aproximar a teoria funcional do a priori da “virada histórica” em filosofia da ciência encontrada em autores como Kuhn, mostrando como essa virada foi um processo mais contínuo do que pensado inicialmente.  

Do ideas about function help in the study of causation?

2005 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sherry
Keyword(s):  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Magnetic Orientation ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Disassortative Mating ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
Food Storing ◽  
Barn Owls ◽  
Auditory Localisation ◽  
Understanding Function

AbstractOne of Tinbergen's most lasting contributions to the study of behaviour was the distinction he drew between causal, functional, developmental, and evolutionary questions about behaviour. More recently, behavioural ecologists have claimed that understanding the function of behaviour is an important step towards understanding its causes. This claim has, in turn, been criticised for confusing the fundamental distinction that Tinbergen defined. The study of behaviour, however, usually begins by identifying units of behaviour functionally and only then proceeds to causal analysis. Research carried out on four phenomena — disassortative mating by MHC loci, memory for cache sites in food-storing birds, auditory localisation of prey by barn owls, and magnetic orientation — illustrates the contributions made to causal research through understanding the function of behaviour. Understanding function, and sometimes simply a hypothesis about function, defines the causal questions that are asked, identifies novel questions for causal investigation, and sets the criteria that causal explanations must satisfy.

EAPP / EAPA Expert Meeting, 6 to 8 September 2018, Edinburgh

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Mõttus ◽  
David M Condon ◽  
Dustin Wood ◽  
Mitja Back ◽  
Anna Baumert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Accuracy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Target Individual ◽  
Higher Dimensional ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Expert Meeting ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
New Generation

We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science – description, prediction and explanation – and that attaining them often requires different priorities and methodological approaches. We put forward specific recommendations such as publishing findings with minimum a priori aggregation and exploring the limits of predictive models without being constrained by parsimony and intuitiveness but instead maximising out-of-sample predictive accuracy. We argue that naturally-occurring variance in many decontextualized and multi-determined constructs that interest personality scientists may not have individual causes, at least as this term is generally understood and in ways that are human-interpretable, never mind intervenable. If so, useful explanations are narratives that summarize many pieces of descriptive findings rather than models that target individual cause-effect associations. By meticulously studying specific and contextualized behaviours, thoughts, feelings and goals, however, individual causes of variance may ultimately be identifiable, although such causal explanations will likely be far more complex, phenomenon-specific and person-specific than anticipated thus far. Progress in all three areas – description, prediction, and explanation – requires higher-dimensional models than the currently-dominant “Big Few” and supplementing subjective trait-ratings with alternative sources of information such as informant-reports and behavioural measurements. Developing a new generation of psychometric tools thus provides many immediate research opportunities.

scholarly journals Shared understanding of color among sighted and blind adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (33) ◽  
pp. e2020192118
Author(s):  
Judy Sein Kim ◽  
Brianna Aheimer ◽  
Verónica Montané Manrara ◽  
Marina Bedny
Keyword(s):  
Visual Experience ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Stop Sign ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Blind Individuals

Empiricist philosophers such as Locke famously argued that people born blind might learn arbitrary color facts (e.g., marigolds are yellow) but would lack color understanding. Contrary to this intuition, we find that blind and sighted adults share causal understanding of color, despite not always agreeing about arbitrary color facts. Relative to sighted people, blind individuals are less likely to generate “yellow” for banana and “red” for stop sign but make similar generative inferences about real and novel objects’ colors, and provide similar causal explanations. For example, people infer that two natural kinds (e.g., bananas) and two artifacts with functional colors (e.g., stop signs) are more likely to have the same color than two artifacts with nonfunctional colors (e.g., cars). People develop intuitive and inferentially rich “theories” of color regardless of visual experience. Linguistic communication is more effective at aligning intuitive theories than knowledge of arbitrary facts.

Against the Metaphysical Transparency of Semantic Adicity

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-141
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Referring Expressions

The argument of previous chapters is generalized from referring expressions to argument-taking expressions more generally. The focus is on potential mismatches between what I call the semantic (and syntactic) adicity of argument-taking linguistic expressions and the objective or metaphysical adicity of real-world properties and relations. Two main arguments are offered, the argument from underarticulation and the argument from cross-linguistic variation. It is argued that where there are such mismatches, we should not expect a priori semantic analysis to be a reliable guide to bridging such gaps and so should not expect a priori semantic analysis to reveal much about the metaphysical adicity of real-world properties, events, states, and relations.

What is empirical about Atran's taxonomies?

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
A Priori

Atran reifies Fodor's metaphor of modularity to create a truth-producing apparatus to generate a priori taxonomies or natural kinds that lock a tautology in place.

scholarly journals Descriptive, predictive and explanatory personality research: Different goals, different approaches, but a shared need to move beyond the Big Few traits

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Mõttus ◽  
Dustin Wood ◽  
David M Condon ◽  
Mitja Back ◽  
Anna Baumert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Accuracy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Target Individual ◽  
Higher Dimensional ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
New Generation

We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science – description, prediction and explanation – and that attaining them often requires different priorities and methodological approaches. We put forward specific recommendations such as publishing findings with minimum a priori aggregation and exploring the limits of predictive models without being constrained by parsimony and intuitiveness but instead maximising out-of-sample predictive accuracy. We argue that naturally-occurring variance in many decontextualized and multi-determined constructs that interest personality scientists may not have individual causes, at least as this term is generally understood and in ways that are human-interpretable, never mind intervenable. If so, useful explanations are narratives that summarize many pieces of descriptive findings rather than models that target individual cause-effect associations. By meticulously studying specific and contextualized behaviours, thoughts, feelings and goals, however, individual causes of variance may ultimately be identifiable, although such causal explanations will likely be far more complex, phenomenon-specific and person-specific than anticipated thus far. Progress in all three areas – description, prediction, and explanation – requires higher-dimensional models than the currently-dominant “Big Few” and supplementing subjective trait-ratings with alternative sources of information such as informant-reports and behavioural measurements. Developing a new generation of psychometric tools thus provides many immediate research opportunities.

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