Rose David, Nichols Shaun
Department of Philosophy, Florida State University.
Department of Philosophy, Cornell University.
Cogn Sci. 2020 Mar;44(3):e12818. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12818.
Natural/social kind essentialism is the view that natural kind categories, both living and non-living natural kinds, as well as social kinds (e.g., race, gender), are essentialized. On this view, artifactual kinds are not essentialized. Our view-teleological essentialism-is that a broad range of categories are essentialized in terms of teleology, including artifacts. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments typically used to provide evidence of essentialist thinking-involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), and inferences about offspring (study 3)-we find support for the view that a broad range of categories-living natural kinds, non-living natural kinds, and artifactual kinds-are essentialized in terms of teleology. Study 4 tests a unique prediction of teleological essentialism and also provides evidence that people make inferences about purposes which in turn guide categorization judgments.
自然/社会类别本质主义是这样一种观点，即自然类别，包括有生命的和无生命的自然种类，以及社会类别（如种族、性别），都被本质化了。按照这种观点，人造物类别则不会被本质化。我们的观点——目的论本质主义——是，广泛的类别都是根据目的论被本质化的，包括人造物。利用通常用于提供本质主义思维证据的相同类型的实验——涉及表面变化（研究1）、内部转变（研究2）以及对后代的推断（研究3）——我们发现有证据支持这样一种观点，即广泛的类别——有生命的自然种类、无生命的自然种类和人造物种类——都是根据目的论被本质化的。研究4检验了目的论本质主义的一个独特预测，并且还提供了证据表明人们会对目的进行推断，而这些推断反过来又会指导分类判断。
