Teleological Essentialism: Generalized.

Teleological Essentialism: Generalized.
Cogn Sci. 2020 Mar;44(3):e12818
Authors: Rose D, Nichols S
Abstract
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.
PMID: 32090376 [PubMed - in process]

Source: Cognitive Science - February 25, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Rose D, Nichols S Tags: Cogn Sci Source Type: research