The Ontology of Interactive Kinds

Authors

  • Rico Hauswald Dresden University,

Keywords:

looping effects, interactive kinds, social scientific classifications, Ian Hacking, causal property cluster theory

Abstract

This paper defends the notions of an interactive kind and a looping effect as features of social and human scientific classifications and aims to give a realist interpretation of them. I argue that interactive kinds can best be modeled as a special case of changing causal property cluster kinds. In order to do so, I develop a typology of looping effects according to the sort of entities that are affected, the main types of which are individual-looping, category-looping, and kind-looping. Based on this distinction, I identify interactive kinds as those causal property cluster kinds that are subjected to kind-looping.

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Published

2016-08-11

How to Cite

Hauswald, Rico. 2016. “The Ontology of Interactive Kinds”. Journal of Social Ontology 2 (2). Vienna, Austria:203-21. https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6833.

Issue

Section

Special Section: Social Kinds