Abstract

Two recent experimental studies, by Shaun Nichols et al. and by Michael Devitt & Brian Porter claim to find evidence for the view that both causal-historical factors and descriptive factors play a role in determining the extensions of natural kind terms. Both studies use versions of a vignette featuring the fictional natural kind term “Catoblepas”. We conducted an experiment where we used vignettes and corresponding tasks that were otherwise fully analogous, but featured terms which are not natural kind terms. We found that such terms received the same patterns of response which Nichols et al. and Devitt & Porter took to justify their conclusions. We conclude that either the kind of view they arrive at applies more widely than just for natural kind terms or, as we think is more likely, the original results do not support such a two-factor view in the first place.