Reappraising Kind Concepts

From the 1980s onwards, Kuhn became increasingly concerned with the nature of language, particularly regarding kind concepts. According to him, kind concepts would be acquired through ostension and organized into hierarchical structures, also known as “taxonomies”. However, in one of his last papers, Kuhn introduced a second type of kind concept, one that is established through law-like generalisations, the singletons. In this chapter, I argue that neither taxonomic nor singleton kinds accurately capture the nature of kind concepts: while all kind concepts are indeed attached to generalisations (unlike taxonomic kinds), this connection is not necessary (unlike singletons). Instead, I propose to view the relationship between kind concepts and generalisations through a broader notion of meaning, where the meaning of a kind concept is given by its inferential role in language. This inferentialist perspective allows key themes in Kuhn’s philosophy—generalisations, translation, incommensurability, and scientific revolutions—to be reassessed in a new light.