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By natural, what I mean is that rarely do people classify a ball as a round object in their head or a sphere with a particular volume in their head. They just think of it as a ball. And if it has a colour, they may classify it as a “yellow ball” in their head, and not “a sphere” or “an object” or “an object with volume”. It seems that most objects can be classified in an infinite number of ways, yet only one or a few classes seem more natural than others.

What causes this? Is this related to some sort of category being fundamentally more natural than another? Or is this simply an evolutionary instinct to categorize things in a certain way?

Baby_philosopher
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  • According to Goodman, we tend to classify according to predicates that support consistently successful predictions and lawlike generalizations, "projectible predicates", as he called them. Under his nominalism, they are more "natural" because more useful (to us). The term today is natural kinds, and the more realist interpretations read Goodman's projectibility into metaphysics. – Conifold Feb 19 '24 at 07:26
  • It could simply be the way we learn to identify objects with words. When you were learning words at a very early age it's highly probable your parents never tended you a ball while saying "here is a sphere" or "an object with volume", they just said "look it's a ball". What we deem "natural" or "obvious" is often linked to education and culture. See the discrepencies in the shades of color who were attributed a name accross cultures and languages. – armand Feb 19 '24 at 07:28

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What you are describing is 'natural kinds'. Both the IEP and SEP have articles on the topic. Like many topics in philosophy, there is no agreement as to the correct answer. Some philosophers say that some categorizations are fundamentally better reflections of reality while others say all categories are imposed on nature by humans. I suggest reading the articles and coming back if you have a question about a specific interpretation.

E Tam
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