11 Realism and Artifact Kinds

11.1 Introduction

Strong realism is the thesis according to which a structured world exists independent of
human thought and knowledge—a world composed of distinct entities of different natures.^1
One of the main problems for strong realists, then, is that of establishing which of the
entities that we commonly individuate are real components of the independent world and
which are mere projections of our thoughts. In this chapter I analyze an argument aimed
at proving that artifacts, unlike natural objects, are not constituents of the real world as
conceived by strong realism. I try to show that it is possible to conceive artifact kinds as
both real and functional.
Within the debate over the existence of kinds, it is instructive to distinguish between
epistemological and metaphysical issues. To bring to light the tension that exists between
the two approaches, I adopt the term natural kinds for the kinds conceived from the epis-
temological perspective and real kinds for the kinds conceived from the metaphysical
angle.
Natural kinds are considered to be kinds whose instances are objects that share one or
more properties that are fundamental from a certain theoretical point of view. For example,
samples of the same chemical kinds share the same molecular composition or have the
same atomic number. Typically, natural kinds are characterized as kinds that strongly
support induction, that is, they allow for the discovery of properties that are projectable
over their instances. Normally, natural kinds are contrasted with kinds whose instances do
not share any theoretically relevant property—typical examples are the kind of bachelor,
the kind of widow, or the kind of vixen. These are sometimes called “artifi cial kinds” or
alternatively, “nominal kinds.”^2 The idea is that items of natural kinds necessarily share
properties that can explain their superfi cial similarities and that grant that items of the
same kinds behave and react to the environment in the same way, while that is not the
case for artifi cial or nominal kinds.
Real kinds—metaphysically characterized—are those kinds that constitute the real units
of the world. Objects belonging to real kinds have the same nature. Real kinds are often

Marzia Soavi