ABSTRACT
This paper proposes an abstract framework for classifying stem cells, building on my earlier model-based approach to characterizing these peculiar biological entities. I then discuss the results and compare these to individuation and classification practices for nanomaterials. For the latter, I draw on the work of Julia R.S. Bursten, who argues that nanomaterials are synthetic kinds that contrast in several ways with traditional chemical kinds. Stem cell classification, as conceptualized in my model-based framework, exhibits at least four important similarities with classification of nanomaterials: (1) fine-grained multivariate classification, with function rather than structure primary; (2) evidential concerns; (3) environmental dependence; and (4) scale-/level-spanning properties. There is also at least one important contrast: stem cell classification, as I characterize it, entails specification of a lineage structure — itself a device for classification of cells belonging thereto. There is thus a layering of classificatory schemas implicated in stem cell classification, which seems to have no counterpart in classification of nanomaterials. I conclude with some reflections on the significance of the distinction between experimental and synthetic kinds.
