ABSTRACT
I am disinclined to try to define the ‘mark’ or characteristic features of something until I am clear about what sort of thing is the focus of concern. We need a rough ontological specification before we try to lay down necessary and sufficient conditions for a type-identity or try to delineate the relevant field of family resemblances among the members of a diverse extension in detail. For instance, compare the tasks of seeking the mark of the tiger, the diplodocus, or the unicorn. Without a prior investigation of the presumed ontological category of these beings, the actual, the extinct, and the mythological, the project of seeking a characteristic mark is hopelessly underdetermined. Again, compare any of these tasks with setting about finding (specifying) the mark of the quark, beings that may never appear in propria persona. Perhaps ‘the social’ is more like ‘the quark’ than it is like ‘the tiger’. Some prior work on the metaphysics of the relevant entities seems to be in order.
