ABSTRACT
In this chapter I contrast two models of how kinds are made – what I call a “zooming-in” model and a “co-creation” model – and argue in favor of the latter model. The zooming-in model is widespread among realists about natural kinds (although it is usually only endorsed implicitly). It manifests itself in the assumption that kinds that are successfully used in scientific practice are successful because they represent aspects of the state of affairs in the world as it exists independently of us. Anti-realism or instrumentalism about kinds, in contrast, is often connected to versions of constructivism, which encompass a view of kinds as being made by us for practical purposes, without necessarily representing aspects of mind-independent reality. My aim in the present chapter is to bridge the opposition between straightforward realism and straightforward constructivism about kinds. I will argue that constructivist aspects typically enter into classificatory practices, without, however, implying that classification is entirely a matter of kinds being constructed and thus disqualifying realism. Rather, both the contributions from nature and from us to the making of classifications and kinds should equally be taken into account when it comes to understanding how classification works.
