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Artifacts and Essentialism

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Abstract

Psychological essentialism is an intuitive folk belief positing that certain categories have a non-obvious inner “essence” that gives rise to observable features. Although this belief most commonly characterizes natural kind categories, I argue that psychological essentialism can also be extended in important ways to artifact concepts. Specifically, concepts of individual artifacts include the non-obvious feature of object history, which is evident when making judgments regarding authenticity and ownership. Classic examples include famous works of art (e.g., the Mona Lisa is authentic because of its provenance), but ordinary artifacts likewise receive value from their history (e.g., a worn and tattered blanket may have special value if it was one’s childhood possession). Moreover, in some cases, object history may be thought to have causal effects on individual artifacts, much as an animal essence has causal effects. I review empirical support for these claims and consider the implications for both artifact concepts and essentialism. This perspective suggests that artifact concepts cannot be contained in a theoretical framework that focuses exclusively on similarity or even function. Furthermore, although there are significant differences between essentialism of natural kinds and essentialism of artifact individuals, the commonalities suggest that psychological essentialism may not derive from folk biology but instead may reflect more domain-general perspectives on the world.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, I will sometimes use “essentialism” as shorthand for “psychological essentialism”.

  2. Debates regarding psychological essentialism are also beyond the scope of this paper; see the following for critiques and discussion: Malt (1994); Braisby et al. (1996); Hampton et al. (2007); Malt and Sloman (2007); Sloman and Malt (2003); Strevens (2000); Sloutsky (2003); Waxman and Gelman (2010).

  3. There is a third reason for suspecting that artifacts may be essentialized, which is that the boundary between natural kinds and artifacts seems to be increasingly porous, with advances in technology. Complex artifacts, such as computers, have a non-obvious basis and rich inductive potential, similar to natural kinds. Robotic pets can be programmed to respond in novel ways, and to learn from experience. Synthetic blood, industrial diamonds, artificial intelligence — all are human artifacts yet potentially indistinguishable from natural kinds. Current research is exploring how our intuitive reasoning systems conceptualize these new entities (Jipson and Gelman 2007; Kahn et al. 2012).

  4. There are other arguments in the literature suggesting that artifacts have essences. These include the idea that intended function is the essence of an artifact category, for example, that the essence of a chair is the creator’s intent that it be a chair (Bloom 1996; Chaigneau et al. 2008; Kelemen and Carey 2007; Xu and Rhemtulla 2005). This is an important idea that has been the subject of much serious debate (e.g., Bloom 1998; German and Johnson 2002; Malt and Sloman 2007), but it is distinct from the current proposal. That creator’s intent may be an artifact essence is a specific claim regarding object history, with a focus on boundary conditions on classification (see Malt 2013). In contrast, as noted above, the current arguments apply to judgments of individual artifacts.

  5. Although many of the studies reviewed earlier also show that people place higher value on their own objects, such as a child with his or her attachment object, these studies do not demonstrate the endowment effect. In the examples discussed earlier, factors other than ownership per se may have been responsible for the increased liking (e.g., a child may like his or her attachment object because of its color or texture, or because it was a birthday gift and thus reminds the child of that special day). In contrast, demonstrations of the endowment effect must control for other factors and demonstrate increased value due to ownership assignment per se.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NICHD grant HD-36043 to Gelman. I thank Bruce Mannheim and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Correspondence can be addressed to: Dr. Susan Gelman, Department of Psychology, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043.

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    Susan A. Gelman

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Special Issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology, "Artifact Categorization". Guest editors: Massimiliano Carrara and Daria Mingardo

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Gelman, S.A. Artifacts and Essentialism. Rev.Phil.Psych. 4, 449–463 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0142-7

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