Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, The (A Theology of Lordship) by John M. Frame

Author:John M. Frame
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-24T19:07:00+00:00

(ii) Natural kinds. We can understand that kind of imprecision in a word like red because, after all, redness (it seems) is somewhat "subjective," relative to the "eye of the beholder." But what of words like fish? Fish designates a "natural kind." Surely, it might be supposed, every language must have separate nouns for fish and mammal. But consider the following. (A) Fish is not all that different from red. Red is not merely a description of a subjective state; it is a real quality of things. There is a subjective factor in our decision of how to cut up the "pie" of the color spectrum, but there are similar decisions to be made even with regard to animals. Should fish include or exclude the whale? That depends on whether we want to stress the analogies between whales and fish or the analogies between whales and land-mammals. And that question (like the question, Should red include purple?) will be answered in part by determining what is most useful or convenient to us, and that might be called a "subjective" factor. Or consider the question, Is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Biologists tend to answer this question one way, chefs another. Who is correct? The answer is not clear. We must make a choice of what "context" to stress-the context of biological relations or the context of foods that "go together." (B) We are fallible in identifying natural kinds. Biologists have sometimes had to revise their judgments about which animals constitute distinct species. (C) Imprecisions in the applications of terms often occur, even with respect to natural kinds. Tiger and lion denote natural kinds. But when a tiger and lion mate, producing offspring, what term should be applied to the young? Are they tigers? Lions? A third category? Here it is clear that even a term like tiger has "fuzzy boundaries." It is not always perfectly clear when it applies and when it does not. Rain may seem like a perfectly clear concept. We know what it is, we think, and we know when it is raining and when it is not. But what of a heavy mist? Do we call that rain or not? Or do we call it rain under some conditions but not others? Clearly, there is no rule in our language that automatically answers such questions. We may invent one, of course, but we may not claim that our invented rule sets forth "the meaning" of rain. (D) Even once we have defined a natural kind, the words of the definition will not be perfectly precise, and that fact may cause further problems.

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