Brewer, Mark A. (2025) Regulatory Kinds: A Metaphysical Framework for Epistemically Stabilized Social Classification. [Preprint]
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Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of regulatory kinds — socially constructed classifications that come to function epistemically like natural kinds through recursive uptake across institutional domains. These kinds do not reflect causal unity or semantic precision, but they acquire stability, portability, and predictive utility by being embedded in the inferential routines of medicine, law, policy, and science.
I develop the notion of simulated kindhood to explain how such classifications support explanation and coordination despite lacking metaphysical integrity. Race serves as the central case: a contested and heterogeneous category that nonetheless endures as a diagnostic tool, a policy metric, and a risk factor.
By treating race as a regulatory kind, the paper reframes classificatory persistence as an institutional phenomenon, rather than a cognitive or conceptual error. The account challenges traditional views of kindhood, highlights the epistemic logic of infrastructural classification, and raises ethical concerns about the reification of simulated categories.
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