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Social Groups Are Concrete Material Particulars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2022

Kevin Richardson Open the ORCID record for Kevin Richardson [Opens in a new window]
Kevin Richardson*
Affiliation:
Duke University, Department of Philosophy, Durham, North Carolina, USA
*
Email: kevin.richardson@duke.edu
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Abstract

It is natural to think that social groups are concrete material particulars, but this view faces an important objection. Suppose the chess club and nature club have the same members. Intuitively, these are different clubs even though they have a common material basis. Some philosophers take these intuitions to show that the materialist view must be abandoned. I propose an alternative explanation. Social groups are concrete material particulars, but there is a psychological explanation of nonidentity intuitions. Social groups appear coincident but nonidentical because they are perceived to be governed by conflicting social norms.

Keywords

Social ontologysocial groupssocial normsopacitymetaphysics

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Type
Article
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Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , May 2022 , pp. 468 - 483
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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