The view that social kinds (e.g., money, migrant, marriage) are mind-dependent is a prominent one in the social ontology literature.However, in addition to the claim that social kinds are mind-dependent, it is often asserted that social kinds are not real because they are mind-dependent.
Call this view social kind anti-realism.To defend their view, social kind anti-realists must accomplish two tasks.First, they must identify a dependence relation that obtains between social kinds and our mental states.Call this the Dependence Task.
Second, they must show that social Tennis Racquet kinds are not real because they are mind-dependent.Call this the Anti-Realist Task.In this paper, Eyeliner I consider several different ways of defining the relation that is supposed to obtain between social kinds and our mental states.With respect to each relation, I argue that either it fails to accomplish the Dependence Task, or it fails to accomplish the Anti-Realist Task.
As such, anyone who wishes to defend social kind anti-realism must provide an alternative explanation of how social kinds depend on our mental states in a way that impugns their reality.In the absence of such an explanation, there is no reason to endorse social kind anti-realism.