Abstract

Psychological essentialism is claimed to be a naturally selected and/or innate tendency to see certain kinds as essence-based natural kinds. In the context of folk biology, this essentialism allegedly applies to biological kinds (and especially on the folk taxonomic level of generic species). Some authors even suggest that we have an innate folkbiological module that involves certain biological concepts (such as biological inheritance, innate potential, etc.), relevant to folk-biological essentialism. Psychological essentialism and its purported innateness have long been quite extensively discussed, even in recent literature on philosophy of psychology and other relevant contexts, but the basic claims about psychological essentialism and about generic species as the most saliently essentialized folk-biological taxonomic level have remained largely the same over time. These claims are often assumed to derive support from a bunch of canonical studies that have also been frequently referred to in the literature about psychological essentialism.