Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

According to Richard Boyd's *Homeostatic property cluster* [HPC] theory, natural kinds are individuated by clusters of properties which co-occur frequently, and such that this co-occurrence is not a matter of chance. Other HPC theorists endorse related constraints on natural property clusters: "sociability" (Chakravartty 2007, p. 170), or "stability" (Slater 2015). In this paper I describe an information-theoretic model where the HPC theory of natural kinds can be tested, and use it to motivate the idea that co-occurrence (stability, etc.) is not necessary for natural-kindness. Co-occurrence-based accounts of natural kinds focus on what information theorists call *redundancy*, while neglecting the important property of *synergy*. A property cluster, I will argue, might be natural on the strength of its synergistic character, even if it has little redundancy, or not at all.