Family Resemblance - Notable Applications

Notable Applications

• Morris Weitz first applied family resemblances in an attempt to describe art which opened a still continuing debate.

• Renford Bambrough proposed that 'Wittgenstein solved what is known as "the problem of universals"' and said of his solution (as Hume said of Berkeley's treatment of the same topic), that it is "one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters". His view provided the occasion for numerous further comments.
• Rodney Needham explored family resemblances in connection with the problem of alliance and noted their presence in taxonomy where they are known as a polythetic classification

• Eleanor Rosch used family resemblances in her cognitivist studies Other cognitive research has shown that children and even rhesus monkeys tend to use family resemblance relationships rather than explicit rules when learning categories.