It’s not just a matter of labels. We can imagine a world in which every creature was a unique random mishmash of features without regard to any other creature. Empirically, we do not live in such a world; in our world, living organisms come in definite clusters with regularities to their properties. Evolution provides an explanation of why biology does objectively possess this feature.
I understand that. That still doesn’t mean Plato was in a position to be asking a question that requires understanding of evolutionary theory to answer. His question is not much different from him asking, had he lived in the world you posited, why all aerofauns are similar, where “aerofaun” is a label they innocuously came up with for “any creature that flies”.
In that case, as in the actual one, there are huge differences among the aerofauns, more so than there are among dogs or among flying creatures in this world. But, even if that world’s true explanation were “aliens regularly send their randomized automaton toys to earth”, that still wouldn’t mean you need aliens to answer the aerofaun question, because your question is already dissolved by understanding your own categorization system.
Edit: To further clarify the point: In your hypothetical world, the correct (informative, expectation-constraining) answer to a Plato asking “Why are all aerofauns similar?” would be:
“They’re not similar in any objective sense. They simply have one particular similarity that you deem salient—the fact of their flying—and this is obscured by your having been accustomed to using the same label, ‘aerofaun’ for all of them. And the reason for a word’s existence in the first place is because it calls out a human-relevant cluster. Because it matters to humans whether an animal flies or not, we have a word for it. But once you know whether an animal flies, there is no additional fact of the matter as to why the fliers are similar—that similarity is an artifact of the filtering applied before an animal is called an aerofaun.”
Similarly, you should answer Plato: “Dogs aren’t similar in any objective sense. They simply have a few similarities that you deem salient—how they’re adaptable to humans, work in packs, walk on four legs, like meat, bark, etc. -- and this is obscured by your having been accustomed to using the same label, ‘dog’, for all of them. And the reason for a word’s existence in the first place is because it calls out a human-relevant cluster. Because it matters to humans whether an animal has all the traits {friendly to us, works in packs, can’t stand for long, wants meat, and can emit a loud call}, there is no additional fact of the matter as to why dogs are similar—that similarity is an artifact of the filtering applied before an animal is called a dog. Maybe one day we’ll find that some of the things we were calling dogs differ in a critical way—maybe they can’t interbreed with most dogs? -- and we’ll have to change our labeling system.”
It’s not just a matter of labels. We can imagine a world in which every creature was a unique random mishmash of features without regard to any other creature. Empirically, we do not live in such a world; in our world, living organisms come in definite clusters with regularities to their properties. Evolution provides an explanation of why biology does objectively possess this feature.
I understand that. That still doesn’t mean Plato was in a position to be asking a question that requires understanding of evolutionary theory to answer. His question is not much different from him asking, had he lived in the world you posited, why all aerofauns are similar, where “aerofaun” is a label they innocuously came up with for “any creature that flies”.
In that case, as in the actual one, there are huge differences among the aerofauns, more so than there are among dogs or among flying creatures in this world. But, even if that world’s true explanation were “aliens regularly send their randomized automaton toys to earth”, that still wouldn’t mean you need aliens to answer the aerofaun question, because your question is already dissolved by understanding your own categorization system.
Edit: To further clarify the point: In your hypothetical world, the correct (informative, expectation-constraining) answer to a Plato asking “Why are all aerofauns similar?” would be:
“They’re not similar in any objective sense. They simply have one particular similarity that you deem salient—the fact of their flying—and this is obscured by your having been accustomed to using the same label, ‘aerofaun’ for all of them. And the reason for a word’s existence in the first place is because it calls out a human-relevant cluster. Because it matters to humans whether an animal flies or not, we have a word for it. But once you know whether an animal flies, there is no additional fact of the matter as to why the fliers are similar—that similarity is an artifact of the filtering applied before an animal is called an aerofaun.”
Similarly, you should answer Plato: “Dogs aren’t similar in any objective sense. They simply have a few similarities that you deem salient—how they’re adaptable to humans, work in packs, walk on four legs, like meat, bark, etc. -- and this is obscured by your having been accustomed to using the same label, ‘dog’, for all of them. And the reason for a word’s existence in the first place is because it calls out a human-relevant cluster. Because it matters to humans whether an animal has all the traits {friendly to us, works in packs, can’t stand for long, wants meat, and can emit a loud call}, there is no additional fact of the matter as to why dogs are similar—that similarity is an artifact of the filtering applied before an animal is called a dog. Maybe one day we’ll find that some of the things we were calling dogs differ in a critical way—maybe they can’t interbreed with most dogs? -- and we’ll have to change our labeling system.”