Medin and Ortony's own psychological essentialism research distinguishes placeholder essences from genuine causal essences, and art history fits only the weaker placeholder reading.

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Causal: # Causal Causal means something directly causes or brings about something else—like how striking a match causes it to light. When we say there's a causal relationship between two things, we mean one actually makes the other happen, rather than just happening at the same time by coincidence. It's about real cause-and-effect connections in the world around us.
Genuine causal essences(the stronger, more real type of essence): A real, scientifically grounded core nature of something that directly causes it to have the properties it does.
Medin and Ortony(researchers cited for their work on psychological essentialism): Two cognitive psychologists who studied how people think about the basic nature of things—specifically, what they believe makes something fundamentally what it is.
Placeholder essences(contrasted with genuine causal essences): A weak or temporary belief about what makes something fundamentally what it is, even when you're not sure what that core nature actually is.

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