 While the causal theory of reference (and its correct interpretation) remains controversial, in many quarters of philosophy it has become accepted wisdom. It is thus an option for interpreters of social constructionism to claim that certain terms—for example, “race”—actually refer to a kind that is produced by our socio-linguistic behavior, even if that fact is revealed only a  posteriori.[9]  Such a constitutive constructionist could grant, then, that it is part of our ordinary conception of the concept (e.g. of race) that – like electron – it refers to an independent, natural fact about the world, but such a constructionist would insist that further exploration of the world reveals that conventional features of our practice produce the object of our study. As with the case of “water” before modern chemistry, the conception widely associated with “race” (viz. that it is a biological kind) is wrong, but the term successfully refers all the same. Ideally, for such an approach to work, the constitutive constructionist would like an independent characterization of the sorts of social objects that investigation reveals to be identical with the kinds in question (e.g. Ásta 2016; Bach 2012; Mallon 2003, 2016), but they also need to fend off critics of applying the causal theory of reference in the context of reference to socially produced objects (e.g. Thomasson 2003) as well as more general critiques of employing theories of reference as premises in arguments with philosophically significant conclusions (Mallon et al. 2009, Mallon 2007b). Still, if it can be made to work, this strategy would make sense of constitutive constructionist claims while respecting Boghossian’s idea (one that is also central to constructionism) that these kinds are ordinarily believed to be natural and independent of us. For this reason, this strategy has been suggested in the case of race, gender, and other human kinds (Haslanger 2003, 2005; Mallon 2003, 2016), and more generally for scientific facts (Boyd 1992). 