The meaning and reference of The meaning and reference of natural kind termsnatural kind terms

Joanna Odrowąż-Sypniewska

Warsaw University

j.odrowaz@uw.edu.pl

Descriptivism

• NKT have denotation and connotation

• connotation univocally determines denotation

• connotation of a term „T” is a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for being T

• „A tiger is a large carnivorous quadrupedal feline, tawny yellow in color with blackish transverse stripes and white belly”

Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism

• Modal (unwanted necessity): „A tiger is a large quadrupedal feline that is tawny yellow in color with blackish transverse stripes and white belly” is not necessary

• Epistemological (ignorance and error): „A tiger is a LCQFtiTYiCwBTSaWB” is not a priori;

• for a name to designate an object it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the speaker to associate with the name identifying descriptions

• Semantic (lost rigidity): „Tigers attack people” vs. „LCQFtaTYiCwBTSaWB attack people”

Kripke was right but he chose wrong properties

• Causal descriptivism„the referent of the relevant name used by the person

from whom I acquired the antecedent of my current term „N””

„the individual referred to by the uses of the name „N” from which I acquired the use of „N””

• Rigidified descriptivism„the actual last great philosopher of antiquity”„the actual LQFtiTYiCwTSaWB”

Kripke was right so descriptivism has to go

• NKT are nondescriptive expressions in a sense that their reference is not fixed by their meaning (connotation)

The causal theory of reference fixing for NKT

• Putnam was wrong about the meaning of NKT, but he was more or less right about their reference

Putnam’s meaning

• (1) syntactic markers (mass noun, concrete)

• (2) semantic markers (natural kind, liquid)

• (3) stereotype (colorless, transparent, tasteless, thirst-quenching, etc.)

• (4) extension (H2O (give or take impurities))

motley collection

• linguistic and meta-linguistic

• connotation and denotation

• requires ‘sophisticated’ meta-liguistic knowledge

Putnam’s reference

• „ x bears the relation sameL to y just in case (1) x and y are both liquids, and (2) x and y agree in important physical properties”

• „importance is an interest-relative notion”

• „normally the ‘important’ properties (...) are the ones that are structurally important”

» Putnam, „The meaning of ‘meaning’”

Important insights

• Social dimensionHypothesis of the division of linguistic labour: „Every linguistic community (...) possesses at least

some terms whose associated criteria are known only to a subset of the speakers who acquire the terms, and whose use by the other speakers depends upon a structured cooperation between them and the speakers in relevant subsets”

Putnam, „The meaning of ‘meaning’”

• The contribution of the external world

Dummett’s social descriptivism

Michael Dummett:

„(...) the sharpest distinction ought to be made between an acknowledgement of the social character of language and Kripke’s causal theory”

Meaning• „The meaning of the word ‘gold’, as a word of the

English language, is fully conveyed neither by a description of the criteria employed by the experts nor by a description of those used by ordinary speakers; it involves both, and a grasp of the relationship between them”

» Dummett, „The social character of meaning”

The meaning and reference of NKT

• Meaning („gold”):• (i) identifying criteria (being yellow, being

valuable, being the material the wedding rings are most commonly made of, etc.)

• (ii) criteria for being a designatum (being the element with the atomic number 79)

• (iii) the relation of subordination of (i) to (ii)

• competent speakers have to know (i) and know that (iii)

• (ii) may not be known even by experts

• (ii) may not be finally settled

NKT are nondescriptive in a sense that:

• their reference originally was determined ‘causally’ (by ostension and induction)

• their meaning ‘comes after’ their reference