Semantics for Natural Kind Terms1
Harry Deutsch · Canadian Journal of Philosophy · 1993
According to the well-known Kripke-Putnam view developed inNaming and Necessityand ‘The Meaning of Meaning’, proper names and ‘natural kind terms’ - words for natural substances, species, and phenomena (‘water’, ‘rose’, ‘light’) - are non-descriptional and rigid. A singular term isrigidif it has the same referent in every possible world (and with respect to other extension-determining parameters, such as the passage of time), and isnon-descriptionalif, roughly speaking, its referent (at a possible world or other parameter) is not secured by purely descriptive conditions analytically tied to the term. Thus, ‘the inventor of bifocals’ is nonrigid and descriptional, while ‘the unique even and prime integer’ is rigid and descriptional, and ‘Noam Chomsky’ is rigid and non-descriptional.