Kind terms and semantic uniformity

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
Kind Terms

The Logic of Natural Kind Terms

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-216
Author(s):  
Lifeng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

scholarly journals The Psychology of Natural Kind Terms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Foster-Hanson ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

Draft of chapter to appear in: The Psychology of Natural Kinds Terms. In S.T. Biggs, & H. Geirsson (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Linguistic Reference. London: Routledge.

What Are Natural Kinds?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Soames
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Actual World ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
General Term ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
World State ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Ontological Question

This chapter approaches the ontological question, “What are natural kinds?” through another, partially linguistic, question. “What must natural kinds be like if the conventional wisdom about natural kind terms is correct?” Although answering this question will not tell us everything we want to know, it will, be useful in narrowing the range of feasible ontological alternatives. The chapter summarizes the contemporary linguistic wisdom and then tests different proposals about kinds against it. It takes simple natural kind terms—like “green,” “gold,” “water,” “tiger,” and “light”—to be Millian terms that rigidly designate properties typically determined by a reference-fixing stipulation to the effect that the general term is to designate whatever property provides the explanation of why, at actual world-state, all, or nearly all, the samples of items associated with the term by speakers who introduce it have the observational properties they do.

Natural Kind Terms

Possibility ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 178-198
Author(s):  
Michael Jubien
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Natural Kind Terms ◽  
Kind Terms

Dispositions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mumford
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Causal Power ◽  
General Criterion ◽  
Power Capacity ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Fundamental Properties

‘Disposition’ is a term used in metaphysics usually to indicate a type of property, state or condition. Such a property is one that provides for the possibility of some further specific state or behaviour, usually in circumstances of some specific kind. Terms such as ‘causal power’, ‘capacity’, ‘ability’, ‘propensity’, and others, can be used to convey the same idea. The general criterion for something to be a disposition is that the appropriate kind of behaviour, the so-called manifestation, need not be actual. Thus, something can be disposed to break though it is not broken now. The disposition is thought to be a persisting state or condition that makes possible the manifestation. Because dispositions make other events or properties possible, they are often understood in relation to counterfactual conditional sentences. Something being fragile is somehow related to the conditional that if it is dropped, it will break. The antecedent of the conditional identifies the stimulus for the disposition. The consequent identifies the manifestation of the disposition. Philosophers are increasingly interested in dispositions because many properties seem to be essentially dispositional in nature. Thus, to say that something is soft means that it is disposed to deform when put under pressure. It is difficult to identify a property that does not have some dispositional aspect. Even the fundamental properties of physics, such as spin, charge and mass, appear to be dispositional. This has led some to the conclusion that all properties are dispositions, or at least that they bestow dispositions. In the philosophy of mind, many mental ascriptions carry dispositional implications. For example, to have a belief is to be disposed to behave in an appropriate way in certain circumstances. There are a number of philosophical problems that arise about dispositions, however. Are they real properties in their own right or are they in some way derived from other elements? How are dispositions distinguished from other things? What is the precise relation a disposition bears to its manifestation?

Semantic realism, rigid designation, and dynamic semantics

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-86
Author(s):  
Alice G. B. ter Meulen
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Semantics ◽  
Logical Necessity ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Rigid Designation

Semantic realism fits Millikan's account of kind terms in its focus on information-theoretic abilities and strategic ways of gathering information in human communication. Instead of the traditional logical necessity, we should interpret rigid designation in a dynamic semantics as a legislative act to constrain possible ways in which our belief may change.

Function Is Not Enough

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Olivero
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Kind Terms ◽  
Extrinsic Property ◽  
Externalist Theory ◽  
Social Kinds ◽  
Common Nature

The “nature” of an artifact is often equated with its function. Clearly, an artifactual function must be an extrinsic property. This feature of functions has important implications on the semantics of artifactual kind terms: it enables us to vindicate that artifactual kind terms have an externalist semantics. Any alleged externalist theory, indeed, must show that the referents of the considered terms share a common nature (i.e., an extrinsic property), whether we know or could possibly ever know what that nature is. However, the state of the art shows that function is not enough to represent such “nature”: function does not exhaustively account for important phenomena that characterize artifacts and artifactual kinds, nor does it thoroughly define what they are. Thus, extending the scope of externalism to artifactual kind terms seems doomed to fail. Pace opposite views, it could even be argued that artifacts are a sub-class of social kinds. If so, not only social but also artifactual kind terms cannot refer externalistically, since their referents constitutively depend on human intentions and norms. Either way, externalism fails to apply to those kinds of terms.

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