Putnamsostensivedefinitionofsemanticsfornaturalkind.docVIP

WATER IS WHATEVER THERE IS TO WATER Yuncheng Zhou What does “water” mean in the statement, “this is water”, when uttered by someone who points to the liquid in the glass? Meaning of “water” might be given as follows: water is whatever there is to water. This is the answer that could be learned from the first reading of Hilary Putnam’s landmark paper, “Meaning of ‘Meaning’”. In fact, it is a good epitome of what Putnam says about meaning of “water” in the paper. What Putnam does in the paper is to propose a semantic theory for natural kind terms like “water”. However, presentation of this theory in the paper seems to me more rhetorical than logical. What is needed is to present a formalized version of this theory so as to highlight some of the problems that are vital in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Hence comes this paper. First, a primary formal characterization of semantic theory for natural kind terms is given in accordance with Putnam’s presentation of ostensive definition for a natural kind term like “water”; then, the formal characterization is to be interpreted together with construal of the twin earth thought experiment; what follows is the major part of this paper: my argumentation for epistemological and metaphysical understanding of meaning of natural kind terms; last but not least, indexicality, rigidity and necessary truth are to be discussed within the theoretic framework that is defended in this paper. It is noted that the formal characterization is to get more and more perfected with development of semantic theory for natural kind terms in this paper. However, a main task though it is in the paper, the formal characterization is but an ancillary apparatus employed to illustrate the semantic theory. Another point worthy of notice is that my argumentation for the semantic theory is much indebted to Kripke’s clarification of necessity in epistemological and metaphysical senses. Primary Formal Characterization of Putnam’s Seman