Rigidity and Natural Kind Terms

Alasti, Keyvan

Rigidity and Natural Kind Terms

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Keyvan Alasti

PhD student in Science Studies, Research Institute of Wisdom and Philosophy, Iran

Abstract

How common nouns, and only a special type of them, i.e. “Natural kind terms”, rigidly designate is an issue in the philosophical study of language since the publication of Saul Kripke’s famous book, Naming and Necessity.
In this book, Kripke argues against Frege and Russell’s theory of reference and proposes his own Causal theory of reference. Proper names, Kripke claims, are rigid designators, i.e. they refer to unique entities in every possible world. He also extends his theory of reference to cover natural kind terms, terms that don't refer to individual objects, but refer to group (or set) of objects. However, Kripke doesn't give an account of what it is for general terms to be rigid.
In this article after surveying the causal theory of reference and Rigidity as its central concept, the application of this concept to natural kind terms is examined. It is shown that Natural kind terms are not rigid designator in the sense that Kripke originally defined it.

Keywords

Rigid Designator

Natural Kind Terms

Kripke

Reference

منابع

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