Abstract
According to Michael Devitt, the primary work of a rigidity distinction for kind terms is to distinguish non-descriptional predicates from descriptional predicates. The standard conception of rigidity fails to do this work when it is extended to kind terms. Against the standard conception, Devitt defends rigid application: a predicate is a rigid applier iff, if it applies to an object in one world, it applies to that object in every world in which it exists. Devitt maintains that rigid application does the job of identifying nondescriptional predicates perfectly. I argue that Devitt is wrong about this. When we examine more closely alternative theories about the identity and persistence conditions of those entities to which mass terms apply, we find no plausible theory that has the result that a term is rigid iff it is non-descriptional.
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Notes
See Kripke (1980: 48f).
For a defense of the standard conception of rigidity as applied to kind terms, see LaPorte (2000).
For an earlier statement of this sort of conception of rigidity, see Cook (1980).
Compare RA3 with the formulation of rigid application found in Devitt and Sterelny (1999: 310). Two differences between RA3 and their formulation merit note here. In the first place, RA3 makes explicit that the mass terms we are interested in are functioning as predicates, rather than singular terms. Although Devitt is not as explicit as he could be about the matter, I think this detail reflects his intended understanding of rigid application for mass terms. Among other things, he notes approvingly that Kripke takes the kind terms under discussion to be predicates (Devitt 2005: 140). A second difference between the formulations is this: whereas Devitt has written that mass predicates apply to stuff simpliciter, RA3 makes explicit that mass predicates apply to portions of stuff. Again, I think this is implicit in Devitt’s own treatment. It is evident that he thinks that, e.g., ‘water’ applies to more entities than just the totality of water molecules in the world; it applies to sub-portions of this totality as well. Indeed, if this weren’t the case, then it would be hard to see why we should treat ‘water’ as a predicate, rather than as a name that designates this totality. However, if ‘water’ were a name, we would expect it to be rigid (or not) in exactly the same way that other names are rigid. In that case, no alternative account of rigidity for mass terms would be called for. In any case, all of the arguments that follow apply with equal force even if it turns out that mass kind terms should be applied only to the totality of the sub-portions of a given kind of stuff in a world.
A hat tip is owed to Donnelly and Bittner (2009).
Something like this view of stuff is also advocated by Zimmerman (1995) and Donnelly and Bittner (2009). These writers use the term ‘sum’ in place of ‘aggregate’. However, the persistence conditions of what they call sums are more in line with Burge’s aggregates than with the sums of classical mereology.
Like the writers mentioned in note 9, Barnett uses ‘sum’ to refer to entities whose identity conditions have more in common with those of Burge’s aggregates than with the sums of classical mereology. For instance, Barnett writes that any given sum is such that “not all its parts need be summands”. Moreover, he writes that sums “may gain and lose parts (just not parts that are summands)” (2004: 98n3).
For a discussion of what makes one sortal dominate another, see Burke (1994: 610–616).
A reviewer for Erkenntnis expresses some doubt as to whether ‘lemonade’ is a genuine descriptional predicate. Here is the worry. If a descriptional theory applies to a given predicate, then a speaker is competent with that predicate only if she associates the correct description with that term. This is, roughly the Cartesian account of semantic competence. However, it seems wrong to insist that any speaker who fails to associate the description (e.g.) ‘mixture of sugar, water, and lemon’ with ‘lemonade’ is ipso facto an incompetent user of ‘lemonade’. At any rate, it seems wrong in cases where such a speaker is able to reliably apply ‘lemonade’ to lemonade by taste or by sight.
There is not the space here to do full justice to this worry. I will limit myself to three brief comments. First, I agree that it seems unduly harsh to say of such a speaker that she is flat-out incompetent with respect to ‘lemonade’. However, it does not strike me as unreasonable to say that she is not fully competent. Second, it bears noticing that, if we insist that such a speaker really is fully competent, then the Cartesian account of competence is too strong to allow for any plausible kind of descriptivism: it will turn out that almost no kind term is descriptional. Indeed, this is something that Devitt himself seems to notice. Although they take ‘pencil’ to be a descriptional predicate, Devitt and Sterelny (1999: 93f) grant that a speaker might fail to know that ‘pencil’ applies only to writing instruments; still, they want to allow that she is a competent user of the term. In light of this, they reject the Cartesian account of competence for descriptional (and other) terms (ibid. 180f). Their rejection is paired with their acceptance of a descriptive account of content-fixing for such terms, along with a causal (or partially causal) account of content-borrowing. (See, ibid. 93–101). Finally, what if, instead, we preserve the Cartesian account of semantic competence, and simply accept that there are few (perhaps no) descriptional kind terms? In that case, it seems odd that we should demand of a rigidity distinction for kind terms that it do the work of identifying non-descriptional terms from descriptional terms: there is little such work to be done. However, if rigidity need not do this work, then Devitt’s central argument in favor of rigid application over the standard account collapses.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful for the advice I received from two anonymous referees at Erkenntnis, Miri Albahari, Lynne Rudder Baker, Sam Cowling, Nic Damnjanovic, Fred Feldman, Hilary Kornblith, Helen Majewski, and Brandt Van der Gaast.
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Rubin, M. Are Chemical Kind Terms Rigid Appliers?. Erkenn 78, 1303–1316 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9413-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9413-4