NATURAL KINDS AND OUR SEMANTIC INTUITIONS ALONG THE ROAD

NATURAL KINDS AND OUR SEMANTIC INTUITIONS ALONG THE ROAD _________ THAINÁ COLTRO DEMARTINI https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4367-5599 University of Campinas Department of Philosophy Campinas, S.P. Brazil Article info CDD: 401 Received: 13.09.2020; Revised: 23.09.2020; Accepted: 24.09.2020 https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2020.V43N4.TD Keywords Natural kind terms Scientific properties Arbitrariness Determinacy profiles Context. Abstract: This is a comment on Gómez-Torrente’s approach to natural kinds and natural kind terms. Here I will focus on his concerns related to the arbitrariness argument and his attempt to formulate a reply to it that maintains most (if not all) of the “Kripke-Putnam orthodoxy” when it comes to the reference-fixing of such terms. Gómez-Torrente concludes that ordinary kind terms have distinct referents from scientific terms. I will challenge one of the premises that he employs in reaching this conclusion: namely, that the difference in determinacy profiles between ordinary natural kinds and scientific kinds is enough to assume that the terms referring to them do not share their referents. I also suggest that some kind of contextual interpretation of natural kind terms might provide a nice explanation of those determinacy variations. Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, v. 43, n. 4, pp. 199-214, Oct.-Dec. 2020. Thainá Coltro Demartini 200 The main goal of Roads to Reference (Gómez-Torrente 2019) is to provide a more detailed and fully developed reference-fixing theory than the one sketched by Kripke, Putnam and Kaplan – the pioneers of the direct reference theory (preceded only by Mill). In pursuit of this goal, Gómez-Torrente analyzes cases of referential indeterminacy that are traditionally employed in arguments against the direct reference theory. He does so in order to find a fitting set of roughly sufficient conditions for reference and for reference failure. Among the specific phrases and terms in the spotlight, there are natural kind terms. In considering these terms, Gómez-Torrente mainly addresses indeterminacy cases generated by the arbitrariness argument. In this review, I will sketch the arbitrariness argument, focusing mostly on Leslie’s (2013) approach. Then, I will briefly present Gómez-Torrente’s take on it and his response. Next, I will tentatively make an alternative proposal, which consists of a contextual interpretation of natural kinds terms. I will also try to highlight a prominent role of cognition over speakers’ intentions when referring to objects, especially when they come in groups, i.e. kinds. Before we proceed to the analysis of the arguments, I must offer an important disclaimer and establish the common ground assumed by Gómez-Torrente and myself. I do not intend to put in jeopardy the ceteris paribus sufficient clauses for reference-fixing that he suggests. My notes concern the metasemantic and metaphysical consequences implied by his theory, and my main concern is to show how tweaking some details may result in a promising alternative view. The previously mentioned Kripke-Putnam orthodoxy concerns our intuitions regarding natural kinds and natural kind terms. That is to say, both Kripke and Putnam explore our intuition that merely looking like a sample of a certain kind does not suffice for a thing to belong to that kind – Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, v. 43, n. 4, pp. 199-214, Oct.-Dec. 2020. Natural Kinds and our Semantic Intuitions Along the Road 201 there must be something else that is shared, namely, an essence. According to such an intuition, the manifest and macroscopic characteristics are secondary to the microstructural and microscopic ones. Hence, according to the orthodoxy, science would be the one held responsible for discovering hidden underlying features, i.e. essences, that are necessary and sufficient for kind membership. Therefore, it is science that discovers what makes individuals share the relation same substance as and that determines the extension of our natural kind terms. That being said, when someone challenges the orthodoxy by challenging their proposed mechanism of reference-fixing, she can have in mind two distinct questions (one semantic and one metaphysical): Do natural kind terms refer to such scientifically discovered properties1? And – having a sample of a kind in mind or in front of her – is that sample the same substance as a specific natural kind? THE ARBITRARINESS ARGUMENT The strategy of the arbitrariness argument is to assume the mechanism for reference-fixing postulated by Kripke and Putnam and point to a reductio. According to this argument, the referents of natural kind nouns cannot be identified with the referents expressed in scientific discoveries for arbitrariness reasons. The arbitrariness comes from the fact that, as technology and science evolve and we learn about the microstructure of things, the less obvious it becomes that there is a privileged notion of substance or species instead of multiple theoretical options. But there is Throughout this paper, I will use the terms “kind” and “property” interchangeably. 1 Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, v. 43, n. 4, pp. 199-214, Oct.-Dec. 2020. Thainá Coltro Demartini 202 no principled reason for choosing one of the theoretical options over the others to match the ordinary natural kinds (with its set of folk beliefs and the terms that refer to them). All the theoretical options seem to be in the vicinity, and each has slightly different boundaries, none of which are privileged or distinguished by scientists. To argue for such arbitrariness, Leslie (2013) starts by presenting us specialized information on kinds from the biological and chemical realms, like the use of the concept of species, or the understanding of what it is for water to be H2O. Biologists have no unique way of understanding species. Currently, there are at least two distinct interpretations, one taking into account the delimitations determined by the boundaries of an ecological niche, the other focusing on the boundaries of a reproductive community. Obviously, such boundaries may not perfectly coincide, and, therefore, the meaning of the term species as used in each of these theories will not be exactly coextensive. Despite that, none of these accounts of species is privileged in science. So, Leslie says, it would be arbitrary to pick one of them to be equivalent to our ordinary notion of a species. More to the point, in both scientific approaches, the genetic code of individuals is not enough to make for kind membership. In biology, many phenotypes can come from the same genotype and vice-versa. The fact is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between manifest properties and the genetic code of a kind or individual. The genes are activated (or not) according to environmental exposure and gene combinations. A concrete illustration is the species of cutthroat trout (Salmo clarki) – that has several subspecies. Individuals (...truncated)