Language
In your response to the question on Twin-Earth, you said that descriptions can be used to fix reference. (E.g.: This colourless, odourless, thirst-quenching object is water.) But if I'm not wrong, Kripke in <i>Naming and Necessity</i> said that definite descriptions can't be used to fix the reference. He said reference fixing proceeds by an initial baptism. Where did I go wrong?
My second question is about Kripke's and Putnam's essentialism. Is their essentialism limited to proper names and natural kind terms or does it include non-natural kind terms too? For example, in post-Kripke philosophy, do philosophers believe that terms like "game", "beauty", "chair" have essences? If these terms have essences, what are they?
Accepted:October 25, 2005
Accepted:
October 25, 2005