Abstract
According to the Kripke-Putnam orthodoxy, a term like 'water' refers to samples of the same substance as the items on the basis of which the term was introduced. However, observations due to Needham (2000)NEEDHAM, P. “What Is Water?” Analysis 60(1), pp. 13-21. 2000. and Leslie (2013)LESLIE, S. J. “Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition.” Oxford Studies in Epistemology 4, pp. 108-66. 2013. cast doubt on the idea that there is a uniquely privileged notion of substance relevant to the determination of reference, in which case it would seem at best indeterminate what the word `water' refers to. In response to this problem, Gómez-Torrente (2019)GÓMEZ-TORRENTE, M. Roads to Reference. An Essay on Reference Fixing in Natural Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2019. has argued that there is a privileged notion of substance that plays a role in the determination of reference, namely, the ordinary notion of substance. This paper argues that Gómez-Torrente's proposal is not successful. Contrary to what Gómez-Torrente supposes, there is no uniquely privileged ordinary notion of substance; rather, there are many notions of substance compatible with the meaning of 'substance' none of which seems privileged over the rest.
Keywords:
Reference; Natural kind terms