This is not an indexical concept! A note on Robert Hanna's theory of natural kind concepts

• Autor(a) principal: Perini-Santos, Ernesto
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Kant e-prints (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.cle.unicamp.br/eprints/index.php/kant-e-prints/article/view/659
• topic: modality; indexical; two-dimensional semantics; natural kind concepts

According to Robert Hanna, natural kind concepts concepts have an indexical component, represented by 'THIS BODY', that refers to the totality of matter found in any given possible world, and an attributive component, made up of phenomenological identifying features. I will argue that there is no place for indexicals in Hanna’s theory. Initially, demonstratives don't select worlds, as his theory requires. Moreover, even as we try to amend his theory, either giving a proper reference to demonstratives or postulating the indexical reference to worlds by other linguistic mechanisms, we still can’t find a place for indexicals. The reason is that the satisfactional semantics of general terms, needed to vindicate his approach of modalities as evaluated at a rationally shaped modal space, requires no indexical component.