•  16
    Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 9, September 2022.
  •  217
    On the semantics of artifactual kind terms
    Philosophy Compass 16 (11). 2021.
    What kind of reference (if any) do terms such as “pencil,” “chair,” “television,” and so on have? On the matter, a de-bate between directly referential theorists and descriptiv-ist theorists is open. It is largely acknowledged that natural kind terms (such as “water,” “gold,” “tiger,” etc.) are directly referential expressions (cf. Putnam,1975). That is, they are expressions whose reference is determined by their refer-ents' nature, independent of whet…Read more
  •  60
    Function Is Not Enough
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 96 (1): 105-129. 2019.
    The “nature” of an artifact is often equated with its function. Clearly, an artifactual function must be an extrinsic property. This feature of functions has important implications on the semantics of artifactual kind terms: it enables us to vindicate that artifactual kind terms have an externalist semantics. Any alleged externalist theory, indeed, must show that the referents of the considered terms share a common nature (i.e., an extrinsic property), whether we know or could possibly ever know…Read more
  •  47
    Putnam on Artifactual Kind Terms
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 9 (1): 197-212. 2018.
    Putnam’s suggestion of extending the scope of his semantic theory has opened an ongoing debate. The majority seem to agree with Putnam as long as he restricts his analysis to natural kind terms, whereas many doubts have arisen about whether or not it can be applied to artifactual kind terms as well. Specifically, this disagreement originated with the thought experiment that Putnam laid out in order to prove his controversial thesis. Here I analyze it in detail in order to evaluate whether it pro…Read more