Is H2O a Liquid, or Water a Gas?


Συγγραφέας: Scott Soames


Scott Soames: Is H2O a Liquid, or Water a Gas? (pdf, 7 pages)
In Beyond Rigidity I argue that, like ‘red’, ‘water’ can be used both as a singular term, and (when combined with the copula) as a predicate – as illustrated by (1) and (2). 1a. Red is a color. b. Bill’s shirt is red. 2a. Unlike gold, which is an element, water is a compound. b. The liquid in the glass is water. Just as ‘red’ designates a kind instances of which (at a world-state w) constitute the extension of the predicate ‘is red’ (at w), so ‘water’ designates a kind instances of which constitute the extension of the predicate ‘is water’. This observation is used in analyzing examples of the necessary aposteriori like those in (3), which have the force of quantified conditionals in which both the grammatical subjects and ‘is H2O’ function as mass predicates, true of all instances of the associated kinds. 3a. Water is H2O. b. Ice is H2O. c. Water vapor is H2O Adam Sennet has no problem with this. Nor does he object to my claim that ‘water’ has a reading in which it designates a substance instances of which may be liquid, gaseous, or frozen. What does bother him is my postulation of a second reading, designed to accommodate the truth of (4a), in which ‘water’ designates a sub kind of that substance, all instances of which are quantities of liquid. 4a. Water is a liquid. Viewing the postulation of such ambiguities as dangerous intellectual vice of past philosophers, from which the enlightened now properly recoil, Sennet argues that the truth of examples like (4a) can better be accounted for by other means.