Abstract
In āThe Meaning of āMeaningāā, Hilary Putnam presents several arguments to show that natural kind terms do not have a meaning or āsenseā of a Fregean sort. Instead, he says, they function much like indexicals such as āthisā or āIā, whose reference is determined by the circumstances of their use, not by unique properties of the referent that might be āexpressedā in a sense. Putnam further argues that this account covers most general terms in our language, not just kind terms like āwaterā and ātigerā. He thus presents a serious challenge for the traditional notion of meaning, for if he is right only a few score words would be left with a meaning.In this paper I wish to distinguish three arguments which appear intermingled in āThe Meaning of āMeaningāā. Two of the arguments make explicit use of the same science-fiction example of a āTwin Earthā while the third uses a related example, and all three might be seen as showing that kind terms are like ārigid designatorsā. My purpose is to sort out these three arguments and show their importance for the theory of meaning.
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