Water 1 Reflections on Water ( and “ Water ” )

In theories of word meaning and concepts, “water” has been taken as a key case of a natural kind term, and water of a natural kind. I address several questions including: What should a theory of the meaning of the word “water” look like, given observations about use of the word? Is there a category of liquids that is water, independent of the names used for the liquids? Given the considerations raised about the word “water” and non-linguistic groupings of liquids containing mostly H20, is “water” really a natural kind term? And is water really a natural kind? I argue that the answers to the latter two questions are “no” except in limited senses. I suggest that accounting for the use of the word “water” requires reference to chains of senses developed over the history of use of the word, and characterizing the sets of liquids that are distinguished from others nonlinguistically requires reference to context and longand short-term goals of the perceiver.