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Full Idea
We can say in advance that we use the term 'tiger' to designate a species, and that anything not of this species, even though it looks like a tiger, is not in fact a tiger.
Gist of Idea
'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 3)
Book Ref
Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.121
A Reaction
This is the 'baptismal' direct reference theory applied to species as well as to particular names. It seem to hinge on an internal structure being baptised, despite ignorance of what that structure is. Cf nominal essence? 'Tiger' denotes their essence?
| 13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
| 16663 | Things are limited by the species to certain modes of being [Olivi] |
| 19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
| 17049 | 'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough [Kripke] |
| 17050 | Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them [Kripke] |
| 17051 | The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances [Kripke] |
| 17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
| 17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
| 17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
| 17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |
| 17366 | Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features [Okasha] |