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Full Idea
Perhaps the modern view is best expressed as saying that "water" has no definition at all, at least in the traditional sense, and is a proper name of a specific substance.
Gist of Idea
The new view is that "water" is a name, and has no definition
Source
Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III)
Book Ref
'Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds', ed/tr. Schwartz,Stephen P. [Cornell 1979], p.30
A Reaction
This assumes that proper names have no definitions, though I am not clear how we can grasp the name 'Aristotle' without some association of properties (human, for example) to go with it. We need a definition of 'definition'.
5826 | The intension of "lemon" is the conjunction of properties associated with it [Schwartz,SP] |
5831 | The new view is that "water" is a name, and has no definition [Schwartz,SP] |
5829 | We refer to Thales successfully by name, even if all descriptions of him are false [Schwartz,SP] |
5830 | The traditional theory of names says some of the descriptions must be correct [Schwartz,SP] |