| In this text, I argue that generic statements---statements of the form Fs are G, such as 'Bears are furry'---are particular statements about kinds, rather than general statements about individual objects. Although statements of this form intuitively seem like generalizations, I claim that in this case, appearances are deceptive. First, I present new linguistic evidence which raises problems for the standard quantificational theory of generic sentences, according to which generic sentences contain a hidden, unpronounced quantifier. Though the simple kind theory has served as a standard alternative to quantificational approaches in the literature on generics since Carlson (1977), it also has a more sophisticated cousin, which has largely been ignored. I develop an extension of the sophisticated kind theory and show how it can neatly account for these phenomena while sidestepping the standard objections to the simple kind theory. At a broader level, I would like to claim that if a kind theory provides the best explanation for the truth conditions of these sentences in English, then it tells us something interesting about English speakers: namely, that in virtue of their speaking English, they implicitly presuppose an ontology with kinds as possible objects. In this way, I suggest, the search for the best semantic theory of generic sentences has the potential to lead us towards a new, philosophically valuable conception of kindhood. |
