The Two-Component Theory of Proper Names and Kripke's Puzzle
JeeLoo Liu
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
This paper provides a defense of the description theory of proper names by constructing a 'two-component' theory of names. Using Kripke's puzzle about belief as the stepping stone, this paper first points out problems with Kripke's direct reference theory of names. It then presents the two-component theory of names and defends it against Kripke's general criticisms of the description theory. It also compares the two-component theory of names against other leading description theories and shows how the two-component theory provides a better analysis of names. The paper offers a comprehensive summary of the debate between the description theory and the direct reference theory of names. At the end, it shows how the two-component theory of names can deal with Kripke's puzzle and more.
Related papers
Kripke's Objections to Description Theories of Names
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1978
In “Naming and Necessity” Saul Kripke describes some cases which, he claims, provide counterexamples both to cluster theories and, more generally, to description theories of proper names. My view of these cases is that while they do not provide counterexamples to cluster theories, they can be used to provide evidence against single-description theories. (I count as single-description theories both “short-for-descriptions” theories of the Frege-Russell sort and what I shall call below “fixed-by-attributes” theories.) In this paper I shall defend both of the claims involved in my view.
Good News About the Description Theory of Names
Journal of Semantics, 1997
Proper Names: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives
Erkenntnis, 2014
Proper names play an important role in our understanding of linguistic 'aboutness' or reference. For instance, the name-bearer relation is a good candidate for the paradigm of the reference relation: it provides us with our initial grip on this relation and controls our thinking about it. For this and other reasons proper names have been at the center of philosophical attention. However, proper names are as controversial as they are conceptually fundamental. Since Kripke's seminal lectures Naming and Necessity the controversy about proper names has taken the form of a debate between two main camps, descriptivists and non-descriptivists like Kripke himself. 1 Descriptivists hold that there is a close connection between proper names and definite descriptions: the meaning or sense of a proper name can be given by a (bundle of) definite description(s). The satisfier, if any, of the definite description(s) that provide(s) the meaning of a proper name is its referent. Descriptivists can allow for empty proper names that are meaningful. They also have an initially plausible account of true informative identity statements ('Marilyn Monroe is no one other person than Norma Jean Baker'). Their informativity is grounded in a difference in meaning-giving descriptions.
A simple theory of proper names
In this essay, I address the following question posed by Glezakos (after Kaplan): What determines the form of a name-containing identity statement? I argue that uses of names are determined by the specific names uttered and the presence (or absence) of coco-referential intentions of the speaker. This explains why utterances of the form a=a are uninformative or knowable a priori, more generally than utterances of the form a=b. My approach has the additional benefit of providing an account of empty names.
An Argument for the Obstinate Rigidity of Proper Names
Grazer philosophische Studien, 2019
This paper defends the claim that proper names are obstinately rigid designators. A recent argument suggested that proper names, though understood in the Millian fashion, are better viewed as merely persistently rigid. In particular, if an object that is a Millian content of a name does not exist in a possible world in which the name is assigned an extension, it does not designate anything in that world. This paper purports to show otherwise, namely that proper names have to be construed as designating something also in such possible worlds, which makes them obstinately rigid. First, it is argued that the contents of proper names must be available not just in possible worlds in which the named objects exist, but also in possible worlds in which they fail to exist. Second, it is argued that these contents can be properly expressed by English proper names in both kinds of possible world. Third, since Millianism has it that proper names express contents by way of designating objects, it is argued that they have to designate something in both kinds of possible world as well.
The Modified Predicate Theory of Proper Names
In Sawyer (ed.) New Waves in Philosophy of Language (Palgrave MacMillan Press), 2010
This is a defence of the claim that names are predicates with a demonstrative element in their singular use.
The Two Indexical Uses Theory of Proper Names and Frege's Puzzle
2015
To solve Frege’s puzzle, I develop a novel theory of proper names, the “Two Indexical Uses Theory” of proper names (the “TIUT”), according to which proper names are used as indexicals. I distinguish two types of indexical uses: (1) ‘Millian’ uses on which a proper name merely refers (contributing its referent alone to the proposition expressed); and (2) ‘Conception-indicating’ uses on which a proper name both refers and conveys the speaker’s “conception of” or “way of taking” the referent at the moment s/he utters the name (contributing both referent and conception to the proposition expressed). Unlike Millianism, the TIUT is consistent with speaker intuitions about cognitive value vis-a-vis Frege’s puzzle about identity sentences and is consistent with speaker intuitions about truth-value vis-a-vis Frege’s puzzle about propositional attitude ascriptions. Unlike Descriptivism, the TIUT is not vulnerable to Kripke’s modal, epistemic, or semantic arguments because on the TIUT proper n...
A Syncretistic Theory of Proper Names
The Importance of Being Called Ernesto. Reference, Truth, and Logical Form, 2016
In this paper, I want to show that, far from being incompatible, a Predicate Theory of proper names and the Direct Reference thesis can be combined in a syncretistic account. There are at least three plausible such accounts – one which compares proper names in their referential use to referentially used proper definite descriptions, another one that compares them in this use to demonstratives, and a third one which, although it is as indexicalist as the second one, conceives proper names in this use as a sui generis form of indexicals, indexinames. Finally, I will try to give both technical and substantive reasons as to why the third account is to be preferred to the other two.
The Predicate View of Proper Names
Philosophy Compass, 2015
The Millian view that the meaning of a proper name is simply its referent has long been popular among philosophers of language. It might even be deemed the orthodox view, despite its well-known difficulties. Fregean and Russellian alternatives, though widely discussed, are much less popular. The Predicate View has not even been taken seriously, at least until fairly recently, but finally, it is receiving the attention it deserves. It says that a name expresses the property of bearing that name. Despite its apparent shortcomings, it has a distinct virtue: It straightforwardly reckons with the fact that proper names generally have multiple bearers and are sometimes used to ascribe the property of bearing a name rather than to refer to a particular bearer of the name. It holds that proper names are much the same as common nouns, both semantically and syntactically, with only superficial differences. They both can be quantified and modified. The main difference, at least in English (and some other languages), is that when used to refer a proper name, unlike a common noun, is not preceded by the definite article. The Predicate View accounts for manifestly predicative uses, but to be vindicated, it needs to do justice to the fact that the main use of proper names is to refer. (1) Nikola Tesla was a brilliant electrical engineer. (2) Salem has always been free of witches. Yet like common nouns, names can also be quantified and modified: (3) Many Nikolas live in Croatia. (4) There are more than a dozen Salems in the United States. (5) An electric car company is named after the brilliant engineer Tesla. (6) The only Salem that is a state capital is the one in Oregon. These examples might suggest that the names 'Nikola' and 'Salem' are ambiguous, meaning one thing when used to refer, as in their bare, unmodified singular occurrences, and meaning something else when used as count nouns. But simply to claim that proper names have two meanings, depending on whether they occur by themselves or as parts of larger phrases, leaves unexplained why they have these two uses. Surely it is not a massive linguistic coincidence. Besides, this view fails to explain why, for example, since Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were both U.S. presidents, it follows that two Roosevelts were U.S. presidents. So, could proper names each have only one meaning
Related topics
Related papers
Causality and the Paradox of Names
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1984
In the literature concerning the semantics of proper names, almost no attention has been paid to methodological questions, such as: What should be the formal structure of theories of reference for the various types of singular terms including names? What should be the subject matter of such theories, and what kinds of facts are relevant to determining their truth-values? In this paper, I wish to suggest some answers to these questions, answers that I believe provide an accurate conception of the form that a theory of names should take. Such a conception is valuable because it constitutes a constraint that any correct theory of names must satisfy, and so it provides a tool for evaluating particular theoretical proposals concerning names. Using this tool, I will argue that no causal theory of names can be correct and that the true theory must be a kind of description theory. The fact that the true theory of names takes the form it does has some surprising consequences regarding the semantic structure of natural languages and the concept of meaningfulness.
Between Singularity and Generality: The Semantic Life of Proper Names
Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is (prima facie) a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge (1973) noted, proper names can have predicative uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge's cases. In this paper I argue that the predicate view of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist's methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names - albeit fundamentally singular referential terms - express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and shown how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names.
A Meta-Descriptivist Theory of Proper Names
Ratio, 2011
This paper proposes a new, stronger version of the cluster theory of proper names. It introduces a meta-identifying rule that can establish a cluster's main descriptions and explain how they must be satisfied in order to allow the application of a proper name. At the same time, it preserves some main insights of the causal-historical view. With the resulting rule we can not only give a more detailed reply to the counterexamples to descriptivism, but also explain the informative contents of proper names and why they are rigid designators in contrast with descriptions. 1 I would like to thank Wolfgang Spohn, João Branquinho and Manuel Garcia-Carpintero for helpful advice and support.
The Property-theoretical, Performative-nominalistic Theory of Proper Names
Dialectica, 2000
This paper embeds a theory of proper names in a general approach to singular reference based on type-free property theory. It is proposed that a proper name “N” is a sortal common noun whose meaning is essentially tied to the linguistic type “N”. Moreover, “N” can be singularly referring insofar as it is elliptical for a definite description of the form the “N” Following Montague, the meaning of a definite description is taken to be a property of properties. The proposed theory fulfils the major desiderata stemming from Kripke's works on proper names.
The Significance of Names
Mind & Language, 2009
As a class of terms and mental representations, proper names and mental names possess an important function that outstrips their semantic and psycho-semantic functions as common, rigid devices of direct reference and singular mental representations of their referents, respectively. They also function as abstract linguistic markers that signal and underscore their referents' individuality. I promote this thesis to explain why we give proper names to certain particulars, but not others; to account for the transfer of singular thought via communication with proper names; and, more generally, to support a cognitivist, not acquaintance or instrumentalist, theory of singular thought.
On intuitions about proper names
Acta Linguistica Hungarica 52 (2-3): 281-301, 2005., 2005
Machery et al. (2004) carried out an experiment which tests the intuition of US and Chinese students about the use of proper names. They arrived at the conclusion that the way most respondents used proper names is not compatible with the causal-historical theory of proper names as advocated by Kripke. The author argues that Machery et al. are wrong in their conclusions. The problem is not just that the interpretation of the findings of their experiments does not take into account some variables that should have been considered, but rather thatthe experiment is faulty in several respects: their empirical hypothesis is arguably inconsistent, and the setup of the experiment is flawed.
On Names
1995
On naming 1 1. Quine on names and variables. 2. Names and variables revisited. 3. Naming. What is reference? What are the basic referential devices? Reference, we surmise, is a relation holding between two objects, one of which is a sign standing for the other in virtue of the fact that the relation holds. Our main interest is in reference, not in the form of the expression or the nature of the entity referred to. This relation is, we believe, best exemplified by ordinary proper names. Quine thinks otherwise. Part of his philosophical programme is "the elimination of singular terms other than variables", 2 in particular the elimination of ordinary proper names. We shall be concerned with two distinct questions regarding Quine's position, namely the feasibility, not to say, the desirability of the elimination of names, and whether variables have referential status. 1. Quine on names and variables.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.