Rejoinder to Fara's "'Literal' Uses of Proper Names"
Robin Jeshion
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Abstract
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The paper addresses and critiques arguments made by Fara regarding the literal and predicative uses of proper names in the context of the debate on predicativism. The author clarifies misunderstandings of his previous argument, presents a structured analysis of the Uniformity Argument, and argues for the necessity of demonstrating the viability of distinguishing between predicative and literal uses. Key examples and counterexamples are assessed to challenge Fara's claims and further analyze the implications on the semantics of proper names.
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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
Proper Names as Demonstratives
C. Penco, A. Negro (eds.), Proceedings of the 2021 Workshop on Context, 21-22 June 2021, online at https://www.finophd.eu/WOC2021/, 2021
The paper considers the hypothesis that proper names are simple demonstratives. In the first part, I provide the general motivation for an indexical treatment of proper names as well as assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing indexical accounts. The second part is devoted to proposing a new account that treats proper names as simple demonstratives which referents are determined by the speaker's referential intention. In my proposal, I use the hybrid approach towards indexical expressions developed e.g. by Wolfgang Künne (1992) and Stefano Predelli (2006). I argue that this approach allows countering many of the problems haunting existing indexical accounts of proper names. I also consider the Humpty-Dumpty objection to intentionalism regarding demonstrative reference (Gorvett 2005) and show, how the proposed approach may counter it. The considerations concerning this problem also demonstrate, how the treatment of proper names as hybrid demonstratives may allow solving the problems posed by the "Madagascar argument" to the causal-chain theory of proper name reference (Evans, Altham 1973) as well as explain the cases of slips-of-tongue and intention-convention reference mismatch.
Proper Names and Their Fictional Uses
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2011
Fictional names present unique challenges for semantic theories of proper names, challenges strong enough to warrant an account of names different from the standard treatment. The theory developed in this paper is motivated by a puzzle that depends on four assumptions: our intuitive assessment of the truth values of certain sentences, the most straightforward treatment of their syntactic structure, semantic compositionality, and metaphysical scruples strong enough to rule out fictional entities, at least. It is shown that these four assumptions, taken together, are inconsistent with referentialism, the common view that names are uniformly associated with ordinary individuals as their semantic value.Instead, the view presented here interprets names as context-sensitive expressions, associated in a context of utterance with a particular act of introduction, or dubbing, which is then used to determine their semantic value. Some dubbings are referential, which associate names with ordinary individuals as their semantic values; others are fictional, which associate names, instead, with sets of properties. Since the semantic values of names can be of different sorts, the semantic rule interpreting predication must be complex as well. In the body of the paper, I show how this new treatment of names allows us to solve our original puzzle. I defend the complexity of the semantic predication rule, and address additional worries about ontological commitment.
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.
On the status of proper names in the grammar
Proceedings of the 2006 Annual Conference of the …, 2006
On the metaphoric uses of fictional proper names
In this paper we will discuss how both proper names for existing individuals and proper names for fictional entities can be used metaphorically, even when they appear in argument position. Thus, whether a name used metaphorically is a referential or a non referential term does not affect the interpretation we propose. For, when used metaphorically, proper names cease to be, properly speaking, proper names. That is to say, they cease to be Millian tools of direct reference. When used in argument position in a simple sentence of the subject/predicate form, we claim that the tokened name used metaphorically picks up an individual analogous to the way Donnellan treats the referential uses of descriptions. That is, just as a description used referentially can pick up an individual independently of the property used to identify it, a proper name used metaphorically in argument position can pick up an individual independently of the latter carrying the name uttered. In such metaphorical uses the name serves the function of attributing to the individual the speaker has in mind those properties that are relevant in the grasping of the speaker's metaphorical meaning. Thus, a name so used loses its individuative (referential) power. We will claim that in such uses, reference is guided and fixed, like in Donnellan's referential use of descriptions, by the individual the speaker has in mind and raises to salience in a communicative interaction. Yet, the account we propose does not undermine the Millian view that proper names are tools of direct reference nor the Fregean view that when a proper name appears in a predicative position it ceases to be a proper name. Our final aim is to accommodate both views and address the question as to why the speaker would want to utter a metaphor in this way.
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.
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The use-conditional indexical conception of proper names
Philosophical Studies, 2013
In this essay I will defend a novel version of the indexical view on proper names. According to this version, proper names have a relatively sparse truth-conditional meaning that is represented by their rigid content and indexical character, but a relatively rich use-conditional meaning, which I call the (contextual) constraint of a proper name. Firstly, I will provide a brief outline of my favoured indexical view on names in contrast to other indexical views proposed in the relevant literature. Secondly, two general motivations for an indexical view on names will be introduced and defended. Thirdly, I will criticize the two most popular versions of the indexical view on names: formal variable accounts and salience-based formal constant accounts. In the fourth and final section, I will develop my own use-conditional indexical view on names in three different steps by confronting an initial version of this view with three different challenges. Keywords Proper names Á Indexicals Á Determination of reference Á Reference to past bearers of a name Á Multiple bearers of a name Á Empty names 1 Setting the stage: Indexical views on proper names Indexicals are linguistic expressions whose semantic reference depends in a certain way on specific parameters of the context of use. Therefore, an indexical expression can have different semantic referents relative to different contexts of use. Prototypical and uncontroversial examples of indexicals are expressions like 'I', 'here', 'now' and 'this'. The view that proper names are indexical expressions is
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 Pragmatic View of Proper Name Reference
I argue, in this thesis, that proper name reference is a wholly pragmatic phenomenon. The reference of a proper name is neither constitutive of, nor determined by, the semantic content of that name, but is determined, on an occasion of use, by pragmatic factors. The majority of views in the literature on proper name reference claim that reference is in some way determined by the semantics of the name, either because their reference simply constitutes their semantics (which generally requires a very fine-grained individuation of names), or because names have an indexical-like semantics that returns a referent given certain specific contextual parameters. I discuss and criticize these views in detail, arguing, essentially, in both cases, that there can be no determinate criteria for reference determination—a claim required by both types of semantic view. I also consider a less common view on proper name reference: that it is determined wholly by speakers’ intentions. I argue that the most plausible version of this view—a strong neo-Gricean position whereby all utterance content is determined by the communicative intentions of the speaker—is implausible in light of psychological data. In the positive part of my thesis, I develop a pragmatic view of proper name reference that is influenced primarily by the work of Charles Travis. I argue that the reference of proper names can only be satisfactorily accounted for by claiming that reference occurs not at the level of word meaning, but at the pragmatic level, on an occasion of utterance. I claim that the contextual mechanisms that determine the reference of a name on an occasion are the same kinds of thing that determine the truth-values of utterances according to Travis. Thus, names are, effectively, occasion sensitive in the way that Travis claims predicates and sentences (amongst other expressions) are. Finally, I discuss how further research might address how my pragmatic view of reference affects traditional issues in the literature on names, and the consequences of the view for the semantics of names.
The Reference of Proper Names: Testing Usage and Intuitions
Cognitive science, 2018
Experiments on theories of reference have mostly tested referential intuitions. We think that experiments should rather be testing linguistic usage. Substantive Aim (I): to test classical description theories of proper names against usage by "elicited production." Our results count decisively against those theories. Methodological Aim (I): Machery, Olivola, and de Blanc () claim that truth-value judgment experiments test usage. Martí () disagrees. We argue that Machery et al. are right and offer some results that are consistent with that conclusion. Substantive Aim (II): Machery et al. provide evidence that the usage of a name varies, being sometimes descriptive, sometimes not. In seven out of eight tests of usage, we did not replicate this variation. Methodological Aim (II): to test the reliability of referential intuitions by comparing them with linguistic usage. Earlier studies led us to predict that we would find those intuitions unreliable, but we did not. Our results...
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.
Form and Function of Proper Names
Proper names (PN) are presumably a universal class of expressions which comprise prototypically anthroponyms and toponyms. There is a long standing tradition of scientific research of PN particularly in philosophy and onomastics. Philosophers were mostly interested in PN as referential expressions and in the nature of this kind of reference vis-à-vis definite descriptions. On the other hand, onomastics as a sub-discipline of linguistics was mostly interested in the etymology of PN and the implications for historical linguistics and the historical reconstruction of languages. General linguistics and in particular linguistic typology has almost completely neglected the study of PN (some exceptions are recent publications such as VAN LANGENDONCK 2007 und ANDERSON 2007). There is no systematic comparative study of the internal and external morphosyntax of PN or proper name phrases (PNP). The same lack of research holds for the usage of PN in discourse (exceptions are recent publications by DOWNING 1996; SCHWITALLA 1995; PEPIN & ELWYS (eds.) 2010). Although anthroponyms and toponyms are prototypical classes of PNs, they are so different in functional and formal respects that they are better treated separately. Therefore, the present paper deals with the grammatical properties of anthroponyms leaving aside toponyms for later research. The goal of this paper is to present a typologically informed systematic overview of the essential functional and formal properties of anthroponyms. Anthroponyms are not only terms of address and reference. They often encode certain semantic and social meanings that go beyond the pure referential function. The dimensions of these secondary meanings/ functions will be explicated in this paper. Formally, anthroponyms are not only simple words, but show an enormous internal and external complexity. Especially the external syntax of anthroponyms, i.e. the phrase structure and the usage of anthroponyms as argument of the clause will be dealt with. A proper name phrase will be postulated that is different form a classical NP. Further dimensions of typological variation such as anthroponyms and the problem of parts of speech, and anthroponyms within the Animacy Hierarchy will be discussed. The data for this study are taken from grammatical descriptions of a wide array of languages.
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.
The Multiple Uses of Proper Nouns
In this essay I will defend the thesis that proper nouns are primarily used as proper names—as atomic singular referring expressions—and different possible predicative uses of proper nouns are derived from this primary use or an already derived secondary predicative use of proper nouns. There is a general linguistic phenomenon of the derivation of new meanings from already existing meanings of an expression. This phenomenon has different manifestations and different linguistic mechanisms can be used to establish derived meanings of different kinds of expressions. One prominent variation of these mechanisms was dubbed in Nunberg. (Linguist Philos 3:143–184, 1979, J Semant 12:109–132, 1995, The handbook of pragmatics. Blackwell, Oxford, 2004 meaning transfer.) In the essay I will distinguish two different sub-varieties of this mechanism: occurrent and lexical meaning transfer. Nunberg conceives of meaning transfer as a mechanism that allows us to derive a new truth-conditional meaning of an expression from an already existing truth-conditional meaning of this expression. I will argue that most predicative uses of proper nouns can be captured by the mentioned two varieties of truth-conditional meaning transfer. But there are also important exceptions like the predicative use of the proper noun ‘Alfred’ in as sentence like ‘Every Alfred that I met was a nice guy’. I will try to show that we cannot make use of truth-conditional meaning transfer to account for such uses and I will argue for a the existence of second variant of meaning transfer that I will call use-conditional meaning transfer and that allows us also to capture these derived meanings of proper nouns. Furthermore, I will try to show that the proposed explanation of multiple uses of proper nouns is superior to the view supported by defenders of a predicative view on proper names
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