Russell on names and communication

The goal of the present paper is to show how Saul Kripke´s modal logic and semantics uses the concept of essential property, and that this entails weaknesses in his theory as presented in Naming and Necessity, for there are classes of referring expressions Kripke's semantics cannot handle, e.g., to limited classes of artifacts. A functionalist approach will resolve these difficulties, and return us to the descriptivist theory of names. This paper´s content is novel because it analyzes Kripke´s taxonomic classification of names and other referring expressions under a functionalist approximation.

This essay has found flaw in RDT. I try to amended descriptivism, so that it stands up to critique. I have solved all four of McCulloch’s problems. Since the KE theory relies on using different modalities, it is preferable not to resort to KE. These modalities are arbitrary – one needn’t consider an alternative world where something were otherwise, since it wasn’t. Hence, descriptivism is defensible and preferable to the best rival theory of reference.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press and Mind Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Mind. The proper statement and assessment of Russell's theory depends on one's semantic presuppositions. A semantic framework is provided, and Russell's theory formulated in terms of it. Referential uses of descriptions raise familiar problems for the theory, to which there are, at the most general level of abstraction, two possible Russellian responses. Both are considered, and both found wanting. The paper ends with a brief consideration of what the correct positive theory of definite descriptions might be, if it is not the Russellian theory.

PhD Dissertation, 2024

This thesis endeavors to reduce the presuppositions inherent in Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions as presented in "On Denoting" (OD). We conduct a detailed, paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of OD, elucidating the theory's objectives, its contrasting theories, and its merits. Nonetheless, Russell's presentation of the theory introduces complications due to imprecise terminology and occasional divergences from the core analytical focus. This has sparked considerable debate regarding the accurate interpretation of OD's arguments and definitions. Among these debates is the examination of the infamous Gray's Elegy Argument. Our analysis posits that a rephrasing of the argument's verbal expression reveals its validity, which, upon closer inspection, bifurcates into two interconnected arguments. Engaging with this argument illuminates the propositions Russell intends to challenge and uncovers his motivations for developing the Theory of Descriptions, which extend beyond the theory's immediate scope. However, these motivations inadvertently burden the theory with extraneous elements. In our study, we differentiate between presuppositions integral to the theory and those extraneously incorporated into OD. Our aim is to introduce a novel conceptualization of presupposition that is applicable to theoretical constructs holistically. This approach enables us to identify and discard presuppositions that, while present in OD, do not contribute to the core theory. By removing these extraneous presuppositions and reevaluating those that are pertinent but not indispensable, we streamline Russell's Theory of Descriptions, thereby achieving a more concise, focused and invulnerable theoretical framework.

Pacific philosophical quarterly, 2005

Philosophical Studies, 2003

A number of philosophers continue to argue, inthe spirit of Keith Donnellan’s classic paper“Reference and Definite Descriptions,” thatthere is more to the semantics of definitedescriptions than Russell’s theory predicts. If their arguments are correct, then a completesemantic theory for sentences that containdefinite descriptions will have to provide morethan one set of truth conditions. A unitaryRussellian analysis of sentences of the form`the F is G’ would not suffice. In this paper,I examine a recent line of argument for thisanti-Russellian conclusion.Unlike earlier Donnellan-style arguments, thenew argument does not rely upon the mereexistence of referential uses of definitedescriptions or the possibility of conveyinginformation about an object by misdescribingit. I argue, however, that we ought to rejectthis new line of reasoning and rest contentwith a Russellian theory of definitedescriptions.

Philosophy Study , 2015

In this paper, I will focus on the debate between descriptivism and anti-descriptivism theory about proper names. In the introduction, I will propose an historical reconstruction of the debate, and focus in particular on Russell and Kripke's treatments of proper names. Strong criticisms will be advanced against Kripke's hypothesis of rigid-designator and, more clearly, against the consequent distinction between the epistemic and metaphysical level that Kripke proposes to explain identity assertions between proper names. Furthermore, I will argue, that, pace Kripke, Russellian treatment of proper names allows to capture all our semantic intuitions, and also those semantic interpretations which concern context-belief sentences. I will close the introduction by focusing on a criticism that Kripke rightly points out against an example that Russell proposes in his On Denoting. Section 2 will be devoted to Russellian solution: I will show that not only Russell's logical treatment of proper names allows to answer to Kripke's criticism to Russell's example, but also that such treatment can disambiguate and express all our semantic intuitions about Frege's puzzle sentence "Hesperus is Phosphorus." I will then show that, contrarily, Quinian solution (discussed in section 3) and Kripkian one (see section 4) are not satisfactory to capture our semantic knowledge about Frege's sentence. Furthermore, in section 5, I will focus on Kripke's distinction between epistemic and metaphysical level to deal with identity assertions between proper names, and I will logically show that such distinction is not plausible. In section 5, then, I will show that Russellian solution allows to explain context-belief sentences, contrarily to what Kripke thinks. In Conclusions, I will summarize what I have argued in the text.

Saul Kripke's study of the truth conditions for modal and for subjunctive conditional statements is meant to validate essentialism. To this end he develops his rigid theory of rigid designators, and he enlists the service of normal intuition. Even were his argument valid, his conclusion is unacceptable since language and intuition are flexible and open-ended, and since essentialist expressions ordinarily serve as mere metaphors.

Nous, 2001

In Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke argues for a series of interconnected conclusions about the semantics of names and about the modal and epistemic status of sentences involving names. Many take him to have displaced the previously dominant so-called Frege-Russell theory. Kripke uses a battery of arguments against the theories he rejects. Here I will focus on one of those arguments. In the preface Kripke briefly describes the genesis of some of the leading ideas of his monograph. In particular he gives some further explanation concerning modality and rigid designation. Of course a thorough discussion cannot be expected within the bounds of a preface. His remarks are meant only to amplify, in a limited way, the main text. Still, the preface contains, in broad outlines but perhaps more clearly than anywhere else in the text, an important argument against the thesis that names are disguised~or abbreviated! definite descriptions. It is this argument-the modal argument-and Kripke's reply to a possible objection to the argument that I will resist here. Kripke's argument, though by his own admission not stated thoroughly or in detail, has been widely influential. Many today take this work~together with that of Donnellan and Putnam and others! to have refuted a Russellian view of names. The argument on which I will focus may seem to be the most decisive. It is interesting too because of its connection with Kripke's thesis of names as "rigid designators"-a thesis for which he is responsible and celebrated. But the so-called Frege-Russell view 1 contains, it seems to me, deep insights into the nature of the referential or intentional relation, insights which are less well appreciated today. Only by dispelling the widespread feeling that the theory is inadequate to actual linguistic data can we begin to understand again some of its philosophical depth. This is not the first attempt to defend Russell along the lines to be pursued below. 2 I do, however, present a new and more detailed defense, one that takes full account of Kripke's position.

Notre Dame journal of formal logic, 1988

An excursus is carried out through the principal steps in the development of the theory of descriptions (TD) from B. Russell until now, and its most important advantages and disadvantages are sketched. TD is studied in the context of model theory (in A. Robinson's style), taking preservation and classification theorems based on normal forms into consideration. Finally, the categorical formulation of TD in topos theory, starting from M. Fourman and D. Scott, is presented with reference to sheaves.

Linguistics and Philosophy, 1991

Sag, and Scott Soames for valuable discussion. 1 See Grice (1968, 1975). The Gricean/Kripkean strategy for dealing with referential uses of definite descriptions is defended in detail in Neale (1990) in the context of a general defence of Russell's theory. That work and the present paper borrow from one another here and there in their mutually supporting projects.

2007

Forthcoming in " Philosophers' Imprint " Comments to: [email protected] 1. the issue 'Rigid designation' is Kripke's name for a concept that has been in the air at least since the development of quantified modal logics: (a token of 1) a designator is rigid if and only if it designates the same individual in every possible world in which the individual exists. Two seminal conclusions for which Kripke (1971, 1972) argues are that proper names are rigid designators, and that there are some deep semantic affinities between proper names and various sorts of general terms. However, even though he does, at places, explicitly attribute rigidity to certain general terms, 2 Kripke nowhere gives a definition of rigidity that applies to general terms. This presents a challenge: Precisely which general terms ought to be classified as rigid designators? More fundamentally: What should we take the criterion for rigidity to be, for general terms? There exists a considerable s...

2013

In his lectures on logical atomism Russell maintains that (i) the proper names of natural language are really definite descriptions, and (ii) indexicals are also definite descriptions, to the extent that they are used to refer to ordinary objects. In spite of the dominant referentialist trend championed by Kripke and Kaplan, there are good reasons to still think that Russell is right in holding these views. However, Russell's descriptivist account of proper names and demonstratives makes their meanings unpalatably idiosyncratic or subjective. I shall discuss and compare some ways in which this subjectivism can be avoided.