Online research in philosophy

The difference between common and proper names seems to derive from specific semantic characteristics of proper names. In particular, proper names refer to specific individual entities or events, and unlike common names, rarely map onto more general semantic characteristics (attributes, concepts, categories). This fact makes the link proper names have with their reference particularly fragile. Processing proper names seems, as a consequence, to require special cognitive and neural resources. Neuropsychological findings show that proper names and common names follow functionally distinct processing pathways. These pathways are neurally distinct and differently sensitive to focal or generalized brain damage, cognitive changes with age or lack of organic resources. Their precise location, depending on specific tasks, is still partly unknown.

In Frege’s Puzzle, Nathan Salmon takes it to be obvious that the fact that names such as ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ are coreferential is purely a matter of arbitrary linguistic convention, while the fact that Hesperus is Phosphorus is by no means a conventional matter. Salmon also takes these points to be ones to which Frege appeals in the opening paragraph of “On Sense and Reference,” and hence finds it ironic that these points undercut the theory of sense that Frege develops in that paper. It is argued that the thesis that the coreferentiality of a pair of proper names is purely a matter of arbitrary linguistic convention is inconsistent with any plausible theory of reference. Salmon’s reading of Frege’s argument is also called into question.

This essay offers a detailed philosophical criticism of Frege’s popular thesis that identity is a relation of names. I consider Frege’s position as articulated both in ‘On Sense and Reference’, and in the Grundgesetze, where he appears to take an objectual view of identity, arguing that in both cases Frege is clearly committed to the proposition that identity is a relation holding between names, on the grounds that two different things can never be identical. A counterexample to Frege’s thesis is considered, and a positive thesis is developed according to which, in contradistinction to the Fregean position, identity is a reflexive, symmetric, and transitive relation holding only between a thing and itself which can be expressed as a relation between names.

Charles S. Peirce’s theory of proper names bears helpful insights for how we might think about his understanding of persons. Persons, on his view, are continuities, not static objects. I argue that Peirce’s notion of the legisign, particularly proper names, sheds light on the habitual and conventional elements of what it means to be a person. In this paper, I begin with an account of what philosophers of language have said about proper names in order to distinguish Peirce’s theory of proper names from them. Then, I present Peirce’s semiotic theory of proper names, followed by some ways in which his theory can be applied to practical concerns, such as first impressions, name changing, identity, and temporary insanity.

The article presents Frege's distinction between Sense and Reference. After a short introduction, it explains the puzzle which gave rise to the distinction; Frege's earlier solution, and his reasons for its later repudiation. The distinction, which embodies Frege's second solution, is then discussed in two phases. The first, which is restricted to proper names, sets out its most basic features. The second discusses 'empty' names; indirect speech, and the distinction for predicates and for complete sentences. Finally, two criticisms, by Russell and by Kripke, are briefly set out.

Philosophers should consider a hybrid meta-ethical theory that includes elements of both moral expressivism and moral error theory. Proponents of such an expressivist-error theory hold that all moral utterances are either expressions of attitudes or expressions of false beliefs. Such a hybrid theory has two advantages over pure expressivism, because hybrid theorists can offer a more plausible account of the moral utterances that seem to be used to express beliefs, and hybrid theorists can provide a simpler solution to the Frege-Geach problem. The hybrid theory has three advantages over pure error theory, because hybrid theorists can offer a more plausible account of the moral utterances that seem to be used to express attitudes, hybrid theorists can more easily explain moral motivation, and hybrid theorists can avoid the implausible claim that all moral discourse is radically mistaken. Accordingly, such a hybrid theory should be more attractive than pure expressivism or pure error theory to philosophers who are skeptical about moral facts and truth.

I provide a novel semantic analysis of proper names and indexicals, combining insights from the competing traditions of referentialism, championed by Kripke and Kaplan, and descriptivism, introduced by Frege and Russell, and more recently resurrected by Geurts and Elbourne, among others. From the referentialist tradition, I borrow the proof that names and indexicals are not synonymous to any definite description but pick their referent from the context directly. From the descriptivist tradition, I take the observation that names, and to some extent indexicals, have uses that are best understood by analogy with anaphora and definite descriptions, that is, following Geurts, in terms of presupposition projection. The hybrid analysis that I propose is couched in Layered Discourse Representation Theory. Proper names and indexicals trigger presuppositions in a dedicated layer, which is semantically interpreted as providing a contextual anchor for the interpretation of the other layers. For the proper resolution of DRSs with layered presuppositions, I add two constraints to van der Sandt's algorithm. The resulting proposal accounts for both the classic philosophical examples and the new linguistic data, preserving a unified account of the preferred rigid interpretation of both names and indexicals, while leaving room for non-referential readings under contextual pressure.

H. Sluga (Inquiry, Vol. 18 [1975], No. 4) has criticized me for representing Frege as a realist. He holds that, for Frege, abstract objects were not real: this rests on a mistranslation and a neglect of Frege's contextual principle. The latter has two aspects: as a thesis about sense, and as one about reference. It is only under the latter aspect that there is any tension between it and realism: Frege's later silence about the principle is due, not to his realism, but to his assimilating sentences to proper names. Contrary to what Sluga thinks, the conception of the Bedeutung of a name as its bearer is an indispensable ingredient of Frege's notion of Bedeutung, as also is the fact that it is in the stronger of two possible senses that Frege held that Sinn determines Bedeutung. The contextual principle is not to be understood as meaning that thoughts are not, in general, complex; Frege's idea that the sense of a sentence is compounded out of the senses of its component words is an essential component of his theory of sense. Frege's realism was not the most important ingredient in his philosophy: but the attempt to interpret him otherwise than as a realist leads only to misunderstanding and confusion.

Frege's and Russell's views are obviously different, but because of certain superficial similarities in how they handle certain famous puzzles about proper names, they are often assimilated. Where proper names are concerned, both Frege and Russell are often described together as "descriptivists." But their views are fundamentally different. To see that, let's look at the puzzle of names without bearers, as it arises in the context of Mill's purely referential theory of proper names, aka the 'Fido'-Fido theory.