Abstract
It is argued that, contrary to appearances, description-names (e.g.: “The Roman Empire”, “The Beatles”, “The Holy Virgin”,...) do conform to Millianism, i.e. the view that proper names are directly referential expressions, referring regardless of whether the relevant individual satisfies some associated description or not. However, description-names name and describe. Some arguments supporting this peculiarity and a logic to handle description-names are proposed. It will be shown that the best framework with which to accommodate description-names is a multiple-proposition theory, according to which a given utterance may express several propositions.
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Corazza, E. Description-Names. Journal of Philosophical Logic 31, 313–325 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019950905478
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019950905478