Between singularity and generality: the semantic life of proper names

Linguistics and Philosophy 42 (4):381-417 (2019)
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Abstract

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 a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge 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 show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names.

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Laura Delgado
University of Lisbon

Citations of this work

Type-Ambiguous Names.Anders J. Schoubye - 2017 - Mind 126 (503):715-767.
Lexical-rule predicativism about names.Aidan Gray - 2018 - Synthese 195 (12):5549-5569.
The Predicative Predicament.Anders J. Schoubye - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (3):571-595.
‘The’ Problem for the-Predicativism.Robin Jeshion - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (2):219-240.

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References found in this work

The reference book.John Hawthorne & David Manley - 2012 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by David Manley.
Reference and Reflexivity.John Perry - 2001 - Stanford, Calif.: Center for the Study of Language and Inf.
Names Are Predicates.Delia Graff Fara - 2015 - Philosophical Review 124 (1):59-117.
Linguistics in Philosophy.Zeno Vendler - 1967 - Ithaca, N.Y.,: Cornell University Press.

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