Abstract
N this paper I will extend Geach's account of an 'act of naming',' which I will suggest can help to elucidate Kripke's account of names as rigid designators.- The importance of acts of naming for our understanding of names is that it is through such acts that names acquire the elusive indexical character which Russell, for example, was able to locate only in the case of demonstratives; and which led him to an acquaintance theory of reference.3 Russell seems ultimately to have been driven to the conclusion that the only items to which one can directly refer are objects of one's immediate experience-sense data. This conclusion, I suggest, is untenable; and Kripke's account of names as genuine indices -which I will argue for by comparing it with the account of names proposed by Peirce4-provides an effective way of avoiding Russell's conclusion. It is through the use of names in acts of naming that these expressions come to designate rigidly. I shall go on to suggest that the notion of a rigid designator is helpful in turn for coming to grips with the basic notion of an individual.
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