What Is Identity? Frege’s Argument in ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ Scrutinized and Newly Interpreted with Glances at Grundgesetze

Predicates and proper names have been traditionally treated under different semantic categories. Proper names are considered as singular noncomplex terms whereas predicates are taken as general ones. There are two major positions on the question of the role that proper names play in a formal semantic theory, namely, the referential theories and the predicative theories. Referential theories claim that a proper name is a singular noncomplex term and that it stands for its reference. However these theories are not able to explain certain uses of non-descripting names and the occurrences of proper names in identity or existential statements and opaque contexts. In order to cope with these difficulties and form a Fregean view ordinary proper names were considered by Russell as abbreviations of definite descriptions or as disguised definite descriptions and he reserved the role of singular terms for “logical proper names”. Quine also holds a predicate view but rejects the Russellian distinction between ordinary and logically proper names. He provides us a method to transform ordinary proper names into artificial predicates and guarantees the univocity of reference stipulating that the constructed predicate must be true of only one bearer. In “Reference and Proper Names” Tyler Burge goes farther that Quine maintaining a modified predicate view. He rejects both the Russellian position for violating the preconception that proper names do not describe and the Quinean thesis since it has been widely regarded as having the vice of artificiality. Burge argues that there is no reason to hold that the constructed predicate must be true of only one object because the multiple applicability of ordinary proper names shows that there are more than one object to which a proper name is applied. The failure to appreciate this point has stemmed largely from concentrating on singular uses of proper names. Proper names also take the plural, indefinite or definite articles and quantifiers: “There are relatively few Alfreds in Princeton”, “An Alfred joined the club today”, “The Alfred who joined the club today was a baboon”, “Some Alfreds are crazy; some are sane”. However, the modified uses of proper names urged by Burge seem to go against the idea that a proper name is a nomen individui because they behave as count nouns. We can ask: How many? But the question is pointless for proper names as singular terms. Hence there is an anomaly that must be explained. According to Burge the anomaly stems from considering modified uses only as metaphoric or ironic ones. Therefore he distinguishes between literal and metaphoric uses arguing that the above examples are cases of literal modified uses of proper names where no anomaly is presented. It is argued on this paper that even adopting the literal/metaphoric distinction for modified and unmodified uses of proper names the non-predicative conception can do justice to the intuition that proper names are the paradigm of singular terms and the apparent functioning of proper names as count names can be explained. The way out is twofold: (i) when literal modified uses of proper names occur in a sentence it must be regarded as an elliptical sentence that involves a self-referential element. The sentence “There are relatively few Alfreds in Princeton” must be read as “There are relatively few persons called ‘Alfred’ in Princeton”. (ii) when a metaphoric use of a proper name occur in a sentence like “George Wallace is a Napoleon” it should be read as “George Wallace is a Napoleon” it should be read as “George Wallace is a Napoleon (under certain relevant aspects)”. Therefore Burge has no conclusive argument to rule out modified uses of proper names either literal or metaphoric as special cases. Burge gives another reason to lodge proper names in the category of general terms based on a semantic principle of simplicity claiming that postulation of special uses of a term, semantically unrelated to what are taken to be its paradigmatic uses, is theoretically undesirable. However this principle meets counterexamples: given the predicate “x smokes” and the use of modifiers we can obtain expressions like “the x such that x smokes” or “the smoker” and the just constructed expressions are not assigned to the predicate category but to the singular term category. Hence the simplicity principle though desirable is not a reliable one. According to Burge proper names are predicates in their own right but differ from many other predicates; they are “special” kind of predicates. He rejects special uses of predicates at the cost of recognizing “excentric predicates” which involve a mild self-referential element in the application conditions of proper names. However, the non-predicate view used the self-referential element to vanish the apparent functioning of proper names as count names. These excentric predicates have to include the proper name itself in the application conditions since a proper name is (literally) true of an object just in case that object is given that name in an appropriate way. However, the non-predicate view also takes the notion of “giving that name in an appropriate way” to claim that proper names are singular terms. In this paper it is argued that such notion is vague and calls for a pragmatic elucidation. Burge maintains that modified uses of proper names play the role of predicates and the unmodified singular uses play the roles of a demonstrative and a predicate. Then singular proper names are incomplete definite descriptions and those sentences in which they occur are open sentences that take on truth value only if the user of the sentence carries out an act of reference. Therefore the object referred to by the language user is specified in the truth theory by means of a set of reference clauses. Letting aside the technical problems pointed by other authors the main difficulty that can be found is to reverse the priority of referential and predicate uses of proper names. The deep structure of singular uses reveals a predicate and a demonstrative and for that reason singular uses are considered as secondary uses whereas the primary use must be ascribed to the modified uses where the deep structure reveals only a predicate. However it is implausible to subordinate singular uses to modified ones because (a) from a statistical point of view predicative uses are secondary uses of proper names and (b) proper names play a vocative role strongly tied with the referential functioning of singular uses of these terms. To conclude: Burge’s formal account seems to be simpler that the position which regards proper names as ambiguous indexed individual constants. But simplicity is only apparent. It is necessary for Burge’s theory to add primitive referential clauses in which it is reproduced the indexation phenomena in order to deal with demonstrative constructions.

Una de las tesis que mas extraneza ha causado a los estudiosos de Frege, es el concebir las oraciones declarativas como nombres propios de los valores veritativos. En este articulo aclarare las razones por las que Frege llego a tal conjetura, siguiendo esencialmente la esplendida presentacion que hace Thomas Moro SimpsonI del tema. Posteriormente, una vez que presente la critica de Simpson al "argumento" fregeano, propondre una solucion alternativa que Frege tenia practicamente a la mano, a saber, el uso de una estipulacion que proporciona un sentido tecnico de la nocion de nombrar, la cual hubiese convenido a los intereses de su teoria. A mi juicio, Frege pudo haber echado mano de este recurso, totalmente aceptable y congruente con su practica como matematico, que hubiese impedido cualquier objecion a su postura.

Resumen

Longobardi proposes a syntactic-semantic theory to explain the distribution of the definite article with proper names. In this article I examine and modify this theory with regard to the semantic component. Concerning thesemantics of DPs with common nouns Longobardi adopts Russell's theory of definite descriptions (existence and uniqueness are elements of the article meaning). Concerning the semantics of proper names, however, Longobardi follows Kripke's idea that proper names are rigid designators. Longobardi assumes - in connection with the DP hypothesis - that the syntactical difference between proper names and common nouns consists in the fact that, in contrast to a common noun, a chain is established between the proper name and the D-position. In this article I will show that - in accordance with von Heusinger's theory of salience - DPs with proper names are context dependent expressions like other definite DPs. The data show clear differences between DPs with proper names and DPs with common nouns: this can be explained if proper names are regarded as inherent definite expressions. It means that proper names contain the syntactic-semantic feature [+D].

Proper names play an important role in our understanding of linguistic ‘aboutness’ or reference. For instance, the name-bearer relation is a good candidate for the paradigm of the reference relation: it provides us with our initial grip on this relation and controls our thinking about it. For this and other reasons proper names have been at the center of philosophical attention. However, proper names are as controversial as they are conceptually fundamental. Since Kripke’s seminal lectures Naming and Necessity the controversy about proper names has taken the form of a debate between two main camps, descriptivists and non-descriptivists like Kripke himself. Descriptivists hold that there is a close connection between proper names and definite descriptions: the meaning or sense of a proper name can be given by a (bundle of) definite description(s). The satisfier, if any, of the definite description(s) that provide(s) the meaning of a proper name is its referent. Descriptivists can allow for empty proper names that are meaningful. They also have an initially plausible account of true informative identity statements (‘Marilyn Monroe is no one other person than Norma Jean Baker’). Their informativity is grounded in a difference in meaning-giving descriptions.

In this paper I provide novel arguments for the predicative approach to proper names, which claims that argument proper names are definite descriptions containing a naming predicate (the individual called X). I first argue that modified proper names, such as the incomparable Maria Callas or the other Francis Bacon cannot be handled on the hypothesis that argument proper names have no internal structure and uniformly denote entities. I then discuss cases like every Adolf, which would normally be interpreted as every individual named Adolf and show that the predicative approach to proper names can straightforwardly account for the distribution of a detectable naming component in proper names. Finally, I address the issue of proper names used as common nouns (such as a Rembrandt or the new Madonna) and plural proper names (e.g., the Beatles) and demonstrate that they do not form a homogenous group yet can be clearly distinguished on both syntactic and semantic grounds from proper names involving a detectable naming component.

Do Apparently Empty Names Help <scp>M</scp>illianism Prevail Against Widescopism? A Note

The Fregean analysis of definite descriptions as referring expressions predicts that copular sentences with definite descriptions in postcopular position are invariably interpreted as identity statements. But as numerous diagnostics show, such sentences are frequently capable of receiving a predicational reading. A uniform Fregean analysis therefore won’t do. Things aren’t that simple, however. I show that descriptions which exhibit the structure [the + N + of + Proper Name] fall into two semantically distinct classes, and that the members of one of these classes of descriptions (those I call “identifying”) pattern with proper names in resisting a predicative reading. I argue that a proposal according to which referring expressions can quite generally undergo a type shift that transforms them into predicates thus fails on grounds of overgeneration. I propose that we can account for the data by instead appealing to two definite determiners: a Fregean determiner ‘ther’ which forms referring descriptions, and a determiner ‘thep’ which forms predicative descriptions. I argue that this proposal also correctly predicts that copular sentences with proper names in postcopular position fail to have a predicational reading. I conclude the paper by defending the analysis of names to which I appeal against an alternative view inspired by Burge (J Philos 70(14):425–439, 1973), and suggest a way in which the desired results could be achieved while making do with a single definite article.

This chapter presents a descriptivist account of references and names. This practice is derived from Bertrand Russell's view of proper names. The chapter notes that according to Russell, ordinary proper names are disguised as definite descriptions, in which the speaker relates to the name. The chapter points out that according to Russell, common words, even proper names, are usually descriptions. The thought in the mind of a person using a proper name correctly can usually only be expressed explicitly if the proper name is replaced by a description. For an actual reference to occur when using a proper name, the description that actually underlies the name must be true of the object to which reference is made.

This paper explores the distribution of proper names in construct phrases in Modern Hebrew, and uses the construct phrase as a diagnostic for distinguishing both different types of proper names and different uses of proper names. It is shown that in Modern Hebrew (i) personal proper names and definite descriptions have different grammatical properties; (ii) within the category of personal proper names, different usages can be distinguished; (iii) proper names of places (toponyms) and personal proper names have very different grammatical properties.

I wish to consider proper names and nounphrases with the definite and indefinite articles, 'the F' and 'an F', in their use in referring. Some such uses result in what are commonly called 'identity statements', in which the copula is termed the 'is' of identity, marked off from the 'is' of predication. I hold that we do not need to locate the difference between identity statements and others of the form FA is B1 in a distinction between two copulas. It lies rather in the different uses of the phrase following the one copula, the phrase occupying the predicate position in the sentence. To begin with, then, I need to make a sharp distinction between the syntactic or grammatical notion of position, and the notion of use or occurrence. The latter, when used to mark referring and non-referring uses, is, I will argue, semantic. The difference in such uses is not simply a pragmatic one of interpretation. Geach suggested that the copula need not be treated as itself the source of the change in the force of 'is' when a definite or indefinite nounphrase in predicate position is replaced by a proper name. There is not a special copula, but a different use of the predicate expression.' Whereas a proper name here is always, he said, a referring expression, a definite or indefinite nounphrase such as 'the murderer of Smith' or 'a murderer' does not occur referentially in this position, but predicatively or attributively. The predicative use is so-called paronymously from a nounphrase's being characteristically so used in predicate position. I wish to claim, however, that it need not always be so used there (though it often is). The same expression may be used in that very same predicate position referentially. It is sentences with nounphrases in this position used referentially which are commonly called statements of identity. But a referential use is characteristic of a nounphrase in subject position. Once again, terms can there be used predicatively. 'Referentially', in fact,

According to the description theory of names, the content of a proper name such as ‘Aristotle’ can be given by a definite description such as ‘the last great philosopher of antiquity’. However, as Saul Kripke conclusively demonstrated in his seminal work, Naming and Necessity, proper names such as ‘Aristotle’ are modally rigid. That is, in every metaphysically possible world in which the actual referent of the proper name exists, the reference of that proper name, when evaluated with respect to that world, is the same as its actual one, and in every metaphysically possible world in which the actual referent does not exist, the proper name does not designate anything else. However, the most plausible candidates for content-yielding descriptions are typically not modally rigid. Following Kripke, philosophers of language have generally concluded that, since there are metaphysical possibilities in which the most plausible content-yielding descriptions differ in extension from the proper names whose contents they allegedly provide, the description theory of names must be false.

In this paper, I discuss expressions such as ‘Dad’, ‘Mum’, ‘Grandpa’, etc., which are called ‘quasi-proper names’. These expressions can be used both to refer to a thing or person in an assertion in which a predicate is assigned to the referent expressed by the quasi-proper-name and to call somebody in particular (John!). In so far as they are indexical expressions, they are even more directly referential than proper names and guarantee discourse continuity to a greater extent than proper names (even if this appears to some to be controversial). To understand the working of quasi-proper names, I introduce a semantic rule that transforms nouns or definite descriptions into proper names and quasi-proper names, making the conceptual elements present in those expressions inactive and introducing a direct route from the proper name to the referent. Such a rule is synchronic, although it has diachronic consequences. Quasi-proper names can stimulate a debate about the function and role of proper names across cultures. I consider a number of expressions similar to quasi-proper names and I add the class of quasi-quasi-proper names (cases in which a term similar to a quasi-proper name can be used in vocatives but not in a subject-predicate structure, or, vice-versa, it can be used in a subject-predicate structure but not for vocatives).

This paper aims to explore the semantics and pragmatics of quasi-proper names (QP-names) from cross-linguistic and language-specific perspectives, based on Japanese data. First, a stronger basis is provided for the core part of QP-names from a cross-linguistic perspective. Specifically, supporting evidence is provided for direct reference and rigidity, by examining the reference of a QP-name in a modal context compared with the corresponding definite description. Then, indexicality as a unique property of QP-names is discussed in greater detail, with a clarification of the notion in relation to Kaplan’s theory of indexicals. On this basis, QP-names are characterized as rigid designators that apply to each individual in a relational scheme (such as a family tree) in such a way that they are assigned in a systematic way, with customization, to the individual’s superiors within a certain degree of relationship and are used from the individual’s perspective. Ambiguity and disambiguation are also discussed, using illustrations of phrasal and compound QP-names, which serve as full names and nicknames. Second, deviant cases of QP-names are investigated. Specifically, QP-names with a higher degree of quasi -ness, or quasi-quasi -proper names, are discussed, using illustrations of examples unique to Japanese. These include anata , which is derived from a second person pronoun (‘you’) to be used by a wife when talking to her husband even when he is not there. Furthermore, pseudo -quasi-proper names are discussed. They look like QP-names but have an essential difference. They are regarded as metonymically-created temporary names to be used in the context at issue. Based on the core features and deviant cases of QP-names, together with an observation of atypical proper names, it was proposed that we evaluate the quality of (quasi-)proper names on multiple criteria and consider a complex model of (quasi-)proper names, according to this evaluation.

In his excellent book Frege: Philosophy of Language, Michael Dummett proposes five criteria that are supposed to delimit formally the class of singular terms (in Frege's terminology, 'proper names').' I shall argue that Dummett's criteria, even as amended by Crispin Wright and Bob Hale, do not delimit the class of singular terms in English,2 that further refinements of the criteria probably will not help, and that in any event the criteria face other difficulties. For Frege the class of singular terms includes what might be called proper proper names (like 'New York' and 'Socrates'), and most definite descriptions (like 'the longest river in North America', 'that lime tree', 'the famous teacher of Plato', 'the colour red', 'the number nine', 'the weight of the earth', 'the shape of the earth', and 'the equator'). It does not include sentences, predicates, or general terms like 'nothing', 'nobody', 'something', 'everything', 'every sheep', or 'a poet'. Of course these brief remarks are merely intended to give someone proficient in English the general idea. Dummett's criteria are meant to be more formal. Why should it be thought important (to a Fregean at any rate) to delimit formally the class of singular terms? If Michael Dummett and Crispin Wright are correct, then as Wright puts it, for Frege 'the notion of an object is posterior in the order of explanation to that of a singular term'.3 That is, syntax is, in a sense, 'prior to' ontology; to determine what there is, determine first what the syntax is. The objects are simply the referents of the singular terms, and the functions are the referents of the predicates. Predicates can be defined in terms of singular terms and sentences as follows: a predicate is what remains when one or more singular terms has been removed from a sentence. (We assume that we have some means for determining what a sentence is.) Hence everything hinges on the singular terms. On Dummett's understanding of Frege, then, it is crucial to the Fregean programme to characterize the class of singular terms. Besides, the idea that the singular terms might be a guide to what there is has much to recommend it, Quine notwithstanding.