Names and Context: A Use-Sensitive Philosophical Account

Description

Dolf Rami contributes to contemporary debates about the meaning and reference of proper names by providing an overview of the main challenges and developing a new contextualist account of names. Questions about the use and semantic features of proper names are at the centre of philosophy of language. How does a single proper name refer to the same thing in different contexts of use? What makes a thing a bearer of a proper name? What is their meaning? Guided by these questions, Rami discusses Saul Kripke's main contributions to the debate and introduces two new ways to capture the rigidity of names, proposing a pluralist version of the causal chain picture. Covering popular contextualist accounts of names, both indexical and variabilist, he presents a use-sensitive alternative based on a semantic comparison between names, pronouns and demonstratives. Extending and applying his approach to a wide variety of uses, including names in fiction, this is a comprehensive explanation of why we should interpret proper names as use-sensitive expressions. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Preface Prolegomenon: The Diversity of Uses of Names in Natural Languages A very brief history of the philosophical debate on names in the analytic tradition The old orthodoxy: descriptive theories of names The new orthodoxy: Millian theories of names Challenging uses of names in natural languages The two main methodological errors of most philosophical views on names My alternative linguistically inspired Wittgensteinian methodology A brief overview of the main theses of my account on names 1 Proper Names and Rigidity Setting the stage: Kripke and his followers on diff erent notions of rigidity Intuitive tests for the rigidity of proper names Possible reasons in favour of obstinate rigidity Actualized accounts of rigidity Two new additional actualized accounts of rigidity Four possible conceptions of rigidity and their application to names 2 Proper Names and Reference Determination Introduction: the development of Kripke’s picture o freference into a theory On the individuation of proper names On the determination of reference of names On the nature and explanatory role of acts of naming On the implicit and unintentional constitution of name-using practices Summary: the main theses of my pluralist conception of reference determination 3 Proper Names as Use-Sensitive Expressions Setting the stage: proper names as context-sensitive expressions Four motivations for context-sensitive views on proper names Against the two most popular formal versions of a context-sensitive view on names Towards a new context-sensitive semantics for proper names My alternative context-sensitive semantics for proper names 4 The Fictional Uses of Proper Names Setting the stage: key features of fictional names The meaningfulness of names without a semantic referent The semantic status of fictional names Different kinds of uses of fictional proper names in sentential contexts The semantic and pragmatic functions of fictional names 5 Apparent Predicative Uses of Proper Names Setting the stage: referential and predicative uses of proper names The linguistic mechanism of meaning transfer The derived nature of the meaning of the original examples 6 Apparent Anaphoric Uses of Proper Names Setting the stage: an overview of different apparently anaphoric or bound uses of names Three approaches of apparent bound or anaphoricuses of proper names Arguments against the three types of proposed accounts An alternative metalinguistic pragmatic explanation Summary 7 Proper Names in Hyperintensional Contexts Three semantic properties of names in the scope of attitude verbs The de re/de dicto distinction The nature of the de re/de dicto ambiguity A comparison of three different formal approaches to attitude verbs Attitude verbs as non-normal modal operators: the formal analysis A Comparison with Priest’s original version of the proposed semantics Internally represented de re readings relative to our semantic framework Notes Bibliography Index