Title
Publication Date
2013-05-28
Availability
Open access
Embargo Period
2013-05-28
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)
Department
Philosophy (Arts and Sciences)
Date of Defense
2013-05-16
First Committee Member
Otávio Bueno
Second Committee Member
Risto Hilpinen
Third Committee Member
Simon Evnine
Fourth Committee Member
Stephen Neale
Abstract
I defend a form of semantic pluralism about proper names. Proper names are, like pronouns, singular terms, and as such rigid and semantically simple. Though occurrences of proper names are often directly referential, I argue that proper names also – like pronouns – sustain anaphoric occurrences, in which case the work roughly in the manner of first-order variables. Instead of a unified theory of names in terms of their contributions to propositions expressed by sentences in which they occur, I argue that singular terms are unified in terms of a requirement that they take unstructured values, a requirement issued by compositional constraints associated with grammatical theory, and that these constraints are flexible with regard to the particular semantic values of occurrences of such terms. I develop a two-tier semantic framework to model the discourse contributions of such terms, and motivate a form of semantic two-dimensionalism that is more austere than most existing two-dimensional systems but that is nevertheless powerful enough to provide novel solutions to a range of traditional problems associated with singular terms, such as the problem of the contingent a priori, the problem of empty names, and – more tentatively – Frege’s puzzle.
Keywords
Proper Names; Singular Terms; Pronouns; Direct Reference; Rigid Designation; Semantic Pluralism
Recommended Citation
Haraldsen, Fredrik B., "The Variety of Names" (2013). Open Access Dissertations. 1025.
https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/1025