Naslov
A Defence of the Predicate View of Proper Name

Autori
Dožudić, Dušan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Second International Conference on Philosophy of Language and Linguistics: Book of Abstracts / Rasinski, R. ; Stalmaszczyk, P. - Łódź, 2011

Skup
Second International Conference on Philosophy of Language and Linguistics

Mjesto i datum
Łódź, Poljska, 12.05.2011. - 14.05.2011

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Steven E. Boër; Tyler Burge; family names; pragmatics; predicates; proper names; semantics.

Sažetak
In this paper, I defend Tyler Burge’s predicate view of proper names (set forth in his “Reference and Proper Names”) against the objection offered by Steven E. Boër (in “Proper Names as Predicates”). Boër argues that, even if proper names are predicates, Burge’s predicate view cannot be the correct one, because it does not adequately cover all types of proper names. Most notably, it does not cover family names. As a consequence, Burge would predict wrong truthconditions for a number of sentences embedding family names, such as “Joe Romanov is not a Romanov, ” “Waldo Cox is a Romanov, ” “Fred Smith is not a Smith after all, he is a Jones, ” or “Billy Jones is in reality a Smith.”. For example, Boër thinks that “Joe Romanov is not a Romanov” could turn out to be true. But, according to Burge, names, just as any other predicate, have an application condition, and it follows from that condition that “Joe Romanov is not a Romanov” must be false (just as “This dog is not a dog” must). So, if Boër’s is right, Burge must be wrong. I discuss some attempts to meet Boër’s objection, and I conclude that it rests on fallacious assumptions. Boër’s observations concerning the sentences are not semantically relevant, and they reveal nothing relevant about truth-conditions of those sentences. Boër’s observations are at most pragmatically relevant ; it takes a lot of stage setting, nonlinguistic knowledge, and calculation to hear such sentences as true. If so, Boër’s criticism does not undermine Burge’s predicate view, which was intended as a semantic theory of proper names.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija

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