Please note that a commentary recently published in this journal (Heng; Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2007, 2:3) includes substantial duplication of Letters to the Editor published in Developing World Bioethics (Heng; Developing World Bioethics 2007, 7:49) and Human Fertility (Heng; Human Fertility 2007, 10: 129-130).

Book Review. Jos de Mul. The Tragedy of Finitude . Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of Life . New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2004.

Book Review. Jesús Conill-Sancho. Ética hermenéutica. Crítica desde la facticidad. [Hermeneutic Ethics. The Critique of Facticity]. Madrid: Tecnos, 2006.

[Book Review] Rudolf Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, eds. Wilhelm Dilthey. Selected Works vol. III: The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002.

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Volume 26 Number 1 March 2012 ARTICLES An Inferential Model of Scientific Understanding Mark Newman 1 Evidence and the Assessment of Causal Rela...

In Emotions, Values & Agency, Christine Tappolet develops a sophisticated, perceptual theory of emotions and their role in wide range of issues in value theory and epistemology. In this paper, we raise three worries about Tappolet's proposal.

The orthodox view of proper names, Millianism, provides a very simple and elegant explanation of the semantic contribution of referential uses of names–names that occur as bare singulars and as the argument of a predicate. However, one problem for Millianism is that it cannot explain the semantic contribution of predicative uses of names. In recent years, an alternative view, so-called the-predicativism, has become increasingly popular. According to the-predicativists, names are uniformly count nouns. This straightforwardly explains (...) why names can be used predicatively, but is prima facie less congenial to an analysis of referential uses. To address this issue, the-predicativists argue that referential names are in fact complex determiner phrases consisting of a covert definite determiner and a count noun—and so, a referential name is a definite description. In this paper, I will argue that despite the appearance of increased theoretical complexity, the view that names are ambiguous between predicative and referential types is in fact superior to the unitary the-predicativist view. However, I will also argue that to see why this ambiguity view is better, we need to give up the standard Millian analysis. Consequently, I will first propose an alternative analysis of referential names that retains the virtues of Millianism, but provides an important explanatory connection to the predicative uses. Once this analysis of names is adopted, the explanation for why names are systematically ambiguous between referential and predicative types is both simple and elegant. Second, I will argue that the-predicativism has the appearance of being simpler than an ambiguity view, but is in fact unable to account for certain key properties of referential names without making ad hoc stipulations. (shrink)

This article is a report on ongoing field research and the exponential growth of the environment in which sex workers, prostitutes, call girls, and escorts operate. We look at the complexity of the conditions of such work and consider the socio-psychological and media vectors that make up the context from which its actors and stereotypes emerge. With the explosion of websites offering virtual or real sex, there is also a continuation of oppressive and violent male practices in this sector, restricting (...) the freedom of choice for women who work professionally in this field. These practices reproduce the power relations and the exclusion that has always been present in society, and are also now more diffuse as virtual reality has come to play an important role in social practice. (shrink)

What determines the reference of a proper name? What is the meaning of a proper name? Kripke presented a radically new “picture” in answer to the reference question. Andrea Bianchi claims that “forty years later, we do not possess a fully blown theory built on his picture.” This chapter presents such a theory based on developments of Kripke’s picture that Devitt made in _Designation_ and elsewhere. Kripke did not answer the meaning question, but many influenced by him have adopted “direct (...) reference”. Devitt’s own answer was that a name’s meaning is its causal mode of reference. This strikes many as a _shocking_ idea. This chapter argues that it should not be. Interestingly, the idea has recently been urged, with much the same argument, by Kaplan. The reference and meaning of “descriptive names” are also discussed. The chapter concludes that proper names should not still seem so problematic. (shrink)

This article offers what appears to be the first systematic structural reading of the 32 elemental being sigils from Franz Bardon's (1909 - 1958) second major work, Die Praxis der magischen Evokation (1956). Bardon's second book assigns a unique name, sigil, and description to 660 named beings distributed across elemental kingdoms and planetary spheres. The present article focuses on the 32 elemental beings that open the sigil section, examining them as a graphic system rather than as devotional or magical objects. (...) Two questions are addressed. The first is historical: do the 32 names of Bardon's elemental beings appear anywhere in the major grimoire sources consulted, including the Lemegeton, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and the Greek Magical Papyri? The answer is that no exact match was found in any source consulted, strongly suggesting that Bardon's elemental naming set is original rather than derived from the standard Western grimoire repertoire. The names are best understood as magical sound-names in the nomina barbara tradition: names composed in a mixed esoteric register with occasional Greek, Latin, and Hebrew echoes, whose primary function is sonic and symbolic differentiation rather than lexical meaning. Pyrhum, carrying the Greek root pyr for fire in a Latinised frame, is the most clearly fire-marked name in the set. Parahim carries a Hebrew-style plural suffix. The remaining names show phonological textures that broadly correspond to their elemental attributions: the fire names are sharp and percussive, the water names soft and flowing, the earth names heavy and closed, the air names light and mobile. The second question is structural: do the sigils themselves show recurring visual tendencies corresponding to Bardon's fourfold elemental grouping? Visual analysis of the complete set identifies four broadly distinguishable graphic profiles. Fire sigils tend toward sharp angles, diagonal forms, and economy of stroke. Earth sigils tend toward containment, organic enclosure, and heavier forms. Water sigils make most prominent use of curves, loops, and dot-like condensations, with dot-like marks concentrated in the water group more than any other. Air sigils are visibly the most composite and complex, combining multiple distinct graphic primitives in single forms in ways that are consistently distinguishable from the other three groups. A colour shift within the fire group, from red for beings 1 through 6 to blue for beings 7 and 8, may encode a qualitative distinction between active-projective and inward-initiatory modes of the fire element, consistent with Bardon's own descriptions of those two beings. The analysis is exploratory rather than statistical. A method section explicitly acknowledges that the sigils were examined in the elemental order given by Bardon rather than through blind classification, and all findings are presented as observations compatible with elemental coherence rather than as proofs of it. A full qualitative assessment table for all 32 sigils is included, along with a composite figure presenting all 32 sigils grouped by element. Structural parallels are drawn with the Tibetan terma tradition of visionary received marks and the vévé of Haitian Vodou, both of which share the claim that a specific graphic mark encodes the specific presence of a specific being and originates in inner encounter rather than systematic construction. The differences between these traditions and Bardon's system are also noted. The article is part of the PhilArchive Preprint Series: Authentic Spirituality. (shrink)

This paper is a counter to the view that names are always predicates with the same extension as a metalinguistic predicate with the form “is a thing called “N”” (the Predicate View). The Predicate View is in opposition to the Referential View of names. In this paper, I undermine one argument for the Predicate View. The Predicate View’s adherents take examples of uses of names that have the surface appearance of a predicate and generalise from these to (...) treat uses of names that do not have the surface appearance of a predicate. They show that the Predicate View can provide a unified account of these two uses and assume that the Referential account cannot. I propose an alternative view of names, the Polysemy View. This view allows one to resist the pressure to generalise from the cases with the surface appearance of predicates to all uses of names while nevertheless providing connections between the uses. On the Polysemy View names are not, in their core use, metalinguistic predicates. Names are predominantly referring expressions but they also freelance as metalinguistic predicates on occasion. They have a double life. This double life is possible because of the pragmatic and conventional connections between the two aspects of that life. My main aim in this paper is to show that the Predicate View is not the only view that can give a good account of apparently predicative uses of names. In addition, I offer some inconclusive reasons to prefer the Polysemy View over the Predicate View. My paper assumes a background framework that the Predicate and Referentialist Views share and I do not attempt to justify that framework. I ignore many other views of names (notably descriptivist views and relevance theoretic views) in order to focus on the debate between these two opponents. (shrink)

The result of combining classical quantificational logic with modal logic proves necessitism – the claim that necessarily everything is necessarily identical to something. This problem is reflected in the purely quantificational theory by theorems such as ∃x t=x; it is a theorem, for example, that something is identical to Timothy Williamson. The standard way to avoid these consequences is to weaken the theory of quantification to a certain kind of free logic. However, it has often been noted that in order (...) to specify the truth conditions of certain sentences involving constants or variables that don’t denote, one has to apparently quantify over things that are not identical to anything. In this paper I defend a contingentist, non-Meinongian metaphysics within a positive free logic. I argue that although certain names and free variables do not actually refer to anything, in each case there might have been something they actually refer to, allowing one to interpret the contingentist claims without quantifying over mere possibilia. (shrink)

There is a fairly general consensus that names are Millian (or Russellian) genuine terms, that is, are singular terms whose sole semantic function is to introduce a referent into the propositions expressed by sentences containing the term. This answers the question as to what sort of proposition is expressed by use of sentences containing names. But there is a second serious semantic problem about proper names, that of how the referents of proper names are determined. This (...) is the question that I will discuss in this paper. Various views consistent with Millianism have been proposed as to how the semantic referents of proper names are determined. These views can be classified into (1) description theories and (2) causal theories, but they can also be classified into (3) social practice theories, on which a name’s referent is determined by a social practice involving the referent, and (4) individualistic theories, on which the referent of the use of a name is determined by the speaker’s state of mind. Here I argue against social practice theories of the sorts proposed by Kripke and Evans and in favor of an individualistic approach to name reference. I argue that social practice is irrelevant to determining name reference and that, as a consequence, names have no meanings in natural languages. In the second part of the paper I motivate and propose a new form of individualistic theory which incorporates features of both description theories and Evans’s social practice theory. (shrink)

Names like ‘Neptune’ and ‘Vulcan’ have lead some Millians to countenance a class of descriptive names. This is so, as, first, the closeness of the association between a descriptive name and its associated descriptive condition seems to show that the link between the name and the description must be semantic, and, second, as Millianism implies that names without bearers make no direct contribution to the propositions expressed by the sentences in which such names occur. In this (...) paper we use the notion of an object-dependent convention to offer a novel motivation for Millianism. We then show that our way of motivating Millianism implies that the above two reasons for treating names like ‘Neptune’ and ‘Vulcan’ as descriptive have little force. (shrink)

There is reason to think that the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions is an instance of a general distinction that also applies to uses of proper names (Saul Kripke, “Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy II 1977). This means that if, as many have argued (against Kripke), the referential-attributive distinction has semantic significance, then the reference of a proper name, as used on a given occasion, may depend on whether or not the (...) name is used referentially on that occasion. The present paper aims to do two things. First, the paper generalizes the referential-attributive distinction in a way that is different from Kripke’s generalization, but still applies to proper names as well as to definite descriptions. This general distinction is between what I call targeted and untargeted uses of noun phrases, including both definite descriptions and proper names. Second, the paper aims to show that targeted uses of proper names are regular and standard, just as targeted (i.e., referential) uses of definite descriptions are. This is important because the most prominent argument for the semantic significance of the referential use of definite descriptions, known as the “Argument from Convention,” is based on the referential use being regular and standard. Having established that the targeted use of proper names is also regular and standard, we are in a position to make a similar argument for the semantic significance of the targeted use of proper names. (shrink)

This chapter intends to offer a theory of empty names that is consistent with the doctrine of direct reference and respects the intuition that sentences such as _Vulcan does not exist, Le Verrier imagined Vulcan, and Le Verrier believed that Vulcan orbited between Mercury and the sun_, express propositions to which the name Vulcan makes its contribution and which are either true or false. The theory has recourse to a notion of structured propositions that are quite unlike singular propositions, (...) but it still assumes that all proper names, empty or otherwise, have no descriptive content that is semantically relevant. The new-style propositions are language-bound. Thus, the theory reminds us of sententialism–i.e. the theory that the proper objects of propositional attitudes are sentences–but is not vulnerable to the same objections. It is argued that the new-style propositions fare better than the gappy ones in accounting for the semantics of empty names and, more generally, of attitude ascriptions. (shrink)

Abstract. On the Direct Reference thesis, proper names are what I call ‘genuine terms’, terms whose sole semantic contributions to the propositions expressed by their use are the terms’ semantic referents. But unless qualified, this thesis implies the false consequence that sentences containing names that fail to refer can never express true or false propositions. (Consider ‘The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus’, for instance.) I suggest that while names are typically and fundamentally used as genuine terms, there is (...) a small class of names, which I call ‘descriptive names’, whose reference is fixed by commonly associated definite descriptions, and I also suggest that there is an idiom of natural language on which such names can be used as abbreviated definite descriptions in a limited set of sentential contexts, including (1) positive and negative existentials, (2) cognitive ascriptions, and (3) uses of names to talk about myth. Uses of empty descriptive names in such contexts can then be either true or false. Relying on Gregory Currie’s theory of truth in fiction, I also propose an idiom on which fictional names can be used as short for a certain type of description in talk about fiction. Along the way, I provide arguments that names are used as short for descriptions in substantive existential statements as well as in both metamythic and metafictive contexts. I also discuss and criticize alternative views of these matters, including the views of David Braun, Saul Kripke, Peter van Inwagen, and others. (shrink)

Definite linguistic expressions, for example proper names and singular and plural pronouns, are easy to introduce. Indefinite expressions may pave the way, but are not essential. It is also not essential that there be entities to which the successfully introduced definites refer. This is the underlying fact that makes fiction possible, and it gives guidance about fictional names: we have no need in general to suppose that there exist entities to which they refer.

In this paper I argue that recent attempts to rehabilitate Russellian descriptivism as a semantic theory for proper names and indexicals are both unsuccessful as semantic theories and do a disservice to Russell’s philosophical legacy. They are unsuccessful because they can only meet the classic objections to descriptivism if they are contrived to such an extent that they become intolerably ad hoc. They do a disservice to Russell’s philosophical legacy by unfairly shackling the theory of descriptions to a flawed (...) semantic theory for names. I also argue that interpreting Russell as endorsing a descriptivist semantics for indexicals misrepresents Russell’s treatment of indexicals and ignores ways in which he recognized important aspects of the now widely endorsed direct reference semantics for indexicals. (shrink)

The standard versions of predicativism are committed to the following two theses: proper names are count nouns in all their occurrences, and names do not refer to objects but express name-bearing properties. The main motivation for predicativism is to provide a uniform explanation of referential names and predicative names. According to predicativism, predicative names are fundamental and referential names are explained by appealing to a null determiner functioning like “the” or “that.” This paper has (...) two goals. The first is to reject the predicativists’ explanation of the two types of names. I present three syntactic counterexamples to the predicativists’ account of referential names: incorporation, modification, and measure phrase uses. The second goal is to present a novel strategy to explain the two types of names. I propose that referential names are fundamental but that there are null morphemes available for transforming a name into a count noun (and possibly into other syntactic categories). (shrink)

Quasi-proper names and quasi-quasi proper names.

The-predicativism is the view that proper names (henceforth, names) are common count nouns with a denominative use in all their literal occurrences. A core tenet of this view is that bare singular names in (apparent) argument position of a predicate function as the descriptive component of a covert incomplete definite description with a definite article as a phonologically null determiner. This article presents two closely related counterexamples to the-predicativism. The argument will be made that indefinite singular (...) class='Hi'>names (ISNs) – that is, singular names preceded by indefinites, with or without fronted-modifiers – generate a significant asymmetry between names and common count nouns. (shrink)

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). (shrink)

In the contemporary debate about the nature of persistence, stage theory is the view that ordinary objects (artefacts, animals, persons, etc.) are instantaneous and persist by being suitably related to other instantaneous objects. In this paper I focus on the issue of what stage theorists should say about the semantics of ordinary proper names, like ‘Socrates’ or ‘London’. I consider the remarks that stage theorists actually make about this issue, present some problems they face, and finally offer what I (...) take to be the best alternative available for them. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall deal with quasi-(proper) names, that is expressions like ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’, ‘Grandpa’, ‘Grandma’ in English or ‘Papà’, ‘Mamma’, ‘Nonna’, ‘Nonno’ in Italian. I shall use examples both from English and Italian. Quasi-names are directly referential like proper names, even if they apparently exhibit some conceptual materials, which, however, are not active and are inert. They can be used as vocatives or as arguments of verbs. I called terms like ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ ‘quasi-names’ because (...) they have certain characteristics of names (but they could also be called ‘indexical names’). They confer significance to an individual. Quasi-names are indexical, although the word ‘I’ does not appear in the proposition expressed. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate regarding the semantic type of singular referential names. According to one view, known as referentialism, names rigidly designate individuals (Kripke 1972, Abbott 2002, Leckie 2013, Jeshion 2015, Schoubye 2017). According to another view, known as predicativism, names designate properties of individuals (Burge 1973, Geurts 1997, Bach 2002, Elbourne 2005, Matushansky 2008, Fara 2015). Most predicativist accounts claim that bare names in English occur with a phonologically null determiner, a proposal that (...) is based on languages like Greek where names require a determiner in argument position. Novel data from both English and Greek show that names can be nonrigid designators under modal operators ("Aristotle may teach Socrates") and bound variables under quantifiers ("in every set of twins, Helen is a musician"), challenging referentialism. As for rigidity, one possible source of this phenomenon is the proprial article, a name-specific determiner found in Catalan and other languages that may be null in English and homophonous with the definite article in Greek (Ghomeshi and Massam 2009, Muñoz 2019, Izumi and Erickson 2021). While much further research is needed, the data suggest that the proper analysis of names is grounded in predicativism rather than referentialism. (shrink)

Proper names are usually considered devices of singular reference but, when considered as word-types, they also exhibit other kinds of uses. In this paper I intend to show that systematic kinds of uses of proper names considered as word-types can be accounted for by a generalized rule-based conception of systematic polysemy, one which not only postulates a multiplicity of stable senses for an expression, but also a multiplicity of content generating rules, each of which determines potentially different contents (...) in different contexts. In contrast to the currently extant polysemous conceptions of proper names (Leckie in Philos Stud 165:1139–1160, 2013), which only encompass individual and predicative uses, the presented proposal concerns all systematic uses of proper names considered in the literature, i.e., individual, predicative, deferred, descriptive, anaphoric, and bound uses of proper names. The resulting conception accommodates referential intuition about the default individual uses of proper names while also admitting other kinds of uses without generating homonymy. It transpires that proper names are semantically underdetermined and context-sensitive expressions. (shrink)

In this paper I will try to use Ruth Millikan’s theory of language to give a novel interpretation of Chinese names, which captures the true nature of semantics, ontology, and Chinese mind. Contrary to Chad Hansen’s popular mass noun hypothesis that endorses an implausible mereological ontology, I argue that Chinese names are primarily used as generics, and they refer to a special kind of ontological category that I call Millikan substances. It turns out that there are no significant (...) differences between Chinese language and western languages regarding their uses and functions, though the western philosophical tradition has generated a distorted picture of language with its misleading theories of ontology, mind, and semantics. (shrink)

Evans was committed to the following views: there are or could be both descriptive and Russellian names in a language; these are semantically very different; and interpretation relies upon the appropriate T-theorems. This chapter argues that these views are in tension with the fact that the T-theorems do not differentiate between Russellian and descriptive names. It develops this objection and show how, on Evans's behalf, it can be met. It explains the origins of Evans's view that no (...) class='Hi'>names are both non-descriptive and non-Russellian. (shrink)

Just as the ideas of stakeholder theory, stakeholder management, or stakeholder capitalism approach acceptance as a mainstream core idea in management theory, the authors want to suggest a somewhat radical rethinking of it. They believe that in almost all of its incarnations, stakeholder theory merely recapitulates some rather standard business assumptions. As a result, they believe that two problems are perpetuated—the separation of ethics and value creation and the overemphasis of stakeholder roles rather than relationships between stakeholders as real people (...) with names and faces. In this article, the authors propose that by adopting a view of stakeholders as real people with names and faces, they can reinvigorate stakeholder research and focus their efforts on the neglected challenge of understanding how collections of idiosyncratic individuals can work together to create value in entrepreneurial firms in ways that benefit all those who are affected. (shrink)

A distinction familiar in logical theory is that between A-expressions used to make singular identifying references, and B-predicate-expressions. Proper names, ordinarily so-called, are a subclass of A-expressions, and are contrasted with descriptive or demonstrative A-expressions. Some A-expressions are used to refer to particulars, some are used to refer to non-particulars. There are many interesting questions about proper names, ordinarily so-called: about the demarcation of the class; about the differences between the modes of operation of proper names on (...) the one hand, and of descriptive and demonstrative phrases on the other; about differences within the class. This chapter focuses on the general distinction (or group of associated distinctions) between referring expressions and predicate-expressions, between reference and description, between subjects (things of which things are predicated) and predicates (things which are predicated of things). By way of justification (or excuse) for this extension of the topic, the chapter refers to Frege's extension of the title. (shrink)

This article explores Gareth Evans’s idea that there are such things as descriptive names, i.e. referring expressions introduced by a definite description which have, unlike ordinary names, a descriptive content. Several ignored semantic and modal aspects of this idea are spelled out, including a hitherto little explored notion of rigidity, super-rigidity. The claim that descriptive names are (rigidified) descriptions, or abbreviations thereof, is rejected. It is then shown that Evans’s theory leads to certain puzzles concerning the referential (...) status of descriptive names and the evaluation of identity statements containing them. A tentative solution to these puzzles is suggested, which centres on the treatment of definite descriptions as referring expressions. (shrink)

Heidegger borrows the concept of the figure of the poet from poetry as well. According to his interpretation of Hölderlin’s poem As on a Holiday, the poets receive ‘gestures’ or ‘hints’ (Winken) from the gods, which they bring further to the people. Heidegger states that the founding of being is bound to the gestures of the gods, while the founding is at once the interpretation of the voice of the people. This means that the historical essence of a people is (...) spoken by the gods. The origins of language therefore transcend human subjectivity and finitude. Poetry is an essential naming. However, the essence of that essential naming cannot itself be named. In accordance with Hölderlin’s phrase ‘holy names are lacking’, Heidegger argues that poetic singing remains a song without words, since it lacks the genuine, naming word as in pure ‘lyre-music’. Its prosody and attunement thus remain central to this naming. (shrink)

Frege directs our attention to the cognitive difference between statements with co-referring names, such as “Hesperus appears in the evening sky” and “Phosphorus appears in the evening sky.” This chapter argues that the direct cognitive contribution of names is their sound (or spelling), a question with which much subsequent work in semantics and pragmatics has wrestled. The speaker can plan on the perception of one name for an object to have a different cognitive effect than perception of another (...) name for the same object, if the hearer has different beliefs about the bearers of the names: for example, a hearer who knows that ‘Hesperus’ is a name of the evening star, but doesn’t realize that ‘Phosphorus’ is. This chapter considers various reasons one might have for rejecting this straightforward answer to Frege’s problem, and compares this treatment to Frege’s in his _Begriffsschrift_ and “On Sense and Reference.”. (shrink)

Names are referring expressions and interact with the determiner system only exceptionally, in stark contrast with count nouns. The-predicativists like Sloat, Matushansky, and Fara claim otherwise, maintaining that syntactic data offers indicates that names belong to a special syntactic category which differs from common count nouns only in how they interact with ‘the’. I argue that the-predicativists have incorrectly discerned the syntactic facts. They have bypassed a large range of important syntactic data and misconstrued a critical data point (...) on which they ground the-predicativism. The right data offers new compelling syntactic grounds for referentialism. (shrink)