Workshop Description

Proper Names: Linguistic and Philosophical Perspectives

Kripkes seminal lectures published under the title ‚Naming & Necessity‘ caused and shaped an extensive debate about the semantics of proper names in the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century. These lectures contained on the one hand a detailed and forceful critic of Frege’s, Russell’s and Searle’s conceptions of proper names. These authors defended different version of a so-called description theory of proper names. Such views assimilate the semantics of proper names to those of complete and non-indexical definite descriptions. Therefore, proper names are conceived of as expressions that have a descriptive content that determines the reference of a proper name. On the other hand Kripke provided a sketch of a theory that tries to revive certain aspects of Mill’s views on proper names and identifies the semantic content of a proper name with its referent and that rejects the view that the reference of a proper name is determined by a descriptive content that is semantically linked to a proper name. According to Kripke, the reference of a proper name is determined by an initial act of baptism and a chain of uses that leads back to this initial act. Kripkes work mainly caused two sorts of reaction: Firstly, several authors tried to develop Kripke’s sketch of a theory in a more detailed way. Secondly, other authors who were attracted by certain advantages of a description theory of proper names tried to defend a version of this kind of theory that was immune to Kripke’s objections. So the debate concerning proper names in philosophy was mainly a quarrel between defenders of a Millian theory of proper names and defenders of a description theory of proper names.

It seems to us that the debate about the semantics of proper names has recently stalled. Neither side has gained a decisive advantage. Both main theories of proper names are confronted with serious problems. The advantages of one kind of theory seem to be the disadvantages of the other kind and vice versa. We think that neither theory can solve the problems posed by proper names in a convincing way. In order to shed new light on proper names, we want therefore to tackle in the workshop the following key-questions that have not always received the attention they should receive:

• What is the most adequate way to individuate proper names?
• Should we represent proper names as individual constants, individual variables, predicates or in some other way in a formal language?
• Are there irreducible modes of presentation that we only associate with proper names? If yes, are these modes   of presentation semantically relevant?
• What constitutes the name-relation between a proper name and its bearer? Acts of baptism, name-using practices or both?
• What is required to understand a proper name?
• Are so-called empty names really some sort of proper name?
• Are there so-called descriptive or partially descriptive proper names?

The workshop aims to tackle these questions. We hope to make progress by combining the expertise of linguists and philosophers. Bringing linguistic theories about the use and syntax of proper names together with the philosophical views about the semantics, metaphysics and epistemology of names promises to yield new insights.