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Concept
Descriptivist theory of names
Résumé
In the philosophy of language, the descriptivist theory of proper names (also descriptivist theory of reference) is the view that the meaning or semantic content of a proper name is identical to the descriptions associated with it by speakers, while their referents are determined to be the objects that satisfy these descriptions. Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege have both been associated with the descriptivist theory, which is sometimes called the mediated reference theory or Frege–Russell view.
In the 1970s, this theory came under attack from causal theorists such as Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and others. However, it has seen something of a revival in recent years, especially under the form of what are called two-dimensional semantic theories. This latter trend is exemplified by the theories of David Chalmers, among others.
A simple descriptivist theory of names can be thought of as follows: for every proper name p, there is some collection of descriptions D associated with p that constitute the meaning of p. For example, the descriptivist may hold that the proper name Saul Kripke is synonymous with the collection of descriptions such as
the man who wrote Naming and Necessity
a person who was born on November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York
the son of a leader of Beth El Synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska
etc ...
The descriptivist takes the meaning of the name Saul Kripke to be that collection of descriptions and takes the referent of the name to be the thing that satisfies all or most of those descriptions.
A simple descriptivist theory may further hold that the meaning of a sentence S that contains p is given by the collection of sentences produced by replacing each instance of p in S with one of the descriptions in D. So, the sentence such as "Saul Kripke stands next to a table" has the same meaning as the following collection of sentences:
The man who wrote Naming and Necessity stands next to a table.
A person who was born on November 13, 1940 in Bay Shore, New York stands next to a table.
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