On the Very Idea of Metalinguistic Theories of Names

Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5 (2018)
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Abstract

Metalinguistic approaches to names hold that proper names are semantically associated with name-bearing properties. I argue that metalinguistic theorists owe us an account of the metaphysics of those properties. The unique structure of the debate about names gives an issue which might look to be narrowly linguistic an important metaphysical dimension. The only plausible account of name-bearing treats name-bearing properties as a species of response-dependent property. I outline how such an account should look, drawing on forms of response-dependence identified in the literature on colour, moral properties, etc. Having done that, I show how the account can illuminate a feature of the communicative function of names which would otherwise be puzzling from the perspective of metalinguistic accounts.

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Aidan Gray
University of Illinois, Chicago

Citations of this work

Unspeakable names.Eliot Michaelson - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-19.
Facts of identity.M. J. García-Encinas - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

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