Dartmouth Events

Sapientia Lecture Series

Anders J. Schoubye (University of Edinburgh). "Type-Ambiguous Names." Free and open to all. Reception follows.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016
3:30pm – 5:00pm
Haldeman 125
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

Abstract: The orthodox view of proper names, Millianism, provides a very simple and elegant explanation of the semantic contribution (and semantic properties) of referential uses of names, canonically in sentences such as ’Sue is a philosopher’ or ’Sue married Bill'. However, one problem for Millianism is that it cannot explain the semantic contribution of predicative uses of names (as in e.g. ’there are two Alberts in my class’). In recent years, an alternative view, so- called The–Predicativism, has become increasingly popular. According to The–Predicativists, names are uniformly predicates. 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 predicate—and so, a referential name is a (covert) definite description. In this talk, 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 (type-) ambiguity view is better, we need to give up the standard Millian analysis. Consequently, I propose an alternative analysis of referential names that (a) retains the virtues of Millianism, but (b) 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.

Professor Schoubye is the Philosophy Department's visiting professor from the University of Edinburgh this summer.

The Sapientia Lecture Series is funded by The Mark J. Byrne 1985 Fund in Philosophy.

 

 

For more information, contact:
Marcia Welsh
(603) 646-3738

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.