The primary purpose of this paper is to offer various related arguments against the much-accepted belief that proper names do not - or must not - have any conceptual content. In the introduction, therefore, I describe various basics of the Kripkean position on proper names as it relates to the views expressed later in the paper.
One of the main reasons why many philosophers adopt a Kripkean position on names is the belief that many different people couldn’t possibly depend on - or even use - the same determinate name-content to pick out, fix and then keep the named object. However, there is an assumption here that many, if not all, Kripkeans depend upon when it comes to their defence of the belief that there are no name-contents. My argument is that we need not assume that a particular name must have, or actually does have, the same determinate name-content - for all people - in order to function as something that can help pick out, fix and then keep the named object. Instead, I think that it is the case that almost any name-content may do what’s required. However, there will still be contents that are, by nature, excluded – by all - from specific names; but only because of contextual matters. In that case, it is freely accepted in this paper that a single name-content indeed couldn’t do the required work needed for names because of reasons given by Kripkeans. It is also the case, however, that these problems may dissolve if proper names do actually rely on many - or various - name-contents that can still, nevertheless, actually succeed in picking out, fixing and then keeping the named object.
To follow on from all this. I offer a position that instead of accepting the much-used distinction between proper names and concepts (or descriptions), I make a distinction between first-order concepts and second-order concepts. First-order concepts are seen to be name-contents. And second –order concepts belong to descriptions. However, if names do in fact rely on name-contents, then they too are implicitly, or tacitly, conceptual (or descriptive). Despite that, first-order concepts (of names) are still given a special status in this scheme. They are not, however, different in kind, but only degree, from the second-order concepts of descriptions.
What we end up with is a scheme of interrelations between a named object, its name (which has content), and any descriptions of that named object (that will include second-order concepts). It is therefore not the case that either objects, or names, or descriptions, will have any kind of ontological or semantic primacy or, indeed, privilege within this scheme. We have, instead, a kind of ‘strange loop’ between these three levels. In the case of all cognised and named objects, the interrelations between all three levels will be fluid rather than rigid. This basically means, in part, that no level in the scheme can exist independently from the other two levels, whichever level is actually chosen by a philosopher.
Proper Names, Name-Contents and n-Order Concepts
Introduction: Basic Kripkean Positions on Non-Conceptual Proper Names
Perry makes a clear distinction between the ‘content’ of a definite description and the ‘content’ of a name. Such content, in the case of a definite description, will essentially be a ‘mode of presentation’. On the other hand, the ‘content of the utterance of a name will be the individual’ named (Perry, 1997).
Perry stresses the prime status of the ‘individual’. It is as if the individual is just what is regardless of our access to that individual. But which individual are we talking about? How do we know when that individual ends and another individual (or something else) begins? Or how has it been circumscribed or bounded from the spatial region or physical mass that surrounds it? Surely it is conceptual content that allows us to pick out and identify the scrutinized named object. And if that is the case, surely it is also descriptive content that allows us to name an object, in a Kripkean naming-baptism, in the first place.
Of course Kripke must have believed that if a name has any content at all, it must, to work, have a determinate content (perhaps via a sortal). Kripke might have asked us: Without determinate content how could we pick out, fix and keep the referent of the name? We would loose the object. Alternatively, Kripke might also have asked us: How would we know that we weren’t referring to different objects if we were really relying on different name-contents for the same name? These are good questions. However, would the referent or named object automatically be ‘well lost’ (Rorty, 1972/82) if we relied on any different name-contents for the same name? According to Bealer’s qualification (1998), the answer would still be, Yes. It’s not the case that any name-content of a name is acceptable or even workable. Clearly, if part of the content of the name ‘Tony Blair’ were deemed to be the content ‘the biggest toe’, or if someone applied the sortal planet to the name, then this person would indeed loose and not even pick out and fix the object. But could such a person have found the object in the first place if he were using such name-contents?
Although we do not need determinate contents, as Kripke demanded of us, we must have some content for the names we use. And these contents would help us both fix and keep the object. What we must do, according to Bealer, is ‘restrict the range of permissible sortals’ (1998). Or, as David Lewis perhaps might have put it (1996): There are certain sortals that are not even possible sortals for us because they are outside our ‘context’. Only certain sortals within certain contexts will be relevant and also capable of picking out, fixing and keeping a named object. Again, there may well be acceptable sortals outside our contexts. But we do not know about them. If a possible sortal is brought to our attention, and therefore made ‘actual’, it may well become relevant. And, as a new actual sortal, it may better suit the name whose content we are using, or thinking of using, as a means to pick out, fix and keep an object. So, in this case, we can dispense with or eliminate the content ‘the biggest toe’ and the sortal planet (they are too outré), and leave ourselves with the content, say, ‘the first leader of New Labour’ and/or the sortal politician.
We can still thereby pick out, fix and keep the named object. And the problem with Kripkean rigidity is that we could not do these things in the first place. Again, what is it that we are picking out, etc? We cannot simply say ‘an object’ or ‘the object of the name’.
n-Order Concepts
Names, Conceptual Content and Objects
What can we say about an object being ‘what it is’ without already presuming its essence? If we have already decided ‘what it is’, then what it is isn’t discovered a posteriori by finding out which properties remain throughout many ‘vicissitudes’ (Kaplan, 1968-9) and which ones don’t. The a priori ‘stipulation’, as I see it, of an object’s essence will tell us which properties remain and which do not.After all, certain properties may be deemed ‘essential’ at time t, but still not manage to remain over time. Similarly, certain properties may be deemed ‘inessential’ despite the fact that they do in fact remain throughout many vicissitudes. An object may remain the object that it is even though another community has chosen different ‘essential’ properties to characterise it. Also, a community’s object may ‘cease to exist’ (to us) before our own object, even if they are one and the same object. The essence, E, of thing¹, may disappear for that community, whereas our own essence, E¹, of the same thing¹, may remain.
Marcus (1990) talked about ‘unique’ descriptions of an object. Again, do these ‘unique’ descriptions depend on - or come via - an essence, or does the essence itself depend on - or come via - descriptions?In the first case, the descriptions would come via an a priori definition of an object’s essence. And in the second case, the essence would come via any descriptions of an object. In the latter case, the essence would not be known a priori and therefore the descriptions would in fact determine the essence. And if we accept that the descriptions come via the essence, then it is also the case that such (‘unique’ or essential) descriptions would in fact have come via earlier descriptions seen to constitute the essence of an object.
So we now have first- and second-order descriptions, rather than descriptions and essences. The descriptions that determine essence would be first-order descriptions. The second-order descriptions of the named object would depend on the first-order descriptions that have themselves come to be seen as the essence of the object (i.e., not descriptions). The second-order descriptions, of course, will be deemed ‘contingent’ by an essentialist. However, his essentialist position would tacitly depend on a set of first-order descriptions being taken as the ‘essence’ of an object. In theory, this order could be reversed. The second-order descriptions could become first-order descriptions and therefore the essence of an object. Likewise, first-order descriptions, or the supposed essence, could come to be seen as second-order descriptions to, say, another community or even to another essentialist.
In Marcus’s scheme, proper names refer to or pick out essences, or, as I’ve called them, first-order descriptions. Singular descriptive names actually refer to or pick out second-order descriptions of an object. Singular descriptive names are therefore supposed to refer to contingent properties or attributes of an object. Proper names, on the other hand, are thought to refer to - or pick out - the essence of a named object. But the essence of an object is just another set of descriptions that have been given a special first-order descriptive status. The Kripkean may now ask us: If proper names were referring to - or picking out - essences or first-order descriptions, then how come these descriptions are not contained by the name as it is in itself? Such descriptions are in fact contained in proper names, but they are hidden or disguised descriptions (Russell, as in Kripke, 1971): only used in the context of the use of the proper name. So, yes, the inscripted name itself could not have any content. But an inscripted name on a page could not be exclusively Kripkean either. It is indeed the case that such a descriptive content of a proper name will be oblique or indirect in the way it attaches itself to a named object. A proper name cannot escape this problem.
We can now say that the content of singular descriptive phrase is explicit, whereas the descriptive content of a proper name is tacit, or disguised, or implicit. Of course different people rely on different descriptive contents to fix and pick out the named object. It is thereby hoped that only a content-less proper name could refer directly to its object without ‘empirical vicissitudes’. However, just because the content of a proper name is implicit, this doesn’t mean that the proper name is not after all reliant upon descriptive content in order to pick out, fix and keep the named object.
In a certain sense, a proper name is in a worse position than a singular descriptive ‘name’ because we don’t know what the content is of other people’s uses of a proper name. And, of course, this is precisely what Kripkeans argue. That is why Kripke thought that proper names have no content. We may not even be sure what descriptive content we rely on when we use a proper name. At least a singular descriptive name places its cards on the table: we know the described object because we know the description we are using to pick out, fix and keep it.
The problem is that “fanatical mono-denotationalists” (Kaplan, 1968-9) are quite correct to point out the many problems brought about by relying on name-contents. However, simply because there are indeed such problems, that doesn’t automatically mean that proper names don’t in fact rely on descriptive content. I think that they do. Perhaps what was at stake, for Kripke, was something he thought, perhaps implicitly, a semantic but still normative issue. He might have thought, and Kripkeans may still think, that it should be the case that proper names have no conceptual content. Or it would be a good thing if this were the case. If we thereby deny names any content, then all the perceived Kripkean problems with picking out, fixing and the keeping a named object would disappear. But it ain’t the case that names are without content!
We could create an important difference in degree, but not kind, between proper names and definite descriptive names in that the same content or contents is/are always part of a particular proper name, whereas singular definite descriptive terms are free to come and go as we see fit. In that case, we would need to decide which fixed contents to apply to proper names. What would decide the matter? On the surface it is easy to show a difference of degree between the content of names and the content of explicit descriptions. For example, ‘the British Prime Minister’ would be a good content of the name ‘Tony Blair’. However, ‘the man who once went to Greece’ would not be.
What happens when Tony Blair is no longer the Prime Minister of Great Britain? The name ‘Tony Blair’ would then need a different content. However, it also depends on who is using the proper name ‘Tony Blair’. For example, the prime content of Cherie Blair’s use of the name ‘Tony Blair’ may not be ‘the Prime Minister of Great Britain’. Her primary content may instead be: ‘my husband who is also a great father’. Of course if singular descriptive phrases may remain true or accurate at all times, then such a phrase may also actually become a proper name in time. For example, the name ‘Jack the Ripper’ was once a descriptive phrase (e.g., a variation on ‘that ripper Jack’), but now it is used as a proper name. This is the case because Jack the Ripper will always be Jack the Ripper, whereas Tony Blair will not always be the British Prime Minister. Also, many people did not even know the actual real name of Jack the Ripper. In that case, the name might never have been a descriptive term for these people. Yet there is one way of turning the descriptive phrase ‘the British Prime Minister’ into a proper name, and that is by using this descriptive phrase instead: ‘the British Prime Minister during 2005’. That phrase will always be true of Tony Blair; and therefore of possible use in the future. It is also possible, but very unlikely, that ‘the British Prime Minister of 2005’ will be one day become the proper name of Tony Blair: namely, ‘The British Prime Minister of 2005’. Of course such a name is indeed burdensome, but still not that different from the name, for example, ‘Conan the Barbarian’.
Forbes on Proper Names, First-Order and Second-Order Dossiers
Forbes (1996), for one, offers us what seems to be a happy medium between ‘fanatical mono-denotationalism’ (Kaplan, 1968-9) and the possibility of the conceptual flux of a proper name. That is, “different persons that employ ‘NN’ have numerically different dossiers of ‘NN’ ”. However, according to Forbes, they also think of the object NN ‘in the same type of way’. An obvious question arises here: If different thinkers employ different dossiers of the name ‘NN’, why do they refer to NN ‘in the same type of way’? What is this ‘same type of way’? He may mean that although we use different dossiers of ‘NN’, we are still related to the same object. Also, perhaps we all also have causal contact with NN, or even the same kinds of causal contact with NN. However, can we separate, like Forbes, ‘the subject of this dossier’ from all the dossier or dossiers of that subject? What is this ‘subject’ without any dossier? We could say that precisely because different dossiers are applied to the same subject, then such a separation can indeed be made (just as different sentences are seen to express the same proposition). This is acceptable as long as we don’t see the subject as separable, or separable in principle, from all dossiers, just as we can’t see a proposition as separable from all sentential expressions of that proposition. Again, we need to know what Forbes means by thinking of NN ‘in the same type of way’ despite our different dossiers.
We could of course have a first-order dossier or set of descriptions of NN. For example, say that ‘NN’ is the name ‘Tony Blair’ again. The first-order dossier or description of Tony Blair could again be: ‘the Prime Minister of Great Britain’. On the other hand, the second-order dossier ‘the man who used to play guitar at Oxford’ would clearly be second order. We could then say that second-order dossiers or descriptions are parasitical on first-order dossiers or descriptions. Without the first-order ‘the Prime Minister of Great Britain’ we may not be able to use or make sense of the second-order ‘the man who played guitar at OxfordUniversity’. There probably wouldn’t be a description ‘the man who played guitar at OxfordUniversity’ if Tony Blair were not Prime Minister of Great Britain. In that sense ‘the man who played guitar at OxfordUniversity’ is relative to Tony Blair being the Prime Minister of Great Britain, or, at least, to the dossier or description that describes that situation. Again, many people wouldn’t know that Tony Blair played the guitar at OxfordUniversity if he were not Prime Minister. Of course some people will know that Tony Blair played guitar at OxfordUniversity regardless of his being Prime Minister. In that case, such people may not use such a description as ‘the man who played guitar at OxfordUniversity’ of Tony Blair. They may say, instead, that ‘Tony Blair played the guitar at OxfordUniversity’ without using the definite article ‘the’ or the word ‘man’. Such people may also have a different first-order dossier or set of descriptions of Tony Blair, such as ‘my loyal husband and the father of my children’. Similarly, their second-order dossiers may be our first-order dossiers.
And just as second- and first-order dossiers may swap places, so may first-order dossiers become proper names (as in the name ‘Jack the Ripper’). And if first-order dossiers or descriptions become proper names, then these new proper names will require their own first- and second-order dossiers. It may then even be the case that descriptive proper names like ‘Jack the Ripper’ will have their own first- and second-order dossiers, even though they were once taken to be descriptions themselves. It is of course easy to formulate first- and second-order dossiers of the descriptive name ‘Jack the Ripper’. For example, ‘the man who killed prostitutes.’ Whether that would be a first- or second-order dossier would of course depend on those using the name ‘Jack the Ripper’. For someone who knew Jack the Ripper it may well have been a second-order dossier of the killer. However, for someone who likes reading books about Jack the Ripper it may well be a first-order dossier of the name ‘Jack the Ripper’.
This raises the question of whether or not we can use or rely on just one single dossier or description of a proper name. If that were the case, then that dossier would be pretty close to a proper name as conceived by many denotationalists. And if the same single dossier were used or relied upon by many persons, then such a dossier would be even closer to being - or functioning as - a proper name. Indeed, many people may use the single first-order dossier more than they use the proper name of the subject. In that case such a use of a single first-order dossier would function as a proper name despite its descriptive nature. This is especially possible if we bear in mind the actual historical fact that many one-time descriptions have become proper names. Think here, as stated earlier, of the name ‘Alexander the Great’. Of course the first two examples incorporate a name into the description. However, their descriptive predicates are still part of the actual descriptive proper names. There are, however, proper names that are descriptive but don’t incorporate a name within a proper name. For example, ‘The Lady With The Lamp’.
Conceptual Proper Names and Their Objects
One content of Tony Blair, for example, could be [the smiling politician]. Another person’s content could be [the great Prime Minister]. This is a playful way at hinting at the possibility of an object, TonyBlair, being distinguishable from all concepts of Tony Blair. It is still the case that Tony Blair will ‘fall under’ concepts, even if the two suggested were never utilised. We cannot cognise an object as being Tony Blair without concepts that make an object capable of being known as being Tony Blair, or seen as being Tony Blair, or spoken of as being named ‘Tony Blair’.
Back to Tony Blair.
Kripke argued that the proper name ‘Tony Blair’ is not a description (‘disguised’ or otherwise). It is a ‘rigid designator’. The rigid designator ‘Tony Blair’ designates Tony Blair no matter what conceptual flux may surround him. Concepts and names, of course, don’t change the object Tony Blair.But to know Tony Blair as being something other than an x we would need concepts. According to Kripke, ‘Tony Blair’ is a non-conceptual and non-descriptive rigid designator. Since ‘Tony Blair’ has designated Tony Blair, it designates him rigidly. Tony Blair will always be ‘Tony Blair’ in our world, though not necessarily others, therefore we can refer to Tony Blair instead of referring to an x. The name ‘Tony Blair’ doesn’t individuate, differentiate and identify Tony Blair, it only designates him. This is a metaphysical point. The actual conceptual individuation is psychological. x isn’t necessarily [Tony Blair] because the latter is an applied concept. If ‘Tony Blair’ is non-conceptual, then x or Tony Blair is necessarily named ‘Tony Blair’ in our world.
All this in itself doesn’t mean that we don’t need concepts of Tony Blair to know Tony Blair as being Tony Blair, to see Tony Blair as being Tony Blair, or to speak of Tony Blair as being named ‘Tony Blair’. It only means that the object we have baptised or named ‘Tony Blair’, which is a contingent act, is Tony Blair no matter what concepts or names we throw at it. The name ‘Tony Blair’ always designates the object Tony Blair no matter what the conceptual flux around him is like. The rigid designator ‘Tony Blair’ is applied to the object Tony Blair, but the object which is rigidly designated by the name ‘Tony Blair’ is still known as the object, not name, Tony Blair, seen as being Tony Blair, via concepts. The object, Tony Blair, itself doesn’t depend on the concepts of other people for its existence. However, Tony Blair being known as Tony Blair does depend on concepts. If we didn’t have one or more concepts of the object Tony Blair, we wouldn’t be able to know that the name ‘Tony Blair’ referred to the object Tony Blair. We would only know that ‘Tony Blair’ is applicable to something that is called ‘Tony Blair’, which is a tautological conclusion.
The relation between the name ‘Tony Blair’ and the object Tony Blair being known as Tony Blair could be said to belong to the philosophy of mind or, as Peacocke puts it, the ‘theory of thought’ (Peacocke, 1989). Concepts of the individuation, differentiation and identification of Tony Blair, which amounts to applying conceptual criteria of identity to Tony Blair, could be concepts of his looks, position, behaviour, etc. There could even be a singular (if unlikely and pretty useless) concept of Tony Blair: [Tony Blair is the object which fits the name ‘Tony Blair’]. We could still ask: How can this singular concept successfully individuate, differentiate and identify Tony Blair as being Tony Blair? It is unlikely that such a concept on its own could do the job of individuating, etc. any single object.
My point about the reliance of conceptual criteria for proper names can be found in another form from 46 years ago (Searle, 1958). The proper name ‘Tony Blair’, according to Searle, has no ‘sense’, and it isn’t in itself a description. However, ‘Tony Blair’, the name, is ‘logically tied’ to particular concepts of Tony Blair. The object Tony Blair can’t be individuated as being Tony Blair without concepts (or ‘characteristics’ or ‘sense’ in Searle’s words). I would qualify not the technical terms of Searle but his statement that the name ‘Tony Blair’ must be ‘logically tied to particular [my italics] characteristics’ of Tony Blair. Particular concepts, or ‘characteristics’, are not needed. Any will do, as long as the name ‘Tony Blair’ is conceptualised in some shape or form.
I would also disagree with Searle when he says that once we have identified the referent of ‘Tony Blair’ we can ‘forget or ignore the various descriptions’ (1958) which helped designate Tony Blair. We will still need to conceptualise both the name ‘Tony Blair’ and the object Tony Blair. We need not even rely on any of the past concepts (or ‘descriptions’) of Tony Blair, as long as we rely on a concept or concepts of some shape or form that will help individuate Tony Blair as being Tony Blair. So this might have been why Searle said that these concepts ‘are not part of the sense’ (1958) of the proper name ‘Tony Blair’. He didn’t think that ‘Tony Blair’ has a sense. But does it follow that because of this possible conceptual flux surrounding the name ‘Tony Blair’, and, therefore, the object Tony Blair, that there is no ‘sense’ attached to the name ‘Tony Blair’? The conceptual flux (or descriptional flux) seemed to hint at, for Searle, the name’s independence from all concepts. But not having determinate and long-lasting concepts attached to ‘Tony Blair’ doesn’t mean that no concepts therefore are attached to ‘Tony Blair’.
I agree that particular concepts of Tony Blair do not determine or fix reference for everyone because other people may use other concepts to apply to Tony Blair. The object itself does not do the determining or the fixing. This is one reason why we can indeed distinguish x from the concepts of x. If the ‘a’ and ‘b’ (definite descriptions) of Kripke’s conceptual scheme (1971) become, in my mind, the concepts [the smiling politician] and [the great PM], then ‘in every possible world’ (Kripke, 1971) [the smiling politician] and [the great PM] wouldn’t necessarily‘refer to this same object x’ (i.e., Tony Blair). Does this automatically make the proper name ‘Tony Blair’ non-conceptual? Tony Blair, or x, can indeed be distinguished from a particular concept, or thousands of concepts (or even all concepts if he is no longer cognised). It is absolutely clear and accepted that [the great PM] need not refer to Tony Blair, or [the smiling politician] for that matter. ‘Tony Blair’, the proper name, is certainly not like the concept [the smiling politician]. For a start, everyone shares the name ‘Tony Blair’, but few share the concept [the smiling politician]. And even the person who exclusively uses the concept [the smiling politician] cannot dispense with the name ‘Tony Blair’. The name would enable other people to know to whom he is referring when he uses the definite description ‘the smiling politician’.
Just because everyone shares the name ‘Tony Blair’, that doesn’t in itself automatically make it non-conceptual. We all share the word ‘liberty’, but we wouldn’t call that word ‘non-conceptual’.
‘Tony Blair’ may, therefore, be seen as non-conceptual because its referent is a particular concrete object. ‘Liberty’ hasn’t got such a referent and neither has a noun of a class of concrete objects like ‘cat’. ‘Tony Blair’ does indeed refer to a particular concrete object, unlike [the smiling politician] or ‘the smiling politician’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘cat’. There are good reasons to accept that ‘Tony Blair’ is different from a concept, a definite description, an abstract or a concrete noun. It seems that there is a precise and determinate correlation between ‘Tony Blair’ and Tony Blair. Does this seeming distinctiveness and determinateness automatically necessitate non-conceptuality? Does it determine that ‘Tony Blair’ is indeed a rigid designator? However, no matter what is being said, ‘Tony Blair’ is tied to Tony Blair with the help of concepts. The name ‘Tony Blair’ is conceptual therefore the object Tony Blair is conceptual when cognised. It is indeed the case that a proper noun has a special status. All those that don’t share concepts or descriptions of Tony Blair share the proper name instead. That, again, doesn’t automatically make it non-conceptual.
We could say, as earlier, that the object Tony Blair is first level. The name ‘Tony Blair’ is second level. And the concepts of Tony Blair or ‘Tony Blair’, like [the smiling politician], are third level. However, all three levels are conceptual. The object Tony Blair is cognised via concepts. The name ‘Tony Blair’ is a second-level term, and therefore more important and more collective in nature than third-level concepts. And, of course, the third-level concepts are conceptual.
It is the case that the third-level concepts are reliant on the conceptual second-level ‘Tony Blair’ and the first-level object Tony Blair (they amount to the same thing). As I said, the shared name ‘Tony Blair’ makes easy communication possible. It is almost invariant because it always applies to Tony Blair. As Kripke said about ‘b’, or my concept [the smiling politician], that may not apply to Tony Blair at another possible world. The proper name ‘Tony Blair’ has therefore a special status, as agreed before. It is special because it does indeed refer to Tony Blair without specific concepts or descriptions. This doesn’t stop people giving ‘Tony Blair’ specific concepts. The referent partly determines the name ‘Tony Blair’ (on, say, a causal theory of reference). But, the other way around, ‘Tony Blair’ can only refer to Tony Blair via concepts.
There is therefore a two-way process. One, from Tony Blair as object to the concepts of Tony Blair. Two, from the concepts of Tony Blair to the object Tony Blair. The object, Tony Blair, is non-conceptual when uncognised. If it is cognised, it will partly determine our concepts of it (but not their precise nature). There is a relation between a cognised x and its proper name. As soon as x reaches out to a proper name, as it were, it is immediately cognised and therefore conceptualised because this is the second of a two-way process: from concepts to x. And you can’t have x to concepts without having concepts tox (or vice versa).
The first-level world (of objects), the second-level world (of proper names), and the third-level world (of concepts), are all distinct yet necessarily interrelated. It is the case that the first-level world (of objects) does no depend on the second- or third-level world unless cognised. Clearly the second-level world depends on the first- and third-level worlds. And, finally, the third-level world (of concepts) depends on the second- and first-level worlds. The second-level world (of proper names) is a kind of axis around which the indeterminate first-level world and the possible conceptual flux of the third-level world gravitate. The second-level name ‘Tony Blair’ is clearly more important and distinctive than my own [the smiling politician]. Also the object Tony Blair is more important and relevant than my contingent concept too. This clear hierarchy
Concepts ↨ Proper names (with content) ↨ Objects
doesn’t stop concepts being important and relevant to all three worlds.
References
Bealer, G. (1998) ‘Propositions’ in Mind, 107, 425
Davidson, D. (1989) ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’ in Truth and Interpretation:
Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. E. LePore
Forbes, G. (1996) ‘Substitutivity and the Coherence of Quantifying In’ from The PhilosophicalReview,
105, note 18
Kaplan, D. (1968-9) ‘Quantifying In’ in Synthese, 19, note 23
Kripke, S. (1971) ‘Identity and Necessity’ in Identity and Individuation, ed. M.K. Munitz
Lewis, D. (1996) ‘Elusive Knowledge’ in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, 4
Marcus, R.B. (1990) ‘A Backward Look at Quine’s Animadversions on Modalities’ in Perspectives on
Quine, eds. R. B. Barrett and R. F. Gibson
Peacocke, C. (1983) ‘Sensation and Content of Experience’ in his Sense and Content
Perry, J. (1997) ‘Indexicals and Demonstratives’ in A Companion to the Philosophy of Language
Rorty, R. (1972/1982) ‘World Well Lost’ in his Consequences of Pragmatism
Searle, J. (1958/1967) ‘Proper Names’ in Philosophical Logic, ed. P.F. Strawson
