Consequences of Reference Failure

167 Pages·2020·1.121 MB·English

by  Michael McKinsey

Consequences of Reference
Failure
This book defends the Direct Reference (DR) thesis in philosophy of
language regarding proper names and indexical pronouns. It uniquely
draws out the significant consequences of DR when it is conjoined with
the fact that these singular terms sometimes fail to refer.
Even though DR is widely endorsed by philosophers of language, many
philosophically important and radically controversial consequences of
the thesis have gone largely unexplored. This book makes an important
contribution to the DR literature by explicitly addressing the consequences
that follow from DR regarding failure of reference. Michael McKinsey
argues that only a form of neutral free logic can capture a revised concept
of logical truth that is consistent with the fact that any sentence of
any form that contains a directly referring genuine term can fail to be
either true or false on interpretations where that term fails to refer. He
also explains how it is possible for there to be true (or false) sentences
that contain non-referring names, even though this possibility seems
inconsistent with DR.
Consequences of Reference Failure will be of interest to philosophers
of language and logic and linguists working on Direct Reference.
Michael McKinsey is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Wayne State
University, Detroit, Michigan.
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Consequences of Reference Failure
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For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/book-series/SE0720
Consequences of Reference
Failure
Michael McKinsey
First published 2020
by Routledge
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77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McKinsey, Michael, author.
Title: Consequences of reference failure / Michael McKinsey.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge
studies in contemporary philosophy ; 130 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019040072 (print) | LCCN 2019040073 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367363109 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429345579 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Reference (Linguistics) | Reference (Philosophy) |
Language and logic. | Semantics.
Classification: LCC P325.5.R44 M385 2019 (print) |
LCC P325.5.R44 (ebook) | DDC 121/.68—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040072
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040073
ISBN: 978-0-367-36310-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34557-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
In loving memory of
Pamela Sears McKinsey

Contents
Acknowledgements x
1 Direct Reference and Descriptivism: History and Problems 1
1. Mill and Russell on Proper Names 3
2. The Problem of Identity 5
3. The Problem of Substitution 7
4. Russell’s Theory of Descriptions 10
5. Russell’s Descriptivism 12
6. Kripke’s Arguments Against Descriptivism 13
6.1 The Modal Arguments 13
6.2 The Epistemological Arguments 15
6.3 Are Names Short for Rigid Descriptions? 15
6.4 A Final Modal Example 18
6.5 The Semantic Arguments 19
7. Reference-Fixing by Description and the Semantics of
Indexicals 21
8. Conclusion 23
2 From Direct Reference to Free Logic 27
1. When Direct Reference Fails 27
2. Direct Reference and Failure of Bivalence 29
3. Some Inadequacies of Classical Logic 31
4. Varieties of Free Logic 33
5. Definite Descriptions in Free Logic 38
6. Definite Descriptions Are Quantifiers 41
7. Is There a Problem With Partial Interpretations? 45
8. Conclusion 48
viii Contents
3 From Neutral Free Logic to a posteriori Necessity 53
1. Motivations for Neutral Free Semantics 53
2. Quantifiers in Neutral Free Logic 55
2.1 Some Negative Arguments 56
2.2 A Simple Positive Argument 59
2.3 Another Positive Argument 60
3. From Logical Truth to a posteriori Necessity 66
3.1 Singular Classical ‘Logical Truths’ Are Typically
a posteriori 66
3.2 A Modal Semantics MNFL Based on NuFL 68
3.3 A posteriori Necessities in MNFL 70
3.4 Validity in MNFL 73
3.5 Zalta’s Objection 76
4. Conclusion 78
Appendix 1: Semantics for Neutral Free Logic
(NuFL) 80
Appendix 2: A Semantics for Modal Logic MNFL 84
4 Some Alternatives to Using Neutral Free Logic 89
1. Braun’s ‘Gappy Propositions’ 89
2. Maybe There Are No Empty Names: Salmon’s
View 92
3. Meinongian Quantification 95
4. Substitutional Quantification 102
4.1 Substitutionalism 104
4.2 When the Substitution Class Contains Only
Proper Names 106
4.3 Has the ‘Too Few Names’ Problem Already Been
Solved? 107
4.4 When Demonstratives Are Allowed in the
Substitution Class 109
4.5 Adding Definite Descriptions to the Substitution
Class 110
4.6 Meinongian Generalizations 113
5. Conclusion 114
5 Truths Containing Empty Names 119
1. Descriptive Names 120
2. The Idiomatic Use of Descriptive Names 122
3. An Alternative Pragmatic Explanation 124
4. Names From Mythology 126
Contents ix
5. Names From Fiction 129
6. Abstract Mythical Beings and Fictional
Characters 132
7. The Use of Names in Cognitive Contexts 136
8. Conclusion 140
Bibliography 143
Index 151