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    Empty names lack a content, according to the Millian-Russ... — Carmelics
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    Empty names lack a content, according to the Millian-Russellian view.

    Philosophy of Language
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The Millian-Russellian holds that the content of a name is its referent.
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    • 2.Empty names have no referent.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Fregean sense provides a level of meaning distinct from reference, allowing empty names to express a mode of presentation without denoting an object.
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    • 2.Sentences containing empty names like 'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' are cognitively meaningful and support genuine inferential relations, which requires some semantic content.
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    • 3.A theory of content that cannot account for the meaningfulness of fiction and mythology fails an adequacy condition that any serious semantic theory must meet.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kripke's Millianism itself acknowledges that empty names like 'Sherlock Holmes' function as rigid designators in modal contexts, presupposing some semantic role beyond mere bearer-absence.
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    • 2.Pretense and make-believe theories (Walton, Evans) assign empty names a form of descriptive or fictional content grounded in narrative practice, not referential failure.
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    Philosophy of Language

    Related

    A theory of content that cannot account for the meaningfulness of fiction and my...Empty names have no referent.Fregean sense provides a level of meaning distinct from reference, allowing empt...Kripke's Millianism itself acknowledges that empty names like 'Sherlock Holmes' ...
    +3 moreShow less
    Pretense and make-believe theories (Walton, Evans) assign empty names a form of ...Sentences containing empty names like 'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' are cogni...The Millian-Russellian holds that the content of a name is its referent.

    Similar

    The Millian-Russellian view that empty names lack content is problemat...88%If empty names genuinely lack content, it is difficult to explain how ...80%The Millian-Russellian holds that the content of a name is its referen...77%Proper names lack Fregean senses76%

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    The first of these problems involves the existence of empty names: names which have no referent. It is a commonplace that there are such names; an example is “Vulcan”, the name introduced for the planet between Mercury and the sun which was causing perturbations in the orbit of Mercury. Because the Millian-Russellian says that the content of a name is its referent, the Millian-Russellian seems forced into saying that empty names lack a content. But this is surprising; it seems that we can use em
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit