Concept

Descriptivist theory of names

Overview

theory in philosophy of language

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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1. Passing on from proper names, we come next to general names, such as "man," "cat," "triangle." A word such as "man" means a whole class of such collections of particulars as have proper names. The several members of the class are assembled together in virtue of some similarity or common property.

   Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind

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2. What I wish to discuss is the nature of our knowledge concerning objects in cases where we know that there is an object answering to a definite description, though we are not _acquainted_ with any such object. This is a matter which is concerned exclusively with _definite_ descriptions. I shall, therefore, in the sequel, speak simply of "descriptions" when I mean "definite descriptions." Thus a description will mean…

   Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays

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3. Naturally where the divorcing of words as symbols, from things as symbolized, is imperfect, there must be difficulty in giving to abstract words a sufficiently abstract meaning. If in the first stages of language the concrete name cannot be separated in thought from the concrete object it belongs to, it is inferable that in the course of forming successively higher grades of abstract names, there will have to be…

   Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics

   Close in meaning to Descriptivist theory of names; the term itself is not named.

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Philosophers who discussed Descriptivist theory of names

• David Chalmers
• Allan Gibbard
• Saul Kripke
• Gottlob Frege
• Gareth Evans (philosopher)

Related ideas

• Phosphorus (morning star)
• Naming and Necessity
• George Orwell
• Kurt Gödel
• Contingency (philosophy)
• Referent
• Nebraska
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Sense and reference
• Sense data
• David Chalmers
• Empirical evidence
• Logical consequence
• Logical truth
• Bertrand Russell
• Saul Kripke
• Gottlob Frege
• Animal Farm
• A priori and a posteriori
• Philosophy of language
• Causal theory of reference
• Hilary Putnam
• Possible world
• Hesperus

Place in the tradition

Part of Outline of philosophy.

Narrower topics:

• Animal Farm
• George Orwell
• Nebraska
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Referent
• Kent Bach
• Two-dimensionalism
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Bay Shore, New York

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