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Donnellan's Theory of Names1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

John V. Canfield
John V. Canfield
Affiliation:
Erindale College, the University of Toronto
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Extract

Keith S. Donnellan and, independently, Saul Kripke have presented counterxamples to that fregean theory of proper names associated with Strawson, Searle and others. As well, Donnellan has put forward a rival theory to the Fregean one. It is not fully worked out, and is obscure; but it is not empty and, in contrast to Kripke's positive account of names, is not meant to be a mere “picture”.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 104 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1977

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References

2 Donnellan, Keith S., “Reference and Definite Descriptions”. (RD) Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1968) 218–304;Google Scholar “Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again”, Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1968) 203–15; “Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions”, (PN) Synthese (1970). reprinted in Davidson and Harman (eds.) Semantics of Natural Language (Dordrecht, 1972); and “Speaking of Nothing” (SN) Philosophical Review, LXXXIII (1974) 3–31. Saul Kripke, “Naming and Necessity” in Semantics of Natural Language. See also Charles Chastain, “Reference and Context” forthcoming in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science.

3 Loc. cit., p. 343 (footnote 3). Kripke notes here that Donnellan's distinction vis-a-vis definite descriptions (cf. RD) can be applied to names.

4 Cf. Searle, John, “Proper Names”, Mind 67 (1958) 166–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strawson, P. F., Individuals (London, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 PN, p. 370 ff.

6 At least, a non-notion if one holds to some standard notion of explaining. “Explain who” can sometimes be used to request someone just to say who, or to make it clear to the audience who, etc,; e.g. a mother might tell her child, who is rather inarticulately telling a group of the mother's friends what transpired that morning at breakfast with the Governor General, “Explain who it is you are talking about, dear,” might then be used to get the child to make it clear that she i s talking about the Governor General himself. But this use is of no use to Don-nellan; it involves no real explanation at all.

7 “Naming and Necessity”, p. 302.

8 These cases, it may be noted, refute the claim made by Steven E. Boer, that “the referent of a proper name in a particular employment is that object (if any) which the speaker intends to identify to his audience by uttering that name”. Cf. his “Reference and Identifying Descriptions,” Philosophical Review, p. 228.

9 Cf. Wittgenstein's, Zettel, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (Berkeley, 1967), Sections 114, 115, 116 and passim.Google Scholar