Jessica Pepp: Proper Names and the Referential-Attributive Distinction

The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Jessica Pepp, Uppsala, "Proper Names and the Referential-Attributive Distinction".

Abstract 

Keith Donnellan’s (1966) distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions is closely connected to his (1970, 1974) approach to the semantics and metasemantics of proper names. Although often assimilated to Saul Kripke’s (1980) picture of proper names, Donnellan’s approach is in fact quite different from Kripke’s. (Bianchi and Bonanini 2014, Almog 2014, Capuano 2020). To put things roughly, Kripke takes proper name tokens to refer to what the name names—for Kripke, the thing to which the name was given at the origin of a chain of communication of which the current speaker is a part. Donnellan, on the other hand, takes proper name tokens to refer to the thing that explains a speaker’s use of the name on a given occasion—the thing a speaker  “has in mind”. 

There has been some recent debate about which of these basic approaches is the more promising one (e.g., those already cited, as well as Martí 2015, Pepp 2019, Devitt 2020, among others.) In this talk, I suggest that both approaches have a place. This is because proper names, like definite descriptions, have both a referential and an attributive use. Donnellan’s approach is well suited to the referential use; Kripke’s is well suited to the attributive use. I support this outlook by arguing, first, that a number of considerations that have been raised in favour of taking the referential use of definite descriptions to be of semantic (not merely pragmatic) import also apply to referential uses of proper names. This bolsters the importance of Donnellan’s approach to the semantics and metasemantics of names. Second, I argue that names—even if they lack any descriptive content—have an attributive use, in which the lexical meaning of the name is relied on to make it the case that a particular thing (what the name names) is referred to. This bolsters the importance of Kripke’s approach to the semantics and metasemantics of names.  

All interested are welcome to participate in this seminar.

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