Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, John Stuart Mill and Anon (Lev)

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3 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
All names are names of something, real or imaginary [Mill]
     Full Idea: All names are names of something, real or imaginary.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.32), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2
     A reaction: Mill's example of of being like a chalk mark on a door, but Sainsbury points out that names can be detached from bearers in a way that chalk marks can't.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / c. Names as referential
Mill says names have denotation but not connotation [Mill, by Kripke]
     Full Idea: It is a well known doctrine of Mill that names have denotation but not connotation.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1
     A reaction: A nice starting point for any discussion of the topic. The obvious response is that a name like 'Attila the Hun' seems to have a very vague denotation for most of us, but a rather powerful connotation.
Proper names are just labels for persons or objects, and the meaning is the object [Mill, by Lycan]
     Full Idea: Mill seemed to defend the view that proper names are merely labels for individual persons or objects, and contribute no more than those individuals themselves to the meanings of sentences in which they occur.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language
     A reaction: Identity statements can become trivial on this view ('Twain is Clemens'). Modern views have become more sympathetic to Mill, since externalism places meanings outside the head of the speaker.