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Full Idea
Anyone should agree that a justification for regarding a singular term as having objectual reference is provided just as soon as one has justification for regarding as true certain atomic statements in which it functions as a singular term.
Gist of Idea
Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true
Source
B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9)
Book Ref
'Metametaphysics', ed/tr. Chalmers/Manley/Wasserman [OUP 2009], p.207
A Reaction
The meat of this idea is hidden in the word 'certain'. See Idea 10314 for Hale's explanation. Without that, the proposal strikes me as absurd.
Related Idea
Idea 10314 An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase [Hale]
12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
12224 | Are neo-Fregeans 'maximalists' - that everything which can exist does exist? [Hale/Wright] |
12225 | Neo-Fregeanism might be better with truth-makers, rather than quantifier commitment [Hale/Wright] |
12226 | The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright] |
12227 | Abstractionism needs existential commitment and uniform truth-conditions [Hale/Wright] |
12228 | Equivalence abstraction refers to objects otherwise beyond our grasp [Hale/Wright] |
12231 | Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright] |
12230 | Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true [Hale/Wright] |
12229 | Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright] |
18443 | A successful predicate guarantees the existence of a property - the way of being it expresses [Hale/Wright] |