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Single Idea 13777
[filed under theme 5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
]
Full Idea
A name is a sort of tool.
Gist of Idea
A name is a sort of tool
Source
Plato (Cratylus [c.377 BCE], 388a)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.106
A Reaction
Idea 13775 gives a background for this metaphor, from earlier in the text. Wittgenstein has a famous toolkit metaphor for language. The whole of this text, 'Cratylus', is about names.
Related Idea
Idea 13775
We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato]
The
32 ideas
with the same theme
[general ideas about how names function in sentences]:
13777
|
A name is a sort of tool
[Plato]
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13790
|
A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it
[Plato]
|
13791
|
Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge
[Plato]
|
12974
|
People who can't apply names usually don't understand the thing to which it applies
[Leibniz]
|
10427
|
All names are names of something, real or imaginary
[Mill]
|
18772
|
We can treat designation by a few words as a proper name
[Frege]
|
8447
|
In 'Etna is higher than Vesuvius' the whole of Etna, including all the lava, can't be the reference
[Frege]
|
6102
|
You can understand 'author of Waverley', but to understand 'Scott' you must know who it applies to
[Russell]
|
10423
|
There are a set of criteria for pinning down a logically proper name
[Russell, by Sainsbury]
|
9364
|
Names represent a uniformity in experience, or they name nothing
[Lewis,CI]
|
18727
|
A person's name doesn't mean their body; bodies don't sit down, and their existence can be denied
[Wittgenstein]
|
4139
|
Naming is a preparation for description
[Wittgenstein]
|
23506
|
Names are primitive, and cannot be analysed
[Wittgenstein]
|
8453
|
If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers
[Quine]
|
10788
|
Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference
[Marcus (Barcan)]
|
10786
|
Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun
[Marcus (Barcan)]
|
17505
|
Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions
[Putnam]
|
14650
|
Maybe proper names involve essentialism
[Plantinga]
|
10437
|
Names are rigid, making them unlike definite descriptions
[Kripke, by Sainsbury]
|
4949
|
Names are rigid designators, which designate the same object in all possible worlds
[Kripke]
|
9038
|
We must distinguish what the speaker denotes by a name, from what the name denotes
[Evans]
|
5824
|
How can an expression be a name, if names can change their denotation?
[Evans]
|
9042
|
A private intention won't give a name a denotation; the practice needs it to be made public
[Evans]
|
13360
|
In logic, a name is just any expression which refers to a particular single object
[Bostock]
|
12648
|
Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind
[Fodor]
|
12650
|
'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file
[Fodor]
|
3005
|
'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties
[Fodor]
|
13402
|
We only grasp a name if we know whether to apply it when the bearer changes
[Jubien]
|
13405
|
The baptiser picks the bearer of a name, but social use decides the category
[Jubien]
|
12876
|
Philosophy is stuck on the Fregean view that an individual is anything with a proper name
[Simons]
|
13134
|
We negate predicates but do not negate names
[Westerhoff]
|
18935
|
Semantic theory should specify when an act of naming is successful
[Sawyer]
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