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Full Idea
If it were possible for a definite description to be empty - not in the sense of there being no object that satisfies it, but of there being no set of properties it refers to - the problem of empty names would not have been solved.
Gist of Idea
Definites descriptions don't solve the empty names problem, because the properties may not exist
Source
Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 5)
Book Ref
'Routledge Companion to Phil of Language', ed/tr. Russell/Graff Faria [Routledge 2015], p.160
A Reaction
Swoyer is thinking of properties like 'is a unicorn', which are clearly just as vulnerable to being empty as 'the unicorn' was. It seems unlikely that 'horse', 'white' and 'horn' would be empty.
| 18935 | Semantic theory should specify when an act of naming is successful [Sawyer] |
| 18934 | Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer] |
| 18938 | Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer] |
| 18945 | Millians say a name just means its object [Sawyer] |
| 18947 | Definites descriptions don't solve the empty names problem, because the properties may not exist [Sawyer] |