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3 ideas
10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
Full Idea: Failure of substitutivity shows that the occurrence of a personal name is not purely referential. | |
From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §1) | |
A reaction: I don't think I understand the notion of a name being 'purely' referential, as if it somehow ceased to be a word, and was completely transparent to the named object. |
15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
Full Idea: The indefinite description in 'A man will meet you' is naturally treated as quantificational, but an occurrence in predicative position, in 'Jones is not a philosopher', doesn't have a natural quantificational counterpart. | |
From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.23) |
15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
Full Idea: Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, rather than a singular term, is a real insight. | |
From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.22) | |
A reaction: 'Would the man who threw the stone come forward' seems like a different usage from 'would the man in the black hat come forward'. |