Switch to: References

Citations of:

Names Are Variables

Philosophical Review 129 (1):53-94 (2020)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Against Second-Order Primitivism.Bryan Pickel - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    In the language of second-order logic, first- and second-order variables are distinguished syntactically and cannot be grammatically substituted. According to a prominent argument for the deployment of these languages, these substitution failures are necessary to block the derivation of paradoxes that result from attempts to generalize over predicate interpretations. I first examine previous approaches which interpret second-order sentences using expressions of natural language and argue that these approaches undermine these syntactic restrictions. I then examine Williamson’s primitivist approach according to which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Identity and Harmony and Modality.Julian J. Schlöder - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (5):1269-1294.
    Stephen Read presented harmonious inference rules for identity in classical predicate logic. I demonstrate here how this approach can be generalised to a setting where predicate logic has been extended with epistemic modals. In such a setting, identity has two uses. A rigid one, where the identity of two referents is preserved under epistemic possibility, and a non-rigid one where two identical referents may differ under epistemic modality. I give rules for both uses. Formally, I extend Quantified Epistemic Multilateral Logic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The metaphysical burden of Millianism.Nikhil Mahant - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-19.
    The Millian semantic view of names relies on a metaphysical view of names—often given the label ‘common currency conception’ —on which the names of distinct individuals count as distinct names. While even defenders of the Millian view admit that the CCC ‘does not agree with the most common usage’, I will argue further that the CCC makes names exceptional amongst the class of linguistic expressions: if the CCC is correct, then names must have a sui-generis metaphysical nature, distinct from the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Review of Dolf Rami’s ‘Names and Context: A Use-Sensitive Philosophical Account’. [REVIEW]Nikhil Mahant - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (3):1269-1273.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Propositions as (Flexible) Types of Possibilities.Nate Charlow - 2019 - In Chris Tillman & Adam Murray (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Propositions. Routledge. pp. 211-230.
    // tl;dr A Proposition is a Way of Thinking // -/- This chapter is about type-theoretic approaches to propositional content. Type-theoretic approaches to propositional content originate with Hintikka, Stalnaker, and Lewis, and involve treating attitude environments (e.g. "Nate thinks") as universal quantifiers over domains of "doxastic possibilities" -- ways things could be, given what the subject thinks. -/- This chapter introduces and motivates a line of a type-theoretic theorizing about content that is an outgrowth of the recent literature on epistemic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Against Fregean Quantification.Bryan Pickel & Brian Rabern - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (37):971-1007.
    There are two dominant approaches to quantification: the Fregean and the Tarskian. While the Tarskian approach is standard and familiar, deep conceptual objections have been pressed against its employment of variables as genuine syntactic and semantic units. Because they do not explicitly rely on variables, Fregean approaches are held to avoid these worries. The apparent result is that the Fregean can deliver something that the Tarskian is unable to, namely a compositional semantic treatment of quantification centered on truth and reference. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The cross‐linguistic uses of proper names.Nikhil Mahant - forthcoming - Theoria.
    A distinctive and widely recognized feature of proper names is that, unlike other words, names can be used across languages without modification. Yet, this feature of names—the prevalence and acceptability of their ‘cross‐linguistic’ uses—has been mostly overlooked within philosophy. This article highlights the theoretical importance of the cross‐linguistic uses of names in the debate concerning their syntax and semantics. It identifies an anomalous phonological feature of names in their cross‐linguistic uses and argues that the source of the anomaly is the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The complex lives of proper names.Eno Agolli - 2023 - Linguistics and Philosophy 46 (6):1393-1439.
    I argue that predicativism, the view that proper names are predicates, is a viable theory of the semantics of proper names given a certain hypothesis about the grammar of definiteness. Extant versions of predicativism hold that a singular name in argument position constitutes the predicative component of a covert definite description. I show that these versions cannot accommodate semantic and typological data, specifically: syntactic and semantic disparities between bare and non-bare occurrences of such names in English, the distinctive modal rigidity (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Representing multiply de re epistemic modal statements.Cem Şişkolar - 2024 - Linguistics and Philosophy 47 (2):211-237.
    I review Ninan’s Hundred Tickets case pertaining to quantification into epistemic modal contexts, and his counterpart theoretic way to address it (Ninan, Philos Rev, 2018). Ninan’s solution employs a ‘counterpart relation’ parameter intended to reflect how the domain of quantification is thought of in a context. This approach theoretically rules out the possibility of contexts where different ways of thinking about the domain can be deployed through different quantificational noun phrases. I bring out the case of the multiply de re (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark