Premium
The Significance of Names
Author(s) -
JESHION ROBIN
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01367.x
Subject(s) - instrumentalism , function (biology) , proper noun , class (philosophy) , psychology , linguistics , epistemology , cognitive science , cognitive psychology , philosophy , evolutionary biology , biology
As a class of terms and mental representations, proper names and mental names possess an important function that outstrips their semantic and psycho‐semantic functions as common, rigid devices of direct reference and singular mental representations of their referents, respectively. They also function as abstract linguistic markers that signal and underscore their referents' individuality. I promote this thesis to explain why we give proper names to certain particulars, but not others; to account for the transfer of singular thought via communication with proper names; and, more generally, to support a cognitivist, not acquaintance or instrumentalist, theory of singular thought.