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Pragmatics of No Reference
Author(s) -
Mousavian Seyed N.
Publication year - 2015
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/mila.12073
Subject(s) - referent , pragmatics , argument (complex analysis) , linguistics , appeal , proper noun , epistemology , semantics (computer science) , philosophy , psychology , computer science , law , biochemistry , chemistry , political science , programming language
According to Millianism, the semantic content of a proper name is its semantic referent. Many names, however, lack semantic referent; hence, so‐called ‘empty’ names. Empty names raise various problems for Millianism. T.C. Ryckman, Fred Adams, Garry Fuller, Robert Stecker, Kenneth Taylor, and Nicole Wyatt, among others, have defended Millianism against these problems by appeal to pragmatics (Pragmatic Millianism). I introduce Millianism and the problems raised by empty names for the view, then examine Pragmatic Millianism ( PM ), its strength, its varieties, and why the previous arguments against PM do not succeed. I then provide my argument against PM : the view oversimplifies the complex phenomenon of association between names and descriptions. I discuss an objection to my argument and rebut that. Finally, I try to draw an outline of a positive view.