Truth without reference. The use of fictional names

Singular terms without referents are called empty or vacuous terms. But not all of them are equally empty. In particular, not all proper names that fail to name an existing object fail in the same way: although they are all empty, they are not all equally vacuous. “Vulcan,” “Jacob Horn,” “Odysseus,”...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: De Ponte Azcarate, María, Korta Carrión, Kepa, Perry, John
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/70851
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/70851
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:philosophy of language
fiction
reference
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spelling Truth without reference. The use of fictional namesDe Ponte Azcarate, MaríaKorta Carrión, KepaPerry, Johnphilosophy of languagefictionreferenceSingular terms without referents are called empty or vacuous terms. But not all of them are equally empty. In particular, not all proper names that fail to name an existing object fail in the same way: although they are all empty, they are not all equally vacuous. “Vulcan,” “Jacob Horn,” “Odysseus,” and “Sherlock Holmes,” for instance, are all empty. They have no referents. But they are not entirely vacuous or useless. Sometimes they are used in statements that are true or false. We are basically referentialists about proper names. The ordinary semantic function of a proper name is to refer to an object, and to do it directly, that is, without semantically providing any identifying condition that the object should meet to be the referent. To put it differently, we agree that statements containing proper names express singular propositions, i.e., that their truth-conditions involve the referent of the proper name, if it exists, and not any identifying condition of it. Now, since empty names lack a referent, and therefore would not express such a singular proposition, how do we explain that many, if not all, statements containing them have a truth-value? Answering this question for the case of fictional names, in particular, is the aim of this paper.The authors want to thank the Spanish Government (FFI2015-63719-P (MINECO/FEDER)) and the Basque Government (IT1032-16) for their Grants, and the Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language and Information (ILCLI) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), the Department of Philosophy and the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford, and the Diamond XX Philosophy Institute in Copperopolis, CA, for the many direct and indirect benefits the three of them have had through their involvement with the activities of these institutions.Springer202420242018info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/70851reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigacióninstname:Universidad del País VascoIngléshttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9544-6info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess© 2018, Springer Science Business Media B.V., part of Springer Natureoai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/708512026-06-18T09:23:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
title Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
spellingShingle Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
De Ponte Azcarate, María
philosophy of language
fiction
reference
title_short Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
title_full Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
title_fullStr Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
title_full_unstemmed Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
title_sort Truth without reference. The use of fictional names
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv De Ponte Azcarate, María
Korta Carrión, Kepa
Perry, John
author De Ponte Azcarate, María
author_facet De Ponte Azcarate, María
Korta Carrión, Kepa
Perry, John
author_role author
author2 Korta Carrión, Kepa
Perry, John
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv philosophy of language
fiction
reference
topic philosophy of language
fiction
reference
description Singular terms without referents are called empty or vacuous terms. But not all of them are equally empty. In particular, not all proper names that fail to name an existing object fail in the same way: although they are all empty, they are not all equally vacuous. “Vulcan,” “Jacob Horn,” “Odysseus,” and “Sherlock Holmes,” for instance, are all empty. They have no referents. But they are not entirely vacuous or useless. Sometimes they are used in statements that are true or false. We are basically referentialists about proper names. The ordinary semantic function of a proper name is to refer to an object, and to do it directly, that is, without semantically providing any identifying condition that the object should meet to be the referent. To put it differently, we agree that statements containing proper names express singular propositions, i.e., that their truth-conditions involve the referent of the proper name, if it exists, and not any identifying condition of it. Now, since empty names lack a referent, and therefore would not express such a singular proposition, how do we explain that many, if not all, statements containing them have a truth-value? Answering this question for the case of fictional names, in particular, is the aim of this paper.
publishDate 2018
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2018
2024
2024
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10810/70851
url http://hdl.handle.net/10810/70851
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9544-6
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
© 2018, Springer Science Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv © 2018, Springer Science Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
instname:Universidad del País Vasco
instname_str Universidad del País Vasco
reponame_str Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
collection Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
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