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Recent ethical theory shows a retreat from the emotivism of the first half of the century. Philosophers are pretty well agreed that evaluative statements are not simple ejaculations; most ascribe to them some kind of logic, and some even call them identical, in important respects, to statements of fact. Moore’s proof, that evaluative terms cannot be analyzed in terms of descriptive predicates, has not prevented philosophers like R. M. Hare from pointing out significant respects in which their use is governed by descriptive meaning rules.

One philosophical logician will take the current system of formal logic itself as the firm base from which to direct all his ordering operations against the unruly tribes of language, all his explanatory manoeuvres among the diverse phenomena of speech. Another will start — as far away as possible from this base — by examining those phenomena themselves in all their particularity and detail. Will the true order be achieved when the adherents of both approaches are folded in a single party, when we have a theory of meaning firm enough and rich enough to accommodate in a single, unified account both the simplicity of logical laws and the diversity of linguistic phenomena? Perhaps it will — if there is such a thing as the true order.1

In this paper I try to contrast Marxist (and more broadly realist) theories of meaning with what may be called ‘idealist’ theories of meaning. But a word of explanation is clearly in order.

The notions of existence and necessity have held the interest of philosophers longer than many other problems in the philosophy of logic. The nature of necessity has been debated since the ancient Greeks; and many philosophers have pronounced their opinions in whether ‘existence is a predicate’. In this essay, I shall discuss the notion of existence. It serves to prepare the way for the later parts of this book, especially for ‘Existential Presuppositions and Uniqueness Presuppositions’, where similar methods are applied to the concepts of necessity and possibility.

The announced aim of the Theaetetus is to define knowledge. After the definition of knowledge as perception has been rebutted, Socrates turns in the second major section of the dialogue to consider whether knowledge may be defined as true belief. This definition receives only brief scrutiny at the end of the section, the major part of which is concerned with a related line of thought. The definition requires, rightly, that if one knows what he believes, his belief must be true. How then to show that there can also be false belief, with which true belief may be contrasted? This paper considers two episodes in Socrates’ discussion of this question. Section I reconstructs a basic difficulty which Socrates sets out at the very beginning of his discussion in what can be called the first paradox at 188a-c; this is a difficulty not with falsity as such but with the falsity of identity judgements, and Socrates will return to it repeatedly as his discussion proceeds. Later parts of his discussion consider positive theories for how false belief can nonetheless occur. The first of these at 189bff.1 is a theory of allodoxia so-called; Socrates’ scrutiny of this notion makes use of the basic difficulty presented in the first paradox, as part of an argument for the conclusion that all false belief whatsoever is impossible. Section II of this paper reconstructs the allodoxia proposal and its refutation, and considers its connection with the first paradox. The arguments themselves go together so closely that it seems worthwhile to consider them in separation from the remaining parts of Plato’s discussion.

We have had occasion to observe how often logicians, linguists and grammarians have propounded all too-simple theories concerning the seemingly simple problem: What is in a name?

Two systems of first-order predicate calculus with identity, one of them with definite descriptions, will be formulated in this paper along with semantic interpretations, and then shown strongly complete by methods similar to those of Henkin [3]. These systems, Q1 and Q3,1 are generalizations of the systems presented in Kripke [6] and [8], respectively.2 An informal and philosophical account of Q1 and Q3 can be found in [11], together with a historical note concerning the development of the systems and their interpretation.

The problem of presuppositions has received much attention from both logicians and linguists. From the standpoint of the logician who is concerned solely with the truth value of declarative sentences, the controversy concerning presuppositions can be briefly summarized in the following way. There are declarative sentences which cause difficulties when we try to specify their truth conditions

I shall first investigate whether ‘God’ is a proper name, for if the answer to this question is in the affirmative then sentences of the form ‘God is F’ can be said to express propositions of a subject-predicate type, for whilst it is not a necessary condition of an expression being able to occur as a logical subject, introducing a subject of predication, that such an expression is a proper name, it is a sufficient condition.

We have now discussed at some length many of the problems which arise out of the phenomenalist analysis of statements about the material world. However, there is a special sub-class of statements about the material world, statements about the past, which present special problems, and we will deal with them in this chapter. The problem is basically that of analyzing tensed statements in ordinary language which refer specifically to the past, the present, or the future. It turns out that in order to construct an adequate analysis we will have to add slightly to the primitive language of our quasi-system. In particular, we will have to have constants, which will be viewed as proper names, and which will refer to particular sensations.

Like other theories of Plato, his conception of dialectic too undergoes changes and development. In the later dialogues at least part of the dialectic takes the form of so-called divisions and collections. These procedures are described in the Phaedrus and employed predominantly in the Sophist and Politicus. The purpose of this paper is to examine the products of the divisions as well as the processes that lead to these.

The authors intend to revive exchanges between historical onomastics and theory of proper names. They use concepts introduced by recent proper name theories to analyse 1,902 medieval French anthroponymical chains modified by a definite article ('li Berart', 'le Clerc poessonnier', 'li dicte dame Marie Maqueriele') extracted from the international data base PatRom (Patronymica Romanica). Examining in turn diachronical, categorical, syntactic, diatopical and morphological criteria, they propound a unified interpretation of the phenomena in connection with the definite description framework elaborated by G. Kleiber. The study concludes with an excursus on the journey from definite description to hereditary proper name as exemplified by the lexicalization of 'le dit X' in form of the surname 'Ledit'., Les auteures entendent renouer le dialogue entre onomastique historique et théorie du nom propre par l'analyse d'un ensemble de 1.902 chaînes anthroponymiques médiévales du domaine français modifiées par un article défini ('li Berart', 'le Clerc poessonnier', 'li dicte dame Marie Maqueriele'), tirées de la base de données PatRom (Patronymica Romanica), à l'aide de concepts empruntés aux théoriciens du nom propre. Interrogeant tour à tour les critères diachronique, catégoriel, syntaxique, diatopique et morphologique, elles proposent une interprétation unifiée du phénomène dans le cadre de la théorie de la description définie de G. Kleiber. L'étude s'achève par un excursus sur la fixation de la tournure 'le dit X' dans le patronyme 'Ledit', qui montre le parcours de la description définie au nom de famille.

Searle (Speech Acts, 1969) introduced his famous distinction between constitutive and regulative rules that together define felicity conditions of speech acts. Regulative rules are normative rules, whereas constitutive rules define what counts as a performance of a speech act. In this paper we demonstrate with the example of assertions and referential uses of definite description that simple regulative rules can be given to speech acts that hold only on a core of well-behaved utterance situations. From this core, extended uses can be derived based on epistemic paths that are defined by the epistemic perspectives of speaker and hearer. As the use of speech acts get extended to a wider class of utterance situations, conflicts with the constitutive rules can emerge. We show that the extended uses are nevertheless felicitous. We represent epistemic relations in a possible worlds framework, and take an interactional approach that considers speech acts as part of joint communicative acts.

This work on yaws is the culmination of a thorough and comprehensive review of both the ancient and the modern literature on the subject. The author has divided his material into sixteen chapters which are in logical sequence of arrangement, beginning with the historical review and concluding with a discussion of the much debated subject of the mutual etiology of syphilis and yaws. In the historical sketch the author suggests that the Israelites, among many other ailments of the Exodus, were afflicted with yaws rather than with leprosy, the two diseases being confused. Doubtless too, the infection was known to the old Arabian physicians, but the first definite description of Framboesia is to be credited to Bontius during the first quarter of the 17th century.

Kripke adds that condition (C) is 'not a thesis but a condition on the satisfaction of the other theses' (p. 285). To help display the role this condition plays, Kripke describes one very clear case of a theory that infringes (C). This theory, held by William Kneale and even in qualified form by Russell, claims that the meaning of any proper name N is given by the definite description 'the individual called N'. Call this the nominal-description theory of meaning for proper names. If the nominal-description theory is supposed to be a theory of a reference as well (something which is assumed in Kripke's account of description theories of meaning)2, then the theory clearly infringes (C). As Kripke'puts it

The notion of sense has fallen into disrepute in many quarters, mainly as a result of confusion over the metaphors used in discussing the concept. For example, sense is the mode of presentation associated with a name; and sense determines reference, which suggests an overtly active role for sense as something which is used in applying names to objects. It is as if the sense of a name were a map one had to defer to in using a name correctly. I shall remedy such confusions in what follows. Perhaps the most fundamental confusion at this general metaphorical level occurs with respect to the question, 'What kind of entity is the sense of a name?' Too often it has seemed that sense must be some extra thing attached to a name over and above its referent when it should have been apparent, as it now more commonly is, that sense is not a thing at all. Sense is to do with the concept of understanding (cf. FPL, p. 90ff.); it is the knowledge a speaker must possess in order to use a name correctly. So the thesis that names have sense comes to the claim that an account of what it is for a speaker to use a name correctly must include reference to some particular knowledge that the speaker has. Such knowledge would be, for example, knowledge of the criterion of identity for the bearer of the name, in the way in which Frege introduced that notion (Gl ?62). The thesis that each name has a unique sense would then seem to be the claim that a speaker's grasp of the use of a name consists in his grasp of a uniquely determining criterion of identity for the name's bearer. Doubts about the plausibility of such a thesis have run the notion of sense for names into disrepute. Such a thesis is what is questioned when, on taking the relevant criterion of identity as some definite description, it is noted that, with respect to any given name, competent users of the name may associate with it different definite descriptions. Thus examples such as the Godel/Schmidt case (cf. Kripke 1, p. 83ff.) are easily constructed to show that if our understanding of names functions in a manner like that suggested, then it would seem that we should all be talking at cross-purposes with such names, when patently we are not. Manoeuvres designed to avoid this problem are easily

1jussell's analysis of definite descriptions works well enough for definite singular descriptions like 'the author of Waverley', which are formed from a singular count predicate like 'is an author of Waverley'. The Russellian analysis fails when the contained predicate is mass or plural, as in the definite descriptions 'the gold in Zurich' and 'the people in Auckland'. I offer a unified theory that accounts for all three types of definite description, and that provides a more general account of the word 'the'.

Some recent work in the philosophy of language has rightly emphasized the role which contextual factors play in the use of language. An adequate theory about how language operates, we are told, must distinguish between (a) that which expressions, constructions and sentences carry with them from one context to another and (b) that which is added by a context of utterance. The features which carry from one context to another have been referred to as "context-independent factors," and those which are added contextually as "contextdependent factors." This distinction is not, of course, a new one; but it is fair to say that it has not always been given its due in discussions of logical form. Notably, it is not given its due in Russell's famous theory of definite descriptions. In this paper I will propose an alternative way of analyzing sentences containing definite descriptions which does do justice to this distinction. Before I present this theory, however, I want to distinguish three things: referring, referential language, and what I will call the "referential link". By referring I mean the identification of some object by a speaker (as a subject for communication). By the referential link I mean the semantical connection between a token of a singular term (e.g., a proper name or a definite description) and an object which makes the utterance containing that token literally about that object. By referential language I mean singular terms or sentences containing singular terms. Typically, a speaker refers to an object by producing

Any general theory of denotation must ultimately confront the problems surrounding the denotation of expressions inside intensional contexts. Since Kripke's persuasive arguments against a Russell-Frege theory of names (Kripke, 1972), many philosophers have abandoned such views in favor of what I shall call 'the direct reference theory' of names (following Kaplan, 1977). The direct reference theory of names maintains that names denote objects directly, and not via a sense or definite description. Unfortunately, although Kripke points out the shortcomings of both Russell's and Frege's views concerning proper names, he does not offer a solution to the problems which motivated their theories. I shall argue that the problems do not, strictly speaking, lie with the direct reference theory of names, but rather in the traditional view of belief. I shall offer an alternative theory of belief that is motivated in part by recent work on indexicals and belief, and that solves the difficulties of denotation in belief contexts. The problem I wish to consider can be illustrated by means of the following sentences

The first definite description of the peculiar group of symptoms to which Lucian Corvisart afterward gave the name "tetany" was by a German, Steinheim, in 1830. A year later Dance, a Frenchman, published several cases under the name of "intermittent tetanus" and during the next thirty years the French school was most active in recording clinical features of the affection, the classical papers of Trousseau being the most notable of this period. After 1870 the scene of activity was shifted to the other side of the Rhine, probably because the disease appeared less frequently in France and became more common in Germany. The most important communications of the next decade were those of Kussmaul, Riegel, Erb and Chvostek, senior, while the description of the relation of tetany to total thyroidectomy in 1880 by Nathan Weiss, writing from Billroth's clinic, and the many papers which followed slowly the discovery of the