An idea from Donnellan: deferential and non-deferential uses of proper names

Abstract

When we use a proper name, by virtue of what do we succeed in saying something about an individual? In other words, how are we supposed to explain the seemingly trivial fact that by uttering “Aristotle was wise” we actually predicate something of the famous philosopher? Questions like these have animated a fervent debate among philosophers of language; however, nowadays the standard answer is that by using “Aristotle” we say something about that famous philosopher because the name we have used in our utterance refers to him. Even though no general consensus has been reached on how to characterize the relation of reference – there are still different and competing accounts of the latter on the philosophical market – almost everybody believes, especially after the publication of Saul Kripke’s "Naming and necessity", that reference is the only semantic relation that connects our uses of proper names to individuals in the world. Contrary to this widespread assumption, in this dissertation I shall claim that our uses of proper names are not always referential.