Publication Details
Two Types of Individuals or What Do Proper Names Refer To?
Abstract
The author investigates Frege's exposition of proper names, as well as his claim that individual (Gegenstand) as a denotation of proper name is not a part of the proposition. The second part of the paper shows the insufficiencies of Church's conception of proper names. The author quotes Russell's position that the individual is an original part of the proposition. The fourth section is dedicated to the analysis of Tichý's differentiating between the individual and the role of the individual, and introduces the formulation of the following principles: Assertion, Aboutness and Acquaintance. The fifth section investigates the reference (denotation) and supposition de dicto and de re.
The author comments on Millean position, that a proper name does not express any sense - it refers (as a label) always and directly to the individual, as well as on Tichý's hypothesis, that proper names of fictional or historical individuals play the role of free variables.
As a way out from the above mentioned problems and confrontations the author proposes to differentiate between abstract individuals, as members of a universe, and particulars, as space-time entities, and between the pragmatic supposition of proper names de dicto and the pragmatic supposition of proper names de re.