User:Philogo/VacuousRefSandbox

Vacuous References/Reference Failure

Reference failure is said to occur when a definite referring expression (ostensibly referring term) fails to refer. Expressions making definite references include: demonstratives, proper names, pronouns and definite descriptions. For example reference failure occurs in the following sentences since their subjects are referring expressions which fail to refer:  The King of France is bald. Pegasus does not exist.

The status of the use of a declarative sentence when reference failure occurs has been the matter of debate since antiquity. Problems arise when reference failure occurs particularly in the subject position and particularly when the sentence involves the existence predicate. For example a referential theory of meaning apparently makes it impossible to make a true negative existential claim. If Pegasus does not exist is false on the grounds of referential failure, it follows (by the Law of the excluded middle) that Pegasus exists is true; if alternatively Pegasus does not exist is held to be meaningless, then we cannot meaningfully deny his existence. Non-being must in some sense be otherwise what is there that is not?

=blank= [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/index.html#LogNonObj Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nonexistent Objects: 3.1 The Problem of Negative Singular Existence Statements ]

=Puzzles= Puzzles arising include the following 3.1 The Problem of Negative Singular Existence Statements]
 * 1) Apparent Reference to Nonexistants. Sentences such as The present King of France is bald and Pegasus is a flying horse appear to be meaningful but the subjects do not exist: Pegasus does not exist and the present King of France does not exist.   If the subject of a predicate sentence must exist for the sentences to be meningful, then the two sentences are not meaningful
 * 2) Negative Existentials Pegasus does not existand The present King of France does not exist appear to be bth true and meaningful; as used in the paragraph above.  If the subject of a predicate sentence must exist for the sentences to be meaningful then they are not meaningful and hence not true.  If to be meaningful the subjects of the sentences must be about things which exists, then either (a) they are not about Pegasus and present King of France and it is not their existence which is denied or (b) they are about Pegasus and present King of France, and hence they do exist and both sentences are false. Apparently it is impossible meaningfully to deny the existence of anything.  See also [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/index.html#LogNonObj Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nonexistent Objects:


 * 1) Identity ("Frege's puzzle") Hesparus = (is identical with) Phosphorus is apparently meaningful, informative and contingent.  Hesparus and Phosphorus denote the same thing (have the same referent), i.e. Venus.  If the meanings of proper names, such as Hesparus and Phosphorus their denaotations (referants) then they have the same meaning in which case by Leibniz's principal, they may be substitured salve veritatus so that Hesparus = (is identical with) Phosphorus means Hesparus = (is identical with) Hesparus'', and this latter is necessarily true, trivial and non-contingent.

= History =
 * Parmenides reasoned It needs must be that what can be spoken and thought is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be.
 * Plato in Parmenides attributes to Parmenides the view that If we are speaking the truth, evidently the things we are speaking about must be. ; and in The Sophist he writes Whenever we make a statement, it must be about something; it cannot be about nothing
 * Gorgias, in On the Nonexistent or On Nature. wrote if the nonexistent exists, it will both exist and not exist at the same time
 * Aristotle held that if Socrates did not exist Socrates is ill and Socrates is well would both be false but Socrates is not ill would be true
 * Frege held that if there is no King of France then The King of France is bald is neither true nor false
 * GE Moore said "And it would seem therefore that there certainly must be such a thing as a centaur, else I could not imagine it"
 * Russell in 1903 wrote "Numbers, the Hoeric gods, relations chimeras and four-dimensional spaces all have being for it they were not entities of some kind, we could make no propositions about them". In 1905 however he held that if there is no King of France then The King of France is bald is false.  Russell argued that to assert that the present King of France is bald is simply to assert that exactly one man is presently the King of France and that this man is bald, a conjunction which is false by virtue of the falsity of its first conjunct
 * Quine argued in On What There is that Pegasus does not exist is meaningful and true on the grounds that it can be construed as saying There is a thing that Pegasises
 * Strawson held that utterances of the sentence The present King of France is bald in a world where there is no present King of France are neither true nor false.

=Mill= John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic 1843  distinguished general names and singular names. He also distinguished non-connotive and connotative terms:
 * "A general name is familarly defined, a name of which is capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things. An individual or singular name is a name which is only  capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense of one thing. Thus man is capable of being truly affirmed of John, Peter, George and other without assignable limits...But John is only capable of being affirmed of one single person, at least in the same sense... 'The present King of England' is also an individual name. For, that there  never can be more than one person at a time of whom it can be truly affirmed, is implied in the meaning of the words."
 * "A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only, or an attribute only. A connotative term is one which denotes a suject, and implies an attribute. Thus John, or London, or England are names which signify a subject only..None of these terms are connotative."

Some singular names, Mill held were not connotative and some were.
 * "Proper names are not connotative' they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those inividuals...But there are other kinds of names, which although they are individual names, that is predicable of only one subject, are really connotative...as for instance 'the only son of John Stiles'; 'the first emporer of Rome'"

Thus Mill held
 * general names, eg 'Man' had a connotation and a denotation
 * singular names/terms which are proper names, eg 'John' have a denotation but not a connotation
 * singular names/terms which are 'connotative individual terms, eg 'the first emporer of Rome' have a connotation and a denotation

=blank=

=links= Vacuous Names

refs
 * Frege IEP:Frege and Language
 * Frege Frege
 * Prosentential Theory of Truth
 * Plato, Sophist


 * Plato, Parmenides, 161e 
 * Plato, Parmenides, 161e
 * Non-existent objects
 * Reicher, Maria, "Nonexistent Objects", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

From "On what there is"; in From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays; Harper and Row, New York (1953). http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willard_van_Orman_Quine Frege, Sense and Reference
 * Handy The Internet Classic Archive
 * * Gorgias, On the Nonexistent or On Nature.
 * Grice, Meaning 1957
 * Grice, article on
 * Quine, re Plato's beard
 * Strawson, On referring, 1950
 * Stanford, Russell: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell/
 * Russell, On Denoting, 1905, PDF http://mcv.planc.ee/misc/doc/filosoofia/artiklid/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20On%20Denoting.pdf
 * quine quotes e.g. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.
 * Cohen, 2008 re Russell On Denoting http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/453/RussellDisplay.pdf
 * Frege, Sense and Reference http://philo.ruc.edu.cn/logic/reading/On%20sense%20and%20reference.pdf
 * Dummett: Frege: Philosophy of Language
 * Geech, Logic Matters, 1980
 * Permenides
 * (6) It must be that what can be spoken and thought is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be.

Presocratic Fragments and Testimonials adapted from passages in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy (1892). including ''The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered. And there is not, and never will be, anything besides what is, since fate has chained it so as to be whole and immovable. For this reason all these things are but names which mortals have given, believing them to be true-coming into being and passing away, being and not being, change of place and alteration of bright color''.

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition 1920: Chap 4 Parmenides of Elia

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition 1920: Chap 4 Parmenides of Elia, 85: The Poem

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition 1920

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition 1920

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition 1920, Chap 4 Parmenides of Elia, 85 The Poem

It needs must be that what can be spoken and thought is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be.

end ref

=wiki links=

See
 * Fictional beings and reference failure
 * Proper name (philosophy)
 * Definite description
 * Descriptivist theory of names
 * Theory of descriptions
 * Singular term
 * Term logic
 * Empty name
 * Bas van Fraassen
 * The Foundations of Arithmetic
 * Philosophy of language
 * direct reference
 * Mediated reference theory
 * Sense and reference
 * Theory of reference
 * Mediated reference theory
 * Direct reference theory
 * Causal theory of reference (section References)
 * Descriptivist theory of names (section References)
 * Saul Kripke (section References)
 * Frege's Puzzle (section New Theories of Reference and the Return of Frege's Puzzle)
 * Gottlob Frege (section References)
 * Fictional beings and reference failure (section References)
 * Rigid designator (section Causal-Historical Theory of Reference)
 * Philosophy of language (section References)
 * Index of philosophy of language articles
 * Supposition theory (section References)
 * Referring expression
 * Meaning (philosophy of language)
 * Denotation  Connotation
 * Extension Intension
 * Extensional definition
 * Intensional definition
 * Metacommunicative competence
 * Absent referent

= References =