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Are proper names rigid designators?

Pierre Baumann

pp. 333-346

Abstract

A widely accepted thesis in the philosophy of language is that natural language proper names are rigid designators, and that they are so de jure, or as a matter of the "semantic rules of the language." This paper questions this claim, arguing that rigidity cannot be plausibly construed as a property of name types and that the alternative, rigidity construed as a property of tokens, means that they cannot be considered rigid de jure; rigidity in this case must be viewed as a pragmatic and not a semantic property.

Publication details

Published in:

(2010) Essays on non-empiricist rigorous philosophy. Axiomathes 20 (2-3).

Pages: 333-346

Full citation:

Baumann Pierre (2010) „Are proper names rigid designators?“. Axiomathes 20 (2-3), 333–346.