Incomplete Symbols — Definite Descriptions Revisited
نویسندگان
چکیده
منابع مشابه
Incomplete Definite Descriptions, Demonstrative Completion and Redundancy
“Incomplete” definite descriptions (i.e. descriptions that violate the uniqueness constraint) have been offered various accounts in semantics. Among them, the so-called ellipsis account, which analyzes “the F” as elliptical for “the F which is that F”. I begin by arguing that the objections raised against this account have not been conclusive, and go on to supply a new argument against it, whic...
متن کاملINCOMPLETE SYMBOLS IN PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICAz AND RUSSELL’S “DEFINITE PROOF”
Early in Principia Mathematicaz Russell presents an argument that “z‘the author of Waverleyz’ means nothing”, an argument that he calls a “deWnite proofz”. He generalizes it to claim that deWnite descriptions are incomplete symbols having meaning only in sentential context. This Principiaz “proofz” went largely unnoticed until Russell reaUrmed a near-identical “proofz” in his philosophical auto...
متن کاملWhy Incomplete Definite Descriptions do not Defeat Russell’s Theory of Descriptions
For Russell, a simple sentence containing a description, the F, is true only if a single object satisfies F. Sentences containing incomplete descriptions pose problems because they are often used to express truths, even though more than one thing in the discourse satisfies F. It is argued (i) that non-Russellian analyses cannot solve these problems, and (ii) that Russellian analyses can, prov...
متن کاملGenerating Minimal Definite Descriptions
The incremental algorithm introduced in (Dale and Reiter, 1995) for producing distinguishing descriptions does not always generate a minimal description. In this paper, I show that when generalised to sets of individuals and disjunctive properties, this approach might generate unnecessarily long and ambiguous and/or epistemically redundant descriptions. I then present an alternative, constraint...
متن کامل. Definite Descriptions (original Proposal)
What happens when the description is improper? A description νΦ is proper if there is exactly-one entity such that Φ [in the relevant situation]; otherwise, it is improper. We propose to treat improper descriptions as non-starters, which vitiate every expression in which they appear. In particular, an improper description is null [i.e., denotes nothing], and every expression in which it appears...
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ژورنال
عنوان ژورنال: Journal of Philosophical Logic
سال: 2015
ISSN: 0022-3611,1573-0433
DOI: 10.1007/s10992-014-9339-1