36 ideas
| 10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
| 10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
| 10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
| 13134 | We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff] |
| 10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
| 10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
| 10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
| 10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
| 13124 | Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff] |
| 13117 | How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff] |
| 13116 | Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff] |
| 13118 | Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff] |
| 13125 | Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff] |
| 13126 | Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff] |
| 13130 | Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff] |
| 13131 | The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff] |
| 13123 | All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff] |
| 13115 | Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff] |
| 13119 | Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff] |
| 13135 | A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff] |
| 13129 | Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff] |
| 10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
| 10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
| 10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
| 10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
| 10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
| 10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
| 10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
| 10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
| 10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
| 10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
| 10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
| 10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
| 10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
| 10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
| 20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |