One of the central disputes in the philosophy of language has been over the nature and meaning of proper names. The traditional view on proper names has been posited by thinkers such as Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and defended by Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle. These have been dubbed the "Descriptivist Theories." Saul Kripke, in lectures delivered at Princeton in 1970, later published as a work titled "Naming and Necessity" challenged these traditional theories by showing their inadequacies in a series of well constructed arguments. He subsequently formulated a much more successful and satisfying account of the nature of proper names, which has been called the "Causal Theory" in which proper names are rigid designators, referring to that which they refer to in all possible worlds in which the thing exists. Though this does result in a collapse into some of the problems that J.S. Mill faced with his referential theory of proper names, some of these problems can be alleviated with minor additions to supplement the gaps that leave room for objections.
Descriptivists hold that proper names are actually disguised or abbreviated definite descriptions. So the meaning of a proper name is actually a description that fits the referent. In fact, the description is thought to boil down to one single definite description, which by Russell's standards must be wholly unique. So for instance, "Neil Feit" may mean "the imminent philosophy chair at SUNY Fredonia." This theory also holds that these descriptions, which fit the referent, are semantically equivalent to the proper name itself. So, one could replace "Neil Feit" in a sentence with "the imminent philosophy chair at SUNY Fredonia." These sorts of theories may seem intuitively correct; however, Kripke realized that upon further analysis, proper names simply cannot be mere disguised descriptions. He motivated this stance with what is called his Modal Argument. This argument asserts that if the meaning of a name is semantically equivalent to a description which fits the referent then the sentence "Aristotle was the man who taught Alexander the Great." is a mere tautology. For if one was to replace "Aristotle" with its equivalent "the man who taught Alexander the Great" the sentence would read "The man who taught Alexander the Great was the man who taught Alexander the Great." Kripke points out that the sentence "Aristotle was the man who taught Alexander the Great." is not a mere tautology, but a meaningful and informative sentence. Since this sentence is not a tautology, Kripke concludes that the meaning of "Aristotle" cannot simply be "the man who taught Alexander the Great" or any other such description. He generalizes from this that the whole Descriptive Theory of Proper Names is false.
Some Descriptivists, such as John Searle and Ludwig Wittgenstein introduced an extension to the theory. Searle called his the Cluster Theory, and Wittgenstein, the doctrine of Family Resemblances. The theories basically state that it is not some single description, but a whole set of descriptions through which names refer. So “the student of Socrates”, “the teacher of Aristotle” and “the author of the Euthyphro” are the attributes or concepts which enable us to use the name “Plato.” Under the Cluster Theory all the speakers of a language associate a group of descriptions with all proper names with which they are familiar. When such a speaker uses a name, the referent of that name is that which satisfies a sufficient amount of the descriptions. This theory purports to keep all of the important parts of the traditional Descriptivist theories while resolving the problems. It is important to note here, that the Cluster Theory is not a theory of the semantics of names, but rather a theory of how they refer.
Though this avoids problems regarding the Modal Argument, Kripke does not think that the Cluster Theory is any sort of improvement over the single description theories. He notes that people use names to refer all the time without having knowledge of the descriptions which would be appropriate for that name. For instance one may say "I don't know the first thing about John Jones" and would be successfully using the name and referring to John Jones, yet would not have command of any of the descriptions which uniquely identify him. For Kripke we don't have to have knowledge of a definite description to use a proper name meaningfully. All we need is the proper causal connection to the original naming and the intention to refer to that thing which the person we learned it from referred. He also notes that even when we do have an adequate description, it is often not arrived at without using other names which themselves need to be analyzed for descriptions. So, for instance, to achieve the essential description of Socrates, one might use the description "the son of Sophroniscus, who was an early Greek philosopher. However, we cannot analyze "Sophroniscus" without circularly referring to Socrates.
Kripke constructs an argument against the Cluster theory which is known as his Argument from Error. If the Cluster theory is true, then when a speaker uses the name "Christopher Columbus" he is really referring to some Norseman. That is, since one of the most important properties commonly attributed to Columbus would be "the first European to land on North America," and since it was actually Leif Ericson, a Viking explorer who's expedition first landed in Newfoundland, Canada who was the first European to land on the new continent. If the Cluster theory is true the person who the speaker is referring to under the descriptive theories is Leif Ericson. However, he notes, the speaker is not referring to Leif Ericson, but rather to Christopher Columbus. Hence, he concludes that the Cluster theory and any Descriptivist theory must be false.
Kripke introduces the concept of a rigid designator. A rigid designator is an expression that picks out the same thing in every possible situation in which it exists. He claims that names fall under this category, and that definite descriptions fall under the non-rigid category. Since they are expressions of different categories, they cannot mean the same thing as one another. It’s just not, in any intuitive sense of necessity, and necessary truth that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him." (p.295)
He notes that even had Aristotle never achieved any of the feats which he is commonly credited with, indeed, even if he had died at the age of two, it would still be correct to call him "Aristotle."
His theory has been referred to as the “Causal Theory” of proper names. Kripke thinks that the bearer of a name receives that name as a result of a baptism or naming ceremony. Those who were witnesses to that baptism pass the name along in a causal chain, using the name to refer to the bearer in communication with others. Those who were not present at the baptism, but learned the name subsequently, use the name in reference to that entity which the person from whom they learned the name referred to. That which they refer to is the thing at the beginning of the causal chain, the bearer of the name. Giving something’s name the title of a “rigid designator” is not to say that its referent necessarily exists, in all possible situations. It is only contingently true that an entity exists in a possible world, but if it does, the same name or names apply to it - If you say “suppose Hitler had never been born” then “Hitler” refers here, still rigidly, to something that would not exist in the counterfactual situation described" (p. 296)
One result of such an analysis and conclusion is that J.S. Mill's referential theory was indeed correct about names being non-connotative. Mill thought that proper names only had denotations, not connotations. There are several problems inherent in such a theory. One objection that may be raised to the Mill/Kripke model is that if the meaning of proper names is simply the referent, then a sentence such as "Hesperus is Phosphorus" is semantically equivalent to "Phosphorus is Phosphorus." Based on the clear arguments Kripke makes refuting the Descriptivist theories it seems as if one has to accept this to be the case. "Hesperus is Phosphorus" and "Phosphorus is Phosphorus." do mean the same thing. The former however does perform an added function of informing a listener of another name to be used interchangeably to achieve the synonymy or equivalent meaning. One possible account of how it is that "Hesperus is Phosphorus" is more meaningful than simply "Phosphorus is Phosphorus" could be that it has Gricean conversational implicature.
H.P Grice introduced the concept of conversational implicature in his 1975 essay Logic and Conversation. Conversational implicature is what occurs when a listener infers something other than what is literally uttered by a speaker. This is a very common phenomenon in our every day communication, and something which every competent user of a language understands and utilizes. An example of this can be seen in an utterance such as “I am tired” in a situation in which I was hosting guests at my home. One possible implicature of saying “I am tired” in such a context may well be that I would like my guests to leave.
Grice notes that one common sense maxim of conversation is that one should be cooperative when conversing. He develops from this a more formalized "Cooperative Principle": "Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged" (pp.173) From this principle he derives four specific maxims that should govern how we engage in conversation. The first involves the quantity of your input. Your input should be at least, and no more informative that the conversation calls for it to be. The second maxim concerns quality. That is, one should speak only what one believes to be true and that for which one has adequate grounds for determining such truth. The third is the maxim of relation. That is, any addition should be relevant to the topic of conversation. The fourth is manner, that one should be as clear and specific as possible in what one says. Grice says that we should assume that others are being cooperative in conversation, and thus, if one says something which clearly violates or "flouts" one of these maxims, we should assume that that person is doing so in effort to be cooperative toward the purposes of the conversation. So in the case of "Hesperus is Phosphorus", since it is semantically equivalent to a tautology (Venus=Venus) it seems as if the utterer of such a statement may be violating the maxim of quantity. That is, it doesn't seem as if the speaker's literal meaning is informative enough, or at all. It can be inferred, then, assuming they are being cooperative to the purposes of the conversation, that by "Hesperus is Phosphorus" they meant something such as there is an entity such that it can be referred to by two different names, Hesperus and Phosphorus.
Another suggested problem with a referential theory is that they lack the ability to handle empty names. Names such as “Pegasus,” which have no referent, seemingly cannot be meaningfully used. This problem holds for Kripke’s theory as much as it does for Mill’s. This inability is certainly not fatal to the theory, as it is still more accurate than any of the Descriptivist accounts. Perhaps a distinction between the naming of concepts and the naming of objects should be made. It seems when we give proper names to what are but concepts, without true referents, which is what it seems as if we are doing when we talk about things such as “Santa Claus”, “Hamlet,” or “The Cooperative Principle” that this problem of reference will be unavoidable. It seems as if we should be able to meaningfully discuss such entities, clearly, at the very least, within a context such as this paper. It seems as if the best solution to this is to simply posit that these names do have referents, just not ones that are material entities. For instance, the referent of “Hamlet” is the character in the play or perhaps a conception of Shakespeare’s which he baptized with the name “Hamlet” that has been causally passed down by his readers. It seems like fictional and mythical characters do have some sort of existence. Anything that we deem necessary or appropriate to christen with a name does seem as though it must exist in some sense, for a proper name’s purpose is to refer. Whenever we use a name, we do so to perform the function of picking something out. Though the referents are non-physical, they are still concrete particulars, and it would be incorrect to dismiss them as non-existent, or incoherent.
A Gricean analysis can be applied to this problem in order to see the mistake we make in talking about the non-existence of Pegasus. One would typically think that if names are wholly non-connotative then the name "Pegasus" has no meaning. If this is the case, then the sentence "Pegasus does not exist" would also be meaningless. "Pegasus does not exist" seems intuitively to be a true statement, and thereby must have valid propositional content. The mistake that is made here is that "Pegasus does not exist" is actually false. If the meaning of Pegasus can be reduced to "That to which Pegasus refers does not exist" this is elucidated. Clearly there must be something to which it refers or else we would have no purpose for using it. The mistake we make is allowing a statement such as "Pegasus does not exist" to be taken to mean "A winged horse does not exist." This however is falling into the trap of equating a proper name with a description. Grice would say that in uttering "Pegasus does not exist" one is breaking the maxim of quality. That is, one is saying something which is false. It is the case then that a very reasonable conversational implicature of such a statement would be "A winged horse does not exist" since we do associate names with descriptions all the time, and it is not clear what else the speaker could have meant. So, "Pegasus does not exist" is semantically false, but it is pragmatically true.
The Descriptivist theories were developed to satisfy difficulties with earlier theories of reference of proper names. One of the major theories they were responding to was Mill's non-connotative theory. Kripke, however, successfully defeats these descriptive theories in all of their forms. Adumbrating the causal theory, he explains how it is that bearers of names receive them and how others can come to meaningfully use them. Oddly enough, Kripke's theory ends up advocating the original view adopted by Mill, that the only meaning of a proper name is that to which it refers. Though the problems with this theory are evident, they can be remedied. The weak points of Kripke's causal theory do not serve to diminish the power of his arguments against Descriptivism, which show it ultimately to be false. Since he showed these theories must be faulty, it seems we must work within the Millian framework, and the true questions we should seek answers to concern the gaps in this framework. It seems as if analyses a la H.P. Grice handle these problems rather satisfactorily.