Original scientific paper

Are There Directly Referring Non-Rigid Designators?

Marián Zouhar orcid.org/0000-0003-2455-8722 ; Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

Abstract

The paper is aimed to show that directly referring terms have to be rigid designators. Since directly referring expressions refer to something on the basis of semantic conventions alone and since the conventions are independent of possible worlds, there cannot be a directly referring expression with shifting reference across possible worlds. Although this claim seems to be indubitable and widely recognized, it was questioned recently. Drawing on D. Lewis’ ontology of counterparts, G. Martí has shown that a directly referring expression is capable to refer to different objects in different possible worlds. A directly referring term designating an object in our world is supposed to designate its counterparts in other possible world. The paper tries to show that the purported directly referring terms assumed by Martí’s argument are not, in fact, directly referring.

Keywords

Counterpart ontology; direct reference; Genoveva Martí; proper name; rigid designation; semantic convention

Hrčak ID:

68317

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/68317

Publication date:

30.5.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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