Cem Şişkolar

The semantics of names and definite descriptions is nowhere near settled. As Ninan highlighted in “Naming and epistemic necessity” (2019), names and definite descriptions interact differently with epistemic modal contexts and with metaphysical modal contexts. This differential behaviour eludes previous approaches dealing with the semantics of names, definite descriptions and modals. Ninan attempts to capture it using a dynamic semantic framework which assigns ‘two-dimensional’ intensions to names and definite descriptions. I intend to address the same issue in a different way. My approach will also do justice to certain uses of definite phrases and proper names usually deemed non-ordinary because they are not derivable from the semantics commonly associated with these expressions, uses highlighted in Donnellan’s “Reference and definite descriptions” (1966) and Geurts’ “Good news about the description theory of names” (1997) among others. The approach I envisage will invoke discourse referents both as the semantic values of names and definite descriptions, and in the definition of possibilities conceived as pairs of worlds and assignments to discourse referents. In my talk I will present a simple expository version where some features, needed for broader coverage, will be curtailed. \\ This material was originally presented at the Boğaziçi University Philosophy Colloquium on November 15, 2024.

I review Ninan’s Hundred Tickets case pertaining to quantification into epistemic modal contexts, and his counterpart theoretic way to address it (Ninan, Philos Rev, 2018). Ninan’s solution employs a ‘counterpart relation’ parameter intended to reflect how the domain of quantification is thought of in a context. This approach theoretically rules out the possibility of contexts where different ways of thinking about the domain can be deployed through different quantificational noun phrases. I bring out the case of the multiply de re modal statement "Any ticket in photo #2 might be any ticket in photo #1" to challenge Ninan’s approach. I propose a different approach adapting a more complex ‘counterpart relation’ parameter due to Rabern (Inquiry, 2021). I attempt to flesh it out by relating it to a finer grained notion of epistemic possibility involving assignments to discourse referents. My approach can account for the aforementioned multiply de re statement, as well as address the Hundred Tickets case.

The principal question addressed is whether there is a division among common nouns which is similar to a familiar division among noun phrases that designate particular-level individuals: the one which is captured in the relevant literature as the difference between de jure rigid and not de jure rigid singular terms. In relation with the previous philosophical literature relevant to noun rigidity it is argued that the extant positions on the matter are not defended on the basis of well-founded syntactic categories and proper semantic arguments. Proper ways to argue for rigidity ascriptions to nouns are described. Then, such arguments are sought for the case of rigid/non-rigid division among count common nouns. It is shown that there are plausible, albeit inconclusive, reasons to hold that among common nouns (N-bar expressions) only simple common nouns are kind designators, and that if that is the case these simple common nouns will have to be reckoned as de jure rigid designators.