Kenneth A. Taylor Bibliography

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE

DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

COLLOQUIUM

"What's in a Name?"
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that names are anaphoric devices of a quite peculiar sort. In particular, I argue that to be a name is to be an expression type N such that any two tokens of N are guaranteed to be co-referential. I say that co-typical name tokens are explicitly co-referential. Explicit co-reference is sharply distinguished from what I call coincidental co-reference. Two name tokens which are not co-typical can refer to the same object, and thus be co-referential, without being explicitly co-referential. For example, tokens of 'Hesperus' and tokens of 'Phosphorous' co-refer but are not explicitly co-referential. The fact that tokens of 'Hesperus' one and all refer to Venus is entirely independent of the fact that tokens of 'Phosphorus' one and all refer to Venus. Indeed, I take it to be a correlative truth about names, a truth partly definitive of the lexical-syntactic character of names, that when m and n are distinct names, they are referentially independent. Referential independence means, roughly, that no name is subject to the interpretive/referential control of any other name in the sense that no structural or lexical relation between distinct names m and n can guarantee that if m refers to o then n refers to o as well. I argue that appreciating the explicit co-referentiality of co-typical name tokens and the referential independence of type distinct names is the key to understanding several puzzling phenomena that have long concern philosophers of language. Among these puzzling phenomena, I include Frege's puzzle about the possibility of informative identity statements, the failure of co-referring names to be intersubstitutable in propositional attitude contexts, and puzzles about empty and/or fictional names.

Kenneth A. Taylor

Department of Philosophy

Stanford University

Friday, October 19, 2001

3:00 p.m.

SST 777

Kenneth A. Taylor

A Bibliography
Compiled by
Eddie Yeghiayan

1984

"Direct Reference and the Theory of Meaning." PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1984.

1985

"Davidson's Theory of Meaning: Some Questions." Philosophical Studies (July 1985), 48(1):91-105.

1986

Review of Graeme Forbes' The Metaphysics of Modality. Ethics (July 1986), 96(4):895-896.

1987

"Belief, Information and Semantic Content: A Naturalist's Lament." Synthese (April 1987), 71(1):97-124.

1988

"We've Got You Coming and Going." Linguistics and Philosophy (November 1988), 11(4):493-513.

1989

"Narrow Content Functionalism and the Mind-Body Problem." Nous (June 1989), 23(3):355-372.
"Supervenience and Levels of Meaning." Southern Journal of Philosophy (Fall 1989), 27(3):443-458.

1990

Review of Michael Devitt's and Kim Sterelny's Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. Philosophical Review (April 1990), 99(2):260-263.

1993

"On the Pragmatics of Mode of Reference Selection." Communication & Cognition (1993), 26(1):97-127.

1994

"How Not to Refute Eliminative Materialism." Philosophical Psychology (1994), 7(1):101-125.

1995

"Meaning, Reference, and Cognitive Significance." Mind and Language (March-June 1995), 10(1-2):129-180.

1997

"The Psychology of Direct Reference." In Dunja Jutronic-Tihomirovic, ed., The Maribor Papers in Naturalized Semantics, pp. 225-242. Maribor: University of Maribor Press, 1997.
"Same Believers" In Enrique Villanueva, ed., Truth. Philosophical Issues, 8. Atascadero: Ridgeview, 1997.
"Francois Recanati's Direct Reference: From Language to Thought. Accomodationist Neo-Russellianism. Nous (December 1997), 31(4):538-556.

1998

Truth and Meaning: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. Oxford & Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998.

2000

"Emptiness without Compromise: A Referentialist Semantics for Empty Names." In Anthony Everett and Thomas Hofweber, eds., Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-existence, pp. 17-36. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications, 2000.
"What in Nature Is the Compulsion of Reason?" Synthese (February 2000), 122(1-2):209-244.

2001

"On the Explanatory Limits of Behavioral Genetics." In David T. Wasserman and Robert Wachbroit, eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
"Sex, Breakfast, and Descriptus Interruptus." Synthese (July 2001), 128(1-2):45-61.