Understanding names

David Owens

pp. 141-149

in: John Biró, Petr Kotatko (eds), Frege, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

Frege's stipulation leads to trouble. Take almost any proper name and you will find users of the name who identify its referent in quite different ways. Are we to conclude that such people speak different languages with the same words? This is what Frege implied. Recently, several philosophers have sought to avoid this awkwardness by being less pedantic. For example, Evans: "the single main requirement for understanding a use of a proper name is that one think of the referent⋯ but is there any particular way in which one must think of the object? It would appear not."² This relaxed attitude is enough to avert the fragmentation of our language into a thousand peculiar idiolects. But before relaxing, we must ask ourselves why Frege held it was sometimes important that his stipulation be fulfilled.

Cited authors

Frege Gottlob