Reference and existence : the John Locke lectures
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Bibliographic Information
Reference and existence : the John Locke lectures
Oxford University Press, 2018, c2013
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-165) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Reference and Existence, Saul Kripke's John Locke Lectures for 1973, can be read as a sequel to his classic Naming and Necessity. It confronts important issues left open in that work - among them, the semantics of proper names and natural kind terms as they occur in fiction and in myth; negative existential statements; the ontology of fiction and myth (whether it is true that fictional characters like Hamlet, or mythical kinds like bandersnatches,
might have existed). In treating these questions, he makes a number of methodological observations that go beyond the framework of his earlier book - including the striking claim that fiction cannot provide a test for theories of reference and naming. In addition, these lectures provide a glimpse into the transition
to the pragmatics of singular reference that dominated his influential paper, "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference" - a paper that helped reorient linguistic and philosophical semantics. Some of the themes have been worked out in later writings by other philosophers - many influenced by typescripts of the lectures in circulation - but none have approached the careful, systematic treatment provided here. The virtuosity of Naming and Necessity - the colloquial ease of the
tone, the dazzling, on-the-spot formulations, the logical structure of the overall view gradually emerging over the course of the lectures - is on display here as well.
Table of Contents
Preface
Lecture I: October 30th, 1973
Lecture II: November 6th, 1973
Lecture III: November 13, 1973
Lecture IV: November 20th, 1973
Lecture V: November 27th, 1973
Lecture VI: December 4th, 1973
References
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
