ABSTRACT

This chapter shows the contrast John Stuart Mill's theory with Bertrand Russell's distinctly different view of proper names. The only problem with the Frege-Russell description theory of proper names, as Kripke demonstrated, is that it is wrong. Mill was closer to the truth about proper names. Typically, ordinary proper names are non-descriptive. The key arguments against the description theory are due to Kripke that are modal argument and epistemological argument. In the mid-1970s Kripke and Putnam pioneered the theory that natural kind terms such as "gold", "tiger" and "water", as well as more technical scientific kind terms, are semantically like proper names. In this they diverge from Mill for whom all concrete general names are connotative, although Mill does distinguish between Kind names and other concrete general terms in other ways. Mill's theory of proper names is a valuable contribution to the philosophy of language, and anticipates and helps support the best contemporary work on proper names.